I've got gigabit fibre running to my house, and some of the best natural beauty and outdoor activities available anywhere just minutes away. Mountain biking, climbing, white water paddling, kite surfing, trail running, sailing, hiking, etc.

Let me assure you, there is plenty to do if you're into this lifestyle. Don't knock it just cause it's not something you're into.

I think as more people get good remote jobs that many of them will realize that living in nice small towns is really desirable.

Lucky you. I have a house just outside a small town of 700, about 30 miles outside a town of 30,000. I can't even get DSL; I'm stuck with terrible satellite internet when I'm out there. I really can't wait for Starlink. If it works as promised, I'll finally be able to ditch my Silicon Valley apartment and go full remote.

There are plenty of cities where this is also the case however. You're also not locked into the local area only (where the nearest airport might be hours away) and your options for everything else other than leisure aren't limited

Living in small towns is incredibly stifling for people that prefer to use their feet to get around, at least in America. It always seemed fittingly ironic that people move to small towns so they can drive out to their outdoorsy hobbies.

> there is plenty to do if you're into this lifestyle

I wonder if there are fewer people that like the outdoors lifestyle now. New generation prefers xbox and eating at restaurants and doesn't like yard work or hiking.

I'd love to move somewhere quieter but my wife would kill me.

That sounds wonderful. Can I be your neighbor?

Edit: Ah, I'd have to move to Canada. Not a deal killer :)

Garden, walk, cycle, fish, run, hunt, sail, ride horses, keep bees, kayak, swim, view historical stuff.... [I'm just naming things that people do within a couple of km from where I live].

NB Personally I garden, walk and look at mysterious old stuff. But plenty of people doing the others.

Edit: Until 2 years ago I lived in the very centre of Edinburgh - which is quite a nice place to live. So far I've never regretted moving out of town to the country.

Ride horses, hang out with friends, play video games, go hiking, pay music with friends, cook food, shoot guns, watch Netflix, play poker with friends. My wife grew up in a small town and she always found stuff to do, it's really not that hard depending on what you like.

Edit: to add some more specific flavor my wife liked to ride horses, play her guitar, swim, and watch TV. Her parents were pretty busy but they would hang out with friends and liked to cook and play in what was essentially an Irish folk band in the area.

Exactly, all of these things. The notion that city living is the only way to live and that smaller towns are simply flyover communities is pretty ignorant. I love visiting the city as well, there are excellent opportunities like restaurants and events, but the culture is different and I am always happy to return to my small town hobbies.

I don't think the problem is not having stuff to do, the problem is finding people to do it with.

Small towns and nature have no end of things to do. But it has way fewer people. I think modern society has a bigger problem with loneliness than with not having enough entertaining activities.

This. I live in the countryside, 5km from the nearest village (<1000 people). It's a very pleasant village, and I know plenty of people in it, but the population is too small and sparse for me to find a group of people like me. To hang out with my real friends I need to go into the city

A whole lot more than you can do if you are stuck in an urban area or worse, a suburban hellscape. At least if you like doing things outside, or want to do more worthwhile things than mindless consumer hedonism.

Go fishing, go hunting, go hiking, do some trailriding on an ATV or a snowmobile or a horse. Plant a garden or an orchard and tend to that. Have a barbecue with the neighbors. Get involved with the community. Work up your firewood. You can read books, or watch TV or engage with the internet just as easily as anywhere else, and you can get anything in the world delivered to you with two-day delivery from Amazon. You can look up at night and see the stars, rather than just washed out orange halogen haze.

Guns Archery Model rocketry Ham radio Fireworks

+1 for ham radio, HF is much better in rural areas since it's farther from manmade electrical noise, however VHF+ is boring due to lack of people (and typically line of sight range) unless you're into satellites, sporadic-E, and tropospheric ducting.

Even then, getting a decent satellite station the the suburbs is problematic. I’d like nice rotor setup with dual band, dual polarized yagi.

I have a active loop for HF RX, which does a good job of rejecting local noise, but would still be better in rural area.

It depends on what you like to do. Countryside living is appealing to many people.

Except then your best friend moves to San Fransisco and now you have no friends, so you move to San Fransisco and then you live in San Fransisco (I'm not bitter or anything....) :(

Technologists are probably not typically the ones that find it appealing.

On the contrary, most of my peers are either living in the country on their own land or saving to do so. Especially if it's within driving distance of a city.

The Bay Area is something on an exception in that you really can't easily drive out to reasonably priced exurban/rural housing quickly enough to go into the city for an evening. With many other popular cities, an hour outside the city can get you into the countryside (and many employers are well outside the city in any case).

That’s anecdotal, but I’m willing to bet the typical technologist is not like your peers.

As is your claim. What is the typical technologist? My peers, along with me, live outside of one of the biggest cities in the Midwest, and work remotely or commute to and from. I would consider us part of the prevailing technological culture.

True. We need real data to say otherwise, but we already know most techies live in cities anyways, you can claim that is not within their desire and they would like your lifestyle better, but I would claim it is as they want.

I would claim that the majority population of techies probably do desire to live in cities and hubs in which there are large communities of other techies, you're right. My point is just that there is also a sizable community of people who work in tech who also enjoy living outside the city, and can still enjoy a city lifestyle from time to time as well.

I often notice that this sizable community is brushed to the wayside because they aren't the in-crowd of city-based IT enthusiasts, with their regions being considered "flyover" and their opinions devalued. Yet still, in small towns, we do have Slack and hackerspaces and lots of professional development, just like the cities.

Plenty of introverts who like building things (the stereotypical technologist) are into it.

More income savings to spend on new gadgets, space to build things (plus No HOAs to say you can't run a business or put up a big antenna on your property), and relative peace and quiet in your environment are quite appealing. I know some brilliant technologists who work remote and wouldn't trade their life-style for any salary in a big city. I'm a city-lover myself, but easily understand the appeal of working in tech while living in the country.

What do you think is so special about technologists that they uniquely prefer urban (or suburban) living?

It really isn’t a mystery: they like tech obviously, they probably went to a big university with lots of diversity and eat out options, they feel a strong need to network. All hint toward city living rather than country side living.

Also, many techies in the USA aren’t even Americans, they are even less likely to be craving for the countryside lifestyle.

I think you're projecting your preferences and those of your circle. The significant majority of the people I work with at a fairly large tech company live in exurbs/suburbs/country. Relatively few live in the nearby major city.

None of that is countryside or even small town America.

You can define terms however you like but I do live in a town with a population of about 7,000 people and together with my two neighbors we're on about 100 acres adjacent to town forest. Sure, it's not some remote small town where you have to drive 3 hours to get to the nearest Walmart but it's not exactly urban--at least the way most people use the term--either.

There's a pretty broad continuum between living/working in a city where you can walk to everything and living somewhere that's hours from "civilization."

Yes, but you’ve just described about half of the Bay Area, or West Chester county, or even Queens (let alone Long Island).

It describes a lot of places. If someone argues that tech people tend to prefer the greater metro areas (combined statistical areas) of large cities rather than truly rural areas (as defined by the census), I don't think there's much argument. Of course, by the numbers, so does a significant majority of the US population.

But that's a lot different from people arguing that tech people like big cities specifically, as that tends to suggest that they can walk to coffee shops, take public transit to work, etc. which does not describe the bulk of the space in greater metro areas.

The original comment I replied to:

> It depends on what you like to do. Countryside living is appealing to many people.

My reply:

> Technologists are probably not typically the ones that find it appealing.

Your reply to that:

> What do you think is so special about technologists that they uniquely prefer urban (or suburban) living? reply

Putting your last reply in the context of the entire reply chain, I'm confused about what you think we are arguing about?

I think we were just using terms differently. "Countryside" to me includes everything from really rural to lots of trees and space while still being within the general sphere of a major metro. Quite a few people in tech like the latter. Not so many the former.

Why do you say non-Americans are less likely to crave countryside lifestyle? As an EU developer, that's not been my experience at all; small town developers get dragged to our bigger cities for the jobs, not because they prefer the life. Some have pretty long commutes just so they can keep living in a non-urban area.

For anyone who isn't into highly social hobbies the countryside is usually at least equally good. Apart from restaurants and larger selection of food in stores, city life has not changed my free time much at all.