> Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
A part of me too desires this. For a software engineer, what you need most is good network connectivity, which is now possible in many places.
The other part of me is convinced that would not be a good move in the long run. If I move away from the city, my kids' education will suffer, my mother (who also lives with me) will lose the social connect that keeps her in good spirits. Growing up in a small place, I always longed to move to a city. Now that I have "been there done that" in terms of living a city life, I do not want my children to go through the same cycle.
It would be nice to have the best of both worlds. Have a second home someplace remote, and go live there for short duration as circumstances permit.
That was supposed to be the idea behind suburbs, but a lot of people think of them as the worst of both worlds now.
Personally I think it's pretty nice to live 30 minutes outside a city but still have enough property for trees and open space, though.
Still remote but they're trying to get more people to come back to the office which is really making me rethink this job...
But the middle of nowhere, actually, has always appealed. You're right though, it has drawbacks.
The 'locals' are extremely unfriendly, actively try to sabotage new businesses, bring in foreign workers and lock them into work/living arrangements to take advantage of them, heck (attempt to) take advantage of all workers, etc...
But they claim to not be whatever 'ism' isn't politically popular.
They're giant diversions I think that distort our ability to just see things for what they are.
It's pretty interesting how people can be many things at the same time, so these kinds of triggering labels - and the narratives that support them in the press don't help one bit.
The recent articles by various media outlets outlining the results of the Virginia election were about 80% playing into narratives of 'each side' further ignoring the 20% of simple truths that I think were the real underlying issues. Those 'truths' just don't line up nicely with the narratives.
This problem has metastasized in the US (and rolled over into Canada) in the last 5 years, which is why 0 'aspirational locations' from the US are on my list, at least for another 5 years as things hopefully calm down.
Also, lots of the replies so far in this thread mention big cities. I'm wondering what the appeal of cities would be in a 100% remote world without restaurants as, presumably, restaurant workers would be moving to jobs that are remote, no? Or are they just the new serf class?