Why do you live where you do?

[TR]

The thread on MMM about lifestyles in different areas got me thinking about why we live where we do.

If you can’t see polls, I don’t feel like c&p’ing the many choices, so the question is just how did you come to live where you do and feel free to just answer freely

[TR]

We moved here to TX for a job for my H (then boyfriend). He no longer works at that job, but moving is expensive and a PITA so until we have another compelling reason to move we’ll likely just stay here.

[starburst604]

I was born in MA. I now live 45ish minutes from where I grew up. I’ve never had a compelling reason to leave here. Weather-wise, the winters can get depressing but I do like having 4 seasons.

[abs]

Both DH and I grew up here. Our moms live here. Moving is expensive and not really something we can afford to do.

[ssmjlm]

I moved here once DH and I were seriously dating. It helped that I could get another federal job in the area.

DH is in a very niche job market and the only other place is in Mississippi and that’s a big nope for both us.

And now my parents are here and their help is invaluable.

If E settles somewhere else, we fully plan to possibly move near her. But I don’t want anywhere that’s cold and has a ton of snow.

[brooklyn]

We were in a 2 bedroom apartment in manhattan that we loved. I had a early pandemic meltdown and made us move to a house in nj for more space. I miss city life and am kinda regretting that decision now. H still commutes in 2-3 days a week, so at least we’re not that far away. And I’m trying to prioritize going into the city about 2x a month for fun.

[penguingrrl]

We both grew up in the town we’re in, but that’s not entirely why we’re here. We really love the area. We’re in a very walkable community that’s 10 minutes from the beach, an hour from NYC and an easy drive to other cool cities (4 hours to DC, 5 hours to Boston). We’ve lived a few other places, though never further than 5 hours away from here, and not liked any of them nearly as much. Having our parents here has also been great for both us and for them, so that’s also a factor.

[Vespasia]

I'm not entirely sure how to answer the poll. MH has lived here almost his entire life. I moved here 18 years ago for grad school. We met here.

He's been trying to get me to move almost anywhere else for years, partially because he's been here forever. I've been resistant because I like it here and we were able to buy a cheap house that allows us a nice standard of living.

Now I'm facing some family issues and seriously considering a move to CT, where I lived as child. Jobs wouldn't be an issue but I am really not looking forward to paying 3 times as much for housing.

[wanderingback]

Mostly because it’s a great choice for both me and my partner’s careers and we both are city people that need to live around other Black people.

There are very few states (even before the Dobbs decision) in which I could be an abortion provider the way I am now without too many restrictions (I never wanted to work just at a high volunteer abortion clinic or hospital, I love being able to do the variety of things I do in an outpatient setting).

I’ve moved about 12 times before the age of 30 so I also was ready to be somewhere for more than 3-4 years. I do like the experience of living different places, but I really love it here (not just cause of my career stuff), so I don’t think we’ll leave any time soon, if ever.

[Susie]

I initially moved to my current metro area for law school in 2004.  The reasons to stay kept adding up.

I met my now-H in 2005.  He is from the area, and also went to law school here.  

I started working at a firm as a 2L law clerk in 2006.  They offered me an associate position after graduation, which I took.

H had professional references and contacts here, we both took the bar here, he started a career here.

I still work for the same firm, 18 years later.   H has changed employers a few times, but he's now 15 years into the state retirement system.  He's at a point where it would be foolish to leave the state now.

With remote work we could move within the state, but now we have kids in school here, and in 2021 we bought our current house with a 30 year, 2.75% mortgage.  We would have to really really really want to move to give that up, and we don't.

So the short answer is basically that I moved here for law school and then over time septupled, octupled, whatever, down on the decision.  Which is funny, because I never set out to live here.  It's too cold!  I applied to 9 law schools, and got 2 rejections, 3 acceptances, and 4 wait lists.  I figured ONE of the wait lists would open up, and I'd probably have gone to any of them over the 3 that accepted me.  None did, so I attended one of the ones that accepted me.  I knew which one of the three it would be, but I held out hope right to the start of orientation that one of the wait lists would come through.  My life would have been so much different.

[scout8]

We decided to move out of Chicago in the middle of a cold, gray February. I couldn't take the winters anymore. We moved to Asheville because it ticked a lot of boxes for us. We moved without jobs, but we don't have kids and have always been self employed so being without income for a bit wasn't too scary. I absolutely love it here and have no regrets.

[momin2013]

It was where my spouse was going to school.

When my DH and I got married, we lived 2 hours apart and were basically just spending weekends together. Then I got pregnant with DS, and when I was a couple of months away from having him we decided I’d move to the city where DH was doing his PhD, because he still had about a year to go. And we ended up staying here; it’s been 11 years now since I moved to this city.

[tacokick]

I grew up here and my husband moved here for a job. We’ve stayed because we not only like our actual city, the people and the politics but we are so close to everything from the beach (both bay and ocean), mountains, and so many other major cities. I can go to NYC, Philadelphia or DC for the day which is really nice! I do think food/shopping is oddly expensive here but housing is still pretty affordable.

The only thing that could lure me away is living closer to the ocean which seems risky thanks to global warming (and the amount of conservatives in the area) or to NYC where my husband grew up but he is not interested in doing that.

[beerlover]

I'm about 45 min from where I grew up, and H is about 30 min from where he grew up. I got a school counselor job in this town in 2010, and H already had a teaching job in a more rural town close by, so we settled here. I've since gotten another job and been WFH for 12 years, but H has since moved into various administrative positions in the local school district. I don't see us leaving any time soon because we have an inexpensive home, a lot of nice friends, and we're close to both sets of parents that love to help with DS. The only way I could see us leaving is if H wants to move up further in his career and work as a superintendent, or for the state department of education or something, which would require a move. I joke about it, but it's a decent place to live. It is a more red area, but we also have a liberal arts college in our town and lots of friends that work there and have very similar beliefs to us.

[mccallister84]

I moved to the city near where we live for college. H moved out here for a job/grad school. We met and then when we were house hunting we tried to pick a place in between our jobs. We couldn’t find anything in the town we thought we wanted to be in. We expanded our search and found a new area we knew little about but we liked the houses, so bought one. We ended up landing in this wonderful little town that we absolutely love and have built such a village in. I always say that if we won the lottery we would still stay in this town.

We are about 40 minutes away from the city we were both living in when we met.

[underwaterrhymes]

We moved here for a job for my H.

I haven’t lived in the town where I grew up since 2001. It’s around 750 miles away. We have lived a lot of places including a few different states and countries, but we have been here for 9 years, which is the longest I’ve lived anywhere.

[livinitup]

My H moved here to get experience in a field in which he wanted a job. That turned into a full time job, then into a company partnership. Along the way, we met and when we decided to marry, the area had loads of job opportunities for me, low COL, and is a nice place to live. We bought our home here and have been here for years. Happily.

When it snows too much, we dream of living in San Diego.


That post also made me wonder why we live here.

[Patsy Baloney]

I grew up here. But we really live here because our family is here. If they were somewhere else, we would likely live there.

[wildrice]

I put we moved here for my H's job, but we really moved because he had a 1 year internship placement. That ended in 2019, but we liked it here and don't have a compelling reason to live any particular place at this point, so we decided to stay. We both have had multiple other jobs since then, but we have no plans to move! We like the proximity to so many things to do, state politics align with our personal values (as well as we can hope for in the US, at least), we like the weather, it's an easy state to get to places we want to travel, and it's pretty here! Cost of living is high but I think we get what we pay for. I can't really picture anywhere else I would want to live at this point!

[plutosmoon]

I've lived a lot of places growing up (7 different cities in 3 states by the time I was 10), so no where ever felt like a hometown. I went to college in the midwest and my parents had moved 2 more times while I was in college, and after living with them a bit in NY, I moved to Florida for better weather since that's where my sister was living, then I followed her to Atlanta for better job options. After DD was born I didn't really want to raise her in GA, so I started looking to move a little closer to my parents in who were now in MA. I was laid off for my job in GA and was offered a position at my current college, which is really one of the top places to work for my field. I've been here ever since and plan to stay here until I retire from my current job. It's rural, the winters suck, but I have a 5 minute commute and my DD is happy here.

[heygrey]

I said Other, because it’s a two-parter.

16 year old me applied to a small university in Canada thinking I’d move back to the US after graduation. Best laid plans and all that. I met H, who is Canadian. We tossed out resumes across North America and landed jobs in eastern Canada.

A year later, H got a job offer in British Columbia. We moved. I didn’t work for two years while applying for permanent residency. I finally got residency and a job, six months later H was laid off.

We seriously considered moving back east, but we love the west coast. Our closest family is a 4 hour plane ride away, but we have stable jobs in completely different careers and we’ve built a community here. Sometimes we day dream about moving to somewhere with property and a cheaper COL, but none of it is realistic.

[maudefindlay]

I voted other. I moved here for a job and DH moved here for a job and then we met later. We could stay here forever or move in the future. I do think we will stay put until all 3 kids graduate high school unless there was some special circumstance.

[icedcoffee]

I moved here after college for a job. I wanted to move to the south but I only made it this far (I can practically spit to the mason dixon line). LOL. Then I met my H here and now I’m “stuck” here never having lived in the south. Womp, womp.

So I said moved here for my job.

I do really like it here though I also miss Boston a lot.

[preppy]

We live about 30 mins from where I grew up. We had lived out of state but had been trying to get back to my home state to live on the water. When we had the chance to both go remote in 2016 we jumped at the chance. So really we moved here for the beach/to live on the ocean.

[macmars45]

The catalyst was H's work approving fully remote work right before covid. I grew up here and have family still here. It's nice to be local to my parents and 2 of my sisters. We wanted a SFH and were priced out of the Seattle area where we lived for the first 11 years of our marriage. We also wanted to further our living environmentally friendly goals (solar panels, evs, composting etc) and our Seattle area TH with an HOA made those goals exponentially harder and/or impossible.

[jlt19]

I grew up in this metro area and XH (first time writing that…) grew up 2.5 hrs south. He moved here before we met because his hometown sucks. I never wanted to stay here forever (college in Fla but guilted to come home). We always talked about seeing where the kids ended up and possibly moving. I still may or I might put in for transfers to a different city in the world once the kids are off and gone. The possibilities are endless and I’m looking forward to all of it.

[slbride2003]

We live 1 mile outside of NYC on the NJ side. I grew up in the NJ suburbs about 25-30 minutes from where we are now and H grew up on Long Island. He never wanted to move further in to NJ and I didn’t want to move to Long Island so we settled here. It’s a very easy commute to my office in midtown Manhattan, and we really love it here. City living right outside of NYC so we have space, air conditioning, laundry in our condo, and parking (none of which we could have in NYC)

[jinkies]

H and I both grew up here. I would not have chosen to settle in this area but H felt strongly about being near family.

I am heavily encouraging my kids to see the world before deciding where to settle.

I still hope to move somewhere else after the kids are out of the house.

[rosiebear]

My H and I both came here for law school - he came from another midwestern state, I came from a city about 90 minutes away. We both felt instantly at home in this college town.

[fancynewbeesly]

So up until 2 years ago, DH and I lived in our hometown where we grew up. We moved about two years ago to a neighboring town. We are still relatively close to family and work for me. Our town that we live in has a slightly LCOL in terms of houses and property sizes. We love our new town. It is less sprawled out than our previous place. DD1 has more freedom here in terms of walking and biking places. We have more kids around in our neighborhood so they are outside with friends a lot.