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That said however, my personal mantra has always been that anyone who says that has either never had money or was incredibly foolish with what they had.

I have been both well (six figure income) and completely homeless (more than once). My happiest periods in life were not relative to my income but moreso to my relationships and family. That said however, I have to say first hand, from experience that it is a lot easier to enjoy life, regardless of whether you are in the throws of a joyous relationship or on the brink of emotional disaster when money is adequate to tend to all of your needs and some of your desires.

In other words, my experience tells me that while money itself doesn’t buy happiness, it is a heck of lot easier to be happy when money is sufficient to meet all of your needs and at least some of your desires.

Living where you’re happy is truly priceless, which is why it’s worth it to so many of us to do what we can to stay in some of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. I’m not advocating giving up other parts of life just to live in a pricey city, but if you can maintain your priorities and stay where you love, and just make some other trade-offs to do it, I think it’s worth it.

I’d rather be poorer in the Bay Area than rich in a part of the country where I will feel alienated or unable to take part in pursuits and environment I enjoy most.

As I mentioned, it isn’t in San Francisco proper. It is in one of San Francisco’s very urban suburbs, a city in itself. We walk everywhere. My husband walks to his work and I take the train to mine. My kids walk to school. We walk nearly everywhere: library, farmer’s market, grocery, etc.

We have one parking spot and we have a 11-year-old Honda Civic that we drive when we need a car. We definitely use it, mostly for trips out of town and then for trips to places like Costco and Target.

I love this life. My kids are thriving. They don’t have the problems with boredom and obesity that I see in their ex-urban or rural contemporaries. We don’t watch TV. Because we have to keep junk out of our house, they’re not very consumer-oriented. They’re happy kids, and we’re a happy family.

If we were stuck in the true suburbs, having to drive everywhere, having to fill our homes with stuff made in some third-world sweatshop, having to live in a place where quirkiness was condemned instead of celebrated, we would all be deeply, deeply unhappy.

But I think the point people are making isn’t that apartments/housing aren’t smaller in an big city, because they are, it’s that it really doesn’t matter for the quality of life; unless you raise horses or something that “requires” a lot of space. Space, is over-rated, and ultimately buying more and larger things is an empty, temporary, type of happiness.

It really depends on the person, some people feel incredibly stressed around a lot of people, and enjoy open spaces; obviously for these people a rural area makes sense; to stay in an urban area for no other reason than to make more money is a waste of years of your life for no “good” reason.

For many people, urban life is the most rewarding. Cities didn’t magically pop up, they were created, created by people. There is a reason they are like they are, it’s because that’s how people like to live. If you go to a refuge camp, where everyone is forced to leave their homes and build temporary homes, people don’t live in a “rural” style, they set up their camp in an urban style, very close to everyone else; it’s just natural for them.

I find very few people, who actually live in a large city rather than commute to it, dislike it. They may leave, but it isn’t because they hate it, it’s for other reasons, such as being close to family or buying a ranch to raise their horses.

At least in this area, most people who complain about the “big city” are commuters, as they see the worst side of the city; namely the horrible traffic, etc. I don’t feel sorry for these people, as the want their cake and eat it too. They want a big house out in the suburbs, but they want to get paid the high salaries of the city; which is fine, of course, but they pay the price of wasting 3 hours a day in traffic. IMHO, these people should move into the city, or get a job in their own community.

I noticed in your post, Livingalmostlarge, that you mentioned your friend’s condo came “without a parking spot”; from your perspective this is a horrible thing, because you have to either pay additional rent for a spot, or go through the trouble every day of finding a free spot on the street. But what you aren’t understanding is many people in very large cities drive rarely and probably don’t even own a car. A parking spot, to them, is as useful as a hanger would be to the average suburbanite.

I also see unhappiness when people visit or live in a large city and expect to live the same lifestyle they would in a suburb. Which is just as silly as expecting to live the same in a rural area (where you may have propane for heat and wells for water [this is how I grew up]) as you would in suburb. Each environment has a completely different lifestyle. I don’t, personally, need a car, as I don’t drive to work, and most normal things I need (bank, groceries, drug store) are with blocks of my home. Here, you don’t jump in the car and drive to Safeway to buy your next 2 weeks of food, you walk out your door, walk a block and buy the next 3 days worth of food, which you carry home in your little hands. If you live a lifestyle the area is setup for, you’ll find you will have very little stress.

I grew up in a rural area, and when I say rural I mean it; propane and wood for heat, wells for water that you couldn’t drink (we had to go into “town” and fill up big containers of water for drinking. The concept of drinking out of the faucet was novel to me when I moved into town later in life). I had tons of space (10 acres) but very little else (friends, opportunities, culture). I’ve also lived in suburbs, and for 11 years a huge city. I can safely say that I feel the least stress, and enjoy life the most in huge city. From the number of people spilling out of the cafes onto the sidewalk, laughing and smiling, I’d say I’m not alone.

We’ve got two kids. We live in a modest townhouse in one of the urban suburbs of San Francisco. The kids share a room. We have a dog. We walk to the library, to the farmer’s market, to the train, to the grocery, and to the parks. We are happy and we love our lives.

We’ll never have a huge house, but we don’t want one, either. I see people with huge houses filled with stuff, and that stuff seems to make them a lot more stressed than happy. In our small tiny space, we had to learn to manage the space constraints. However, I truly believe that physical closeness engenders emotional closeness, at least it works well for us.

I love living in the Bay Area, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Would you really raise your child in a 2 bd/1 bd 529 sq ft condo in the city? Without a parking spot for $300k? How would you fit 2 kids? Our friend is house shopping and he’s really considering that condo to buy. But where do you put your kid? It’s only for single people pretty much, even couples find it tiny.

So I think it depends on the needs of the person/family.

I really hope you’re kidding. If that would be your biggest concern about moving I don’t think you’re actually ready to even think about having children.

Madison may seem expensive to you as you have lived there for a while. Compared to where we are right now housing is at least half the price in the $200,000-$400,000 range and considerably cheaper in the higher ranges. Houses that would easily run you $3 million here were about $900,000 to $1 mil.

Trust me its not the cheapest place but My wife spent her whole life there and I’ve been looking at moving there long enough to tell you cost of living is much much cheaper than Chicago.

Carol from Pueblo

If money can’t make you happy then how can a different bunch of dirt, some houses, and some different names for stores make you happy?? Isn’t that just attempting to find happiness in a different bunch of souless inanimate objects??

Less choice might make us happy (I doubt it, but maybe), but prof. schwarz never discusses the ‘tyranny of the majority’, which makes his book nigh on worthless in my opinion. Less choice is great as long as it’s not your favorite stuff being phased out. And phasing out tends to keep the middle and drop the fringes. Ask the gays how they feel about having less choice to marry if you need an extreme example. Not only that, isn’t he actually increasing the choice of books you can buy by writing this one, thereby increasing the stress of purchasers of his book??

As far as making yourself happy by adjusting the ratio of us and those richer than us, for 99.9% of us, no matter what city you live in, there will be someone there richer than you. They might not live in your neighbourhood, but they live in the same town as you. You will see their car and their property, and compare yourself to them. So moving to feel better in comparison to your neighbors and peers is pointless, not to mention elitist & heartless.

The point should be to think long and hard about what makes you content, and find the place and opportunity that offers that. Having a lot of money, for purposes of increased culture, medical, travel, and education might be a necessary part of it. Maybe it’s family or maybe the kids will have to deal with less stable friendships.

I believe that the trick to life is to figure out what makes you happy, accept it, and pursue it; even though, most of the time, it isn’t what you wish made you happy (being rich, famous, suave, etc.).

The same can be said for your partner, stop looking for the person you think you “should” be with, and find the person you want to be with.

I did the opposite as the poster, I moved back to the “big city”. I’ve lived everywhere, from the very rural as a child to the center of San Francisco. At one point I moved to the suburbs in a medium sized city, I did this for only one reason; money. I lied to myself, saying it was for this, or for that, but really it was only because of the money. In the medium-size town I was able to buy a big house, with 2 extra bedrooms I didn’t use and a huge garage I filled to the brim.

But I wasn’t happy, truthfully I was much happier before when I had nothing and lived in the very expensive city. After a life changing event, I decided to move back to the city. I went from 3 cars to 1, I went from a big house to a small apartment. I went from a life of hoarding things that required constant maintenance to an active life, surrounded by people, low stress, and ultimately happiness.

People still say, “wow, I don’t know how you live in such a small apartment”, but I don’t care, I always answer “with a smile on my face”.

I don’t think a large city is better than a small one. Generally speaking, they both are good, but in different ways. But for you, in particular, one is better, and it’s your job to figure out which, and go there… now… seriously, we’ll wait.

This sunshiney post about moving being the solution to a host of problems really rings false to me. Not that it can’t work, but I would say that it hasn’t worked for the poster.

My life tends to be based on friends, work, and convenient things to do, so really I could do that in a much less insanely huge and expensive area (assuming I could find both friends and work…not necessarily true!). So one day I can see moving elsewhere (this is already my third metropolitan area in my adult life), but it does feel more and more daunting to consider starting all over yet again.

But it’s important to remember that I COULD if I wanted to.

Denver has snow, yes, which is awesome if you love to ski/board.

Seattle has rain. Consistent rain. For 9 months. I have lived here 18 years and there’s precious little deviation from this.

The Puget Sound (water) is pretty, and if you need water around you Seattle is more the place for you.

I did a whole list on how Denver tilts the scales for us, so hop over to take a look at it if you want to see comparison of the 2.

Why do so many people think this? I grew up in New York, returned after college, and would be thrilled to raise children here. What exactly is the objection?

[...] the great discussion over at Get Rich Slowly, I came across another good article on the idea of moving to a different [...]

[...] Getting The Guts To Relocate To A Cheaper City There are a lot of interesting cities in the Midwest with a low cost of living. Seriously, check out Madison, Wisconsin or Minneapolis, Minnesota, just for starters. They both have wonderful cultural sensibilities, lots of interesting stuff going on, and are rather inexpensive, too. (@ get rich slowly) [...]