Going to work in the morning feels great. I love waking up early and walking to the train station for the short trip to San Francisco 3 days per week. There is now something oddly satisfying about getting out of the house, unencumbered and free, and joining the fray; casually picking up a coffee (ok and sometimes pastry) to enjoy while reading the news and email. I probably wouldn’t enjoy this daily ritual if I had to get in a car or drive to a suburban office park. I am lucky to work at Yahoo’s San Francisco office. The rest of my team is all over the world, so it doesn’t really matter where my physical location is.
I often think about how great it would be to raise our kids in a small town (digression: not any “red” town either, but a town that has culture: indie movie theaters, international cuisine, cultural events… In fact, I’ve always romanticized that perfect New England town [digress from digression: and in particular Burlington Vermont - who elected the only socialist senator! - although admittedly I've never actually visited.]). But one thing I’d miss would be the sheer amount of people to see and stuff to do in the city, even one as small as San Francisco or Oakland. Could I actually be happy living without the diversity of activities, languages, and people? Would we find ourselves spending most evenings in front of the family TV? Would Nico and Olive have the same opportunities and exposure to ideas? This is a global economy. While future small town America may suffer and rely on big box hell like Walmart for low-paying service jobs, it is the cosmopolitan cities that will attract the talent, brains and the economic power.
Regardless of where we end up, I appreciate our current urban lifestyle – crime rate, cost of living, crowds and all. We might get in our car once per week or less because EVERYTHING we need is in walking distance. How many Americans can say the same? (Ok, so what if small 900 sf bungalows in the neighborhood sell for almost a million). But meanwhile, I do dream about that pastoral lifestyle that may not really exist and I’ve never really experienced. Who knows where we’ll be in five years?
