Downsides of rural living?

[Staffielove23]

Another thread in AIBU got me thinking about the downsides of rural living. Dependence of a car, farm smells and traffic.. anyone else?

I could not wait to leave the rural idyll I grew up in.I then lived in two major cities in my twenties.

I now have a perfect set up, I live on the very edge of a market town within 10 min walk one way I have a Co op , post office, church, hairdressers, chemist, Doctors, florists, Chinese take away and chippy. With. 15 mins the other way I have open countryside, fields, small hills, forest and horses including a field with a grumpy looking Shetland pony.

Also: cows are terrifying. I now refuse to walk through a field of them and have actually gone all the way back around a nearly-completed 5-mile circular walk to avoid them.

Several that immediately spring to mind:

A shortage (or total lack) of public transport.
The roads don't get gritted in the winter.
Supermarket with exorbitant prices. There's only one shop so they can charge what they like.
Ditto petrol station.

I love where we live and the advantages by far outweigh the disadvantages for us, but of course there are downsides as nowhere is perfect.
I would say the biggest negative is lack of public transport and local facilities. We have to travel fairly long distances for lots of things, though I actually don't think it's as bad as sometimes people think, because mostly the traffic is not too heavy. Like one of my friends who lives in a big city couldn't believe that our secondary school is over 20 miles away. But there's a school bus that picks up at the end of our road and the journey is about half an hour. I'm sure lots of secondary school pupils in cities take that long to get to schools that are a lot physically nearer than ours, so I'm not sure it's that unusual.
Lack of cultural diversity is also an issue - I do worry a bit about how homogenous my children's friendship groups are. And yes, we get power cuts more often than urban areas and bad weather probably has a bit more of an impact but we are prepared and used to it so I don't really think about it much to be honest. Our hobbies are all well served here, there's plenty going on in the community so boredom isn't an issue and the schools are really good so we haven't had a lot of the negative experiences mentioned here fortunately.

Most rural, arse end of nowhere, I've lived, in addition to no mains gas or water, no mains electricity 🤣

We get jealous of people in town having access to deliveroo!
Roads are awful, I ditched my hatchback when it was destroyed by frequent severe floods on one of the roads out of our village, I have the local tyre garage on speed dial.
People know everything, which is a blessing and a curse.

Im semi rural now, grew up in the middle of nowhere but where we live now has buses to local town. I’d not inflict a small remote village on my dc, it was utterly miserable.

Poor medical care. I would have had to travel 2 hours each way for radiotherapy if I’d stayed where I grew up.

The access road to the village being cut off by flood water (fortunately there was another road, but it involved driving across an airfield so wasn't normally open)

Otherwise... I grew up in South London, and now live semi rural in Yorkshire. I had more choice of schools here... not just nearest with space due to tight catchments. Same with doctors... several different village ones to chose from. I drive further to the supermarket but it takes less time as no traffic. My children have more freedom as there is no local gang problem...

It is a lot further to the hospital though. (But it takes my brother longer to drive my dad to Kings than it takes me to drive to the teaching hospital in the nearest city)

Having lived in both villages and cities, I feel like you get breadth of life in a city but depth in the country.

In a city you have loads of facilities, people to meet, choices of schools and shops etc but it can be shallow. It's also quite anonymous and can feel "safe" i.e. you can go to an activity without expecting to meet someone you don't get on with. But you might not know your neighbours.

In a village you have a smaller society but you get to know people much better, through school, churches, groups, the same people will be involved. People will notice if a different car is parked on your drive or know that you had an accident last year etc. Strong personalities can affect everyone in a small school or social group. This can be both supportive and claustrophobic if you fall out with someone.

I mean these are generalisations and some people are outgoing and friendly wherever they live and some keep to themselves. But this is my observation.

Limited and harder to access care and medical specialists, when you're elderly.

This has been my main take away as someone who lives in a city, having spent the last year caring for and organising urgent medical attention for my elderly in laws, compared to doing the same for my own folks in the city.

You need to be able to drive - bus services are barely a weekly occurrence in some places

It smells

It's the middle of nowhere - any day trip, holiday or night out becomes a logistical nightmare of designated drivers/taxis and who is meeting who and where

You're often the first to be cut off in bad weather

What townies take for granted, like sewers, food deliveries, broadband, gas and electricity is often replaced with septic tanks (ew), fakeaways, miserably slow computer networks and very expensive fuel oil.

No ethnic diversity.
Bad public transport.
i would hate it.

I live in a small village on the Welsh border, and only feel human if I have green spaces around me. I hate cities with a passion; and just about manage the nearest town for half a day - then I want to be back with the fields and the sky and the hills.

Any disadvantages are for me outweighed by the good things:

• the beauty
• small close-knit, infinitely kind and supportive community
• masses of things going on at the community hall which I can walk to
• nearby shop/garage where they know everyone and make sure that their needs are met
• fabulous walks on the doorstep
• wonderful village school with a balanced curriculum and a family values-driven atmosphere

The business of having to drive to the shop is not a downside - it is my normal. I cannot remember any different - except when at uni in a city. My children were here as teenagers and loved it. As one of them said to me - 2 buses morning and evening is nothing compared to the fact that you are driving over one of the most beautiful hills in the country - often at sunrise and sunset.

We made sure that they were not disadvantaged in any way and would happily drive them wherever they needed to go. They love it here and are back at every available opportunity and taking their children over the hill, by the river for a picnic, to the nearby castle ruins to play, to toboggan down the hill.

Recent surgery meant that I was a bit stuck - but the offers of lifts and help were endless - we all know each other and help whenever we can. And it is in no way a closed community - there are ethnic minority children in school, and the local pub is run by an Asian/East European couple. All are welcomed, and there has been lots of fund-raising for Ukraine, so not an insular inward-looking community.

If I finished up unable to drive for some reason, I would use the money from the car sale and the running costs to hire taxis, or use the local community transport minibuses - that is when no-one offered me a lift, which I know they would.

Oh yes! Forgot about takeaways. Probably the biggest downside for us 😂

By the way, I have fibre to the property here and speeds are greater than in many towns. I have a biodigester for sewage - definitely not yuk in any way.

Oh god, I'd forgotten about the lack of mains plumbing too. Septic tanks FTW. There was never any mains gas where I grew up. We had oil fired central heating.
We stayed with some friends in Leicestershire a while back. To get a takeaway curry on Saturday night he had to drive 13 miles each way to pick it up.

I'd absolutely hate rural living. I'd hate to be far away from decent shops, restaurants, activities.

@UnknownElement 😂 how can a Shetland pony look grumpy? That’s hilarious 😆

I'd also HATE a small community. The idea of everyone knowing my business gives me the creeps.

Heavily depends on where and how rural. For example I lived in Lincolnshire where there were villages that had everything you needed, good walks and sports/social facilities. Same for Buckinghamshire. Wiltshire on the other had, muddy, rainy and dank for 11 months of the year. Oxfordshire also good.

General downsides:
Mud in winter. Offset by good wellies you'll live in. Constantly having to clean car and add screen wash because of mud. You need a mud room if you have pets or kids.

Agricultural impacts: smell, flies, noise, waste, harvest time causing a huge influx of thrips that get everywhere including up your nose and in your eyes. Gluts of particular insects every year. One year hoards of hover flies, another year, hoards of ladybirds etc.

Difficult to actually get the lovely food you see growing in the fields as it goes to posh London restaurants.

Side roads not de-iced or snow cleared leaving you stuck.

Poor internet.

In some areas (not Bucks) lack of footpaths or maintenance of footpaths and a surfeit of farmers with guns to tell you to get off their land if you set a toe off the badly maintained footpath.

Depending on where you are rurally loud aircraft noise and low flying from the RAF.
Crap bus services
In some areas lack of mains sewerage and gas

Upsides:
Fresh air/less pollution
It's really lovely seeing the seasons and you get to know all the local flora and fauna.
Aircraft and low flying if you like that!
Good for bike riding
Non chain pubs that serve great food
Cheaper stuff in some places
Some great mobile NHS services

The price of coal/wood/heating oil/ biomass pellets as we aren't on mains gas.
Terrible Internet connection and mobile signal .

No takeaways.

Powercuts if its windy, raining, snowing, freezing.

40 miles to the nearest city so the price of the local shop is horrendous.

But wouldn't swop it for the world.

You've obviously never met a Shetland. They can be evil little buggers and aren't called Shitlands for nothing 🤣

You literally just described my location. Sorry you hated it.

Ah yeah.. no mains gas so expensive oil and septic tanks. Forgot about them.

Very much this. I had to get a taxi to the bus stop for college. Any time I wanted to go out I had to convince parents to drive me. Also agree about it can be surprisingly noisy.

Have a daughter now and I'd never inflict that solitude on her, she's able to walk home from school safely and see friends.

We had a dog and I never felt safe walking it as cars drove fast and no pavements. Feel much safer walking my dog in an urban environment.

Friends visited a while ago and commented that in a city there were more safe green spaces for dogs and children than their rural area.

Impossible to get tradespeople here. Don’t know if that’s a rural problem or specific to us.