People moving out of cities but wanting all the things that a city offers

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Messages go something like this;
Hi, my husband and two kids and I are moving out of our one bed flat in x city and would like to find an area we can afford a four bedroom detached house. It MUST have great transport links to a neighbouring city, a thriving home Ed community, vegan bakery, great Lebanese food, a variety of brunch places and cool live music venues.

But that's why we all live in cities?!! There is no magical semi rural place with all the nice, cultural bits, jobs, facilities, public transport with cheap houses.
City life isn't for everyone so you either compromise on space or location. If you move out to the suburbs or the countryside then you know that you will no longer have those things in walking distance.
This is not just on mumsnet but in real life too. I work in a much cheaper area, bits are nicer, there is more green space but it's just not worth giving up the job opportunities, museums and like minded people you get in a city. My friends that have moved out have changed their whole life styles, more driving, more countryside, more meals in chain restaurants in retail parks, I'm not judging it at all! As someone who can barely afford to live here, I can't afford to eat out at all so all the new, cool pop up street food places are wasted on me anyway. But I still love being here.
AIBU

I’m loving this thread - I’ve done big city, small city, rural and am currently in surburban hell (current necessity, not choice). Rural was great for me but hilarious on the local groups with people whining about why there wasn’t a hot yoga class/vegan deli/wine bar (no really) in the village. The moans about ditches and bushes on single track lanes scratching their SUVs was particularly enjoyable (“someone should cut them down - it’s disgraceful!!! My alloys are ruined!”). For what it was worth the village had a convenience shop, vets, a bakery (it didn’t do sourdough though) and a chippy plus an actual swimming pool so they should have been counting their lucky stars! It even had a bus service and not one but two pubs!

It's still too much of a faff to go for a coffee or nice lunch. As it's 20 mins into Manchester and another 10-15 mins to get to the destination.

See, you wouldn't think twice about doing that in London. The point being, you can do it. Here, the bus to the nearest city doesn't run at lunchtime and the last one's at 5pm! If you were to go and meet someone for coffee, you'd either have to make it a very fast coffee or a long lunch. And you definitely wouldn't be having a drink there in the evening - if I want to go to an evening thing, I have to book a hotel even though it's only 20 miles away.

I should add that there are trains - also infrequent, but better than the buses. I just can't manage the 1½ mile walk home from the station. In London, I was always half a mile from a Tube and/or mainline station.

YANBU

Very happy we live in London surburbia

Best of both worlds!

3 work colleagues moved further away from work and either expressed surprise at a) how much it cost to commute or b) how long it took or c) wanted to change their hours because it meant leaving so early. ....but why would you not suss out that stuff beforebuying a house?

Don't get me started on this. My colleague moved to the country during Covid. She now leaves home at 9am to drive in one day a week so gets in the office at 11am, stays in an airbnb over night then leaves work at 3pm the next day to drive home because apparently it's not her fault she can't wfh full time anymore 🙄

We are spoilt and overstimulated in the city. It’s hard to appreciate a slower pace. Takes lots more readjusting than what a person from a small town decides to live in the city.

so I’ve been told

I am a seriously card-carrying urbanist non-driver cyclist type, and I think people who can't drive and want to live in the countryside are insane. It's going to be at best inconvenient and at worst borderline irresponsible (because you risk becoming a burden to relatives, neighbors and government services, especially if you are getting older).

I'm currently trying to talk a friend out of moving to the country to "do up" a house that's going very cheap. She can't drive, she does not speak the language well enough (we are in a non-English speaking country), she has no DIY experience, her three daughters are at or approaching late-primary age and very soon will have grown out of the phase of wanting to "play in the huge garden" and hunt for bugs down by the riverbed and will want taxiiing everywhere to do teen girl stuff... I know it's her choice, but I just really worry that she has not thought this through..

On the flip side, those countrydwellers who are clueless about how things work in cities get annoying too - demanding the right to park where they like in the center of town and getting hissy about things like congestion charges etc.

Haha, this is SO true. I'm sick of these posts also. I do actually know of locations like this, but they'd be rejected for faux reasons instead of the truth- They are snobby about northern accents 😂.

I live in a village a couple of miles from a market town. The town is distinctly unappealing, all estate agents and vape shops. There are the usual chain clothes shops, an M&S an all the major supermarkets except waitrose, a theatre with some really good stuff on but there isnt a massive amount in terms of Kulcha.

However, we are 20 minutes on the train from Birmingham which has everything you could need. And where I am is about 50 yards from the countryside!

We do have a really good bus service, the taxi service can be a bit iffy at times and Uber is really crap/non existent....mainly used for food deliveries. The amount of city commuters who have moved here (used to be the Brum crowd but there has been a big influx of Londoners during/since Covid) attracted by the relatively cheap housing who moan like hell that they can't have the best of both worlds never ceases to amaze me. I remember one in particular who has since become a really good friend when he first arrived was banging on about how he couldnt just get a cab when he wanted one, how limited the takeaway options where (its mainly burgers, fried chicken and pizza) blah blah... I asked how much the house he was in would be worth in London, cant remember the figure but it was well over a million and he was going on about the amazing house prices. I pointed out that if he had all the of the things he missed about London on his door step then he would be paying London prices for his house too. That the reason his house was so cheap was precisely because the area isnt as packed full of designer shops and trendy street food places. Its not on anyone's list of "Ten Places I Want To Live" Generally people are either born here or end up here due to circumstances, I have never met anyone who woke up one day with a burning desire to live here! He got the point.

Weirdly (he was renting at the time) when he decided he would now buy a place he was so attached to our "crappy" village/town that he has bought here and has no plans to leave. Last time he went to London it did his head in and now avoids it at all costs! He is in his mid 30's by the way and it took about a year for the volte face!

Birmingham and I love it. I live quite near the city centre, can walk in, which is good as I don't drive and hate buses. @PyongyangKipperbang Am trying to think where you might be. I grew up in Barton-under-Needwood.

As a kid I would have loved every twenty minutes buses. Ours were hourly, and none on a Sunday.

I am not a million miles away but on the other side of the town very very close to the S.Derbyshire border!

Skegness?

Doesn't Skegvegas have a decent bus service simply because of the amount of older people living there on the vast mobile home infested plains of Lincolnshire?

I know you cant move without tripping over a pension book in Ingoldmells, Mablethorpe and "Chapel" (Chapel St Leonard).

I grew up in a large village that is

40mins drive from the nearest town with a supermarket and definitely properly rural. Majority occupation is sheep farming. The countryside is beautiful with great walking.

It has
A thriving local food scene, artisan bakery, deli, cafe with decent coffee and vegan gluten free cakes, great local restaurants
A thriving arts scene with a nationally renowned music festival and some fairly well known artists and writers living locally. Art house films shown at a local venue.
Vibrant high street with diverse range of shops. No chains or vape shops.
It even has a leisure centre with yoga classes and a swimming pool
Massive houses with land for less than 300,000

It does not have
Public transport. One bus a week to nearest town
Healthcare. 40 mins to nearest hospital with A&E Out of hours GP is hours away.
Good schools. I rather suspect you would want to home school when you have experienced the local secondary.

A lot of the stuff that people want does depend on people volunteering and giving back to the community. I suspect all the naice local stuff survives partly because it's too far to go elsewhere so there is enough clientele for the wine bar with tourism in the summer factored in. It's much friendlier than where I live now in suburbia.

I am going back one day for sure. Uprooting DH and the teens is what is stopping me.
This Mumsnet approved idyll is not in England although in the U.K.

@Mangotango39 Let me guess, they've gone to Bondi and have stayed within a 20km radius? And therefore think the rest of Australia must be like that. Wait until they hear it snows in some areas. Their minds will be blown!

100%.

Folk move to the countryside then continue to bitch about every single thing in the countryside.

Tractors on the road. Livestock and the noises they make. Slurry. Narrow, windy roads. No gritting in winter so icy/snowy roads for weeks. Take outs not delivering as too far away. No local shops so have to drive everywhere. Taxis expensive for nights out in town. Etc etc.

Moving to the countryside is a complete cultural change, and you have to be ready to accept that. A lot of people seemingly aren’t.

I grew up in the country, and currently live in a town. I enjoy the convenience of town life (shops walking distance, coffee shops/restaurants/take out delivery, fast internet speeds, having main roads gritted so getting to and from work is so much easier, etc). But I’m dying to move back to the countryside. I truly miss rural life.

However, if you grew up in a town I can see why most folk, unless you’re particularly into rural activities and a slower pace of life, would absolutely hate it.

There’s pros and cons to living anywhere. It’s much like getting a dog, really. It’s up to you to do your research to get a breed that suits your lifestyle. No point moving to a rural area if you can’t drive and eat out multiple times a week. Similarly, there’s no point moving to a city if you love having a large garden and being able to take your dog walks through the local forest every morning and evening.

Aussie in a regional city here, the mind boggles!

I grew up in Manchester, moved to central London at 17, then to a small village in the south west with no amenities at all when I was 23. We are now in a smallish Wiltshire town because it's convenient for family life but if DH (who would happily live alone in a field) pops his clogs before me I'm going back to a city apartment with a lift. Hop on my mobility scooter and everything within reach of my front door. I'm almost jealous of my student sons flat which is in spitting distance of borough market.

I'm always amazed at people moving to rural wonky houses at a time when they need more services not less. It's bloody hard work living rurally however beautiful the view.

I guess they say that because their idea of the countryside (pretty little villages a "doable" drive away from cities) does not really exist in Oz.

Oz is a large, thinly populated country and distances between settlements are often vast. Outposts in the countryside may be a huge distance from the nearest city. And they are likely to have modern buildings, because Australia is such a young country compared to the UK. I believe Australian farms often tend to be very large, and I don't think you get the kind of pretty variegated rolling-hills landscapes you get in the UK (it's still very beautiful in its own, very different way, of course). You would not live there and commute to your nearest city; it's too far.

The UK is an unusually densely populated country, and a lot of what we consider "rural" wouldn't be defined as rural in other countries, because most settlements are really not very far from their nearest other settlements.

If you look at, say, York, the villages around York (which everyone who lives there considers to be "rural") are mostly 10-15 miles away from York... a not-terribly-long drive (you could bike it, frankly, with a safe bike trail, esp if you had an electric bike). Loads of people commute to these places into York. They are really only considered "rural" because the UK has strict green belt policies and prevents cities from spawling, so you get that band of greenery between the village and the city. In countries like Oz and the US, where cities sprawl to larger sizes, the distance between the suburbs and the city center in a biggest is likely to be similar to the distance between an English village and the English city center.

I left London because of the things that go with living there. First of all crime, its endemic, and it is everywhere.

It's dirty and it smells. Litter and graffiti are everywhere. Beggers and rough sleepers clog doorways. Everything is stupidly expensive, where a beer can cost £6-£8 and a glass of wine £18. Getting around was becoming a real trial, and expensive. Traffic is at a standstill and you take your life in your hands trying to cross the road, dodging aggressive cyclists who ignore everybody and everything, including the highway code. Nobody does anything about it. There is an active war on anybody with a car. And things may be within walking distance but not at night. And even in the day you keep your phone stuffed in your pocket and you don't wear an expensive watch, anywhere..

There is less and less freedom as there are entire areas where you simply don't go , certainly if you are Jewish. I have friends who are afraid to leave their front door. And with good reason. RACISM.

Where I live now I have fresh air and independent shops, and restaurants, and somewhere to sip coffee. I can drive and park with ease. And shock, horror, probe there are museums, theatres ( if you can afford them ) and art galleries outside London, which is only an hour away on the train anyway, if it is running. Our head office will be leaving Canary Wharf at the end of the year anyway so I'll have even less reason to go there.

I left the health service and London behind me. I have not regretted it for one second.

I believe Australian farms often tend to be very large, and I don't think you get the kind of pretty variegated rolling-hills landscapes you get in the UK

Yes you do, in regional Victoria north of the goldfields and going east through Gippsland you see exactly this.

I think most of my eye rolling is aimed at those who drive by or go to one 'event' in the place and think 'this is nice'. I've even done the same, googled house prices when I'm on holiday or on day trips. Thing is, you're enjoying yourself because you're on a day trip! You're not commuting, you're not thinking about what it would be like with teenagers, you're not thinking about trying to cook the sort of food you like.

People should at least rent an air bnb for a week or two to work out if it suits them and try things like the commute or look at schools etc.

Some of us live in cities that are also on the doorstep of beautiful countryside so I think I get the best of both worlds.
I grew up in the Lake District and it was the small mindedness that really did my head in, plus racism, nepotism. If your family weren't loaded and successful business people or upstanding then even the teachers gave you a hard time. Can't quite believe it now and something my children thankfully never had to suffer.

Public transport in a rural area is a catch 22. People don't use the bus because it's too infrequent and unreliable while the bus company can't afford to increase the frequency of the buses as not many people use it.

While it seems daft to move to a rural area with poor transport links if you can't drive many people don't have a choice as houses of the outskirts of an area are often cheaper and may provide the level of access that they wouldn't be able to get in a town. In an ideal world public transport in these areas need to be increased for those who are unable to drive.

Actually, rural housing is more expensive, not cheaper in the UK. In most countries, rural housing is indeed cheaper, but the UK is very unusual in this respect (for reasons I mentioned in my PP - the UK's dense population and tight green belts mean that most villages are within commuting distance of cities and to an extent can fulfil the same sort of functions that distant suburbs and exurbs fulfil in places like America).

https://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/rural-homes-britain-average-20-expensive-property-urban-areas/

The commonest reason for people not being able to drive in rural areas, IME, is when women who can't drive move there with their partners; I assume they are either OK with a very restricted lifestyle, or are in an unequitable relationship and their husbands are the ones who have pushed for the move to a rural area.