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7 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 28 Mar \ parent \ on: City vs Country AskSN
Imagine I compared how long it takes to get to a great restaurant. Let's say it's a two minute walk in the city vs a two hour drive in the country. Would it make sense to ask if the country is 60x better?
You have to include everything that impacts quality of life (way too many things to list). The easiest proxy would be total cost of living as a fraction of attainable salary (or something like that). I doubt you could get to 10x with that comparison, but maybe 5x is realistic.
Do people find city living to be 5x better than country? Apparently they do, since most people make that choice (revealed preference).
In your restaurant example, it would make sense to ask that question but I think you meant to say “are cities 60x better?”
it’s not true for all rural properties, but you can find many small towns where food/energy/travel times/hospital/schools/internet are similar
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It’s the same as your question. This one factor is way cheaper in the city, so the question is whether the country is enough better to justify the cost difference.
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Yeah I hear you on the different things one must consider, and FWIW I think cities are great… but I don’t think people ever really do the math to compare rural and city property costs when they buy land.
Instead of valuing things on a sq. ft basis, the rural vs. urban question is often presented to buyers as $1M for a city home, $500K for a rural home.
Land area is almost never calculated or considered, only indoor home area.
The big assumption today is that unless you’re going to start a farm in the country, the additional land on your property is basically valued at $0.
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I often encourage friends and family to move, when they're complaining about cost of living, so I do appreciate where you're coming from.
The land point isn't straightforward either, because there's so much common/public land in the city. It's not like you're stuck in your apartment (aside from Covid). For that extra land to matter to you, you need to value ownership specifically.