Leaving Boston
As I move into my tenth year living in Boston I have found myself questioning whether or not this is the place I want to live. This isn’t anything new, though; I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I miss the simple pleasures of suburbia – mainly the outdoors, lack of traffic and congestion, and sense of community. It could be that the city life, in general, isn’t for me. Maybe it’s even simpler than that – I just need a change. Whatever the reason, I’m confident that it’s time to move on. This presents several challenges, difficult choices, and logistical hurdles. Here, I’ll just put them out there for my own evaluation but, more importantly for yours in the form of suggestion. Since finding an actual place to live is the easy part (that is, when you are leaving the city) I’ll begin with the first concern: getting from point A to point B…
1. Transportation
I’ve done the commuting gig before, and now I can say that I’ve done the “car-less” gig as well. I’ve also live in the surrounding communities of Boston – the medium where you are still “in the Boston area”, but far enough so that you can park when going grocery shopping. So, I’ve ran the spectrum and it truly evens out financially in the long term. However, there is the part of investment – buying a car (since I sold mine when I moved to Mission Hill). This is something that I will need to plan for and I know from experience that it is not cheap when you start from zero. I’ve thought about places near the commuter rail as a means to bridge my way from car-less to car without the concomitant financial constraint of moving into a new place. It’s sub-optimal, but perhaps doable and maybe even necessary. So, how about it?
As I move into my tenth year living in Boston I have found myself questioning whether or not this is the place I want to live. This isn’t anything new, though; I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I miss the simple pleasures of suburbia – mainly the outdoors, lack of traffic and congestion, and sense of community. It could be that the city life, in general, isn’t for me. Maybe it’s even simpler than that – I just need a change. Whatever the reason, I’m confident that it’s time to move on. This presents several challenges, difficult choices, and logistical hurdles. Here, I’ll just put them out there for my own evaluation but, more importantly for yours in the form of suggestion. Since finding an actual place to live is the easy part (that is, when you are leaving the city) I’ll begin with the first concern: getting from point A to point B…
1. Transportation
I’ve done the commuting gig before, and now I can say that I’ve done the “car-less” gig as well. I’ve also live in the surrounding communities of Boston – the medium where you are still “in the Boston area”, but far enough so that you can park when going grocery shopping. So, I’ve ran the spectrum and it truly evens out financially in the long term. However, there is the part of investment – buying a car (since I sold mine when I moved to Mission Hill). This is something that I will need to plan for and I know from experience that it is not cheap when you start from zero. I’ve thought about places near the commuter rail as a means to bridge my way from car-less to car without the concomitant financial constraint of moving into a new place. It’s sub-optimal, but perhaps doable and maybe even necessary. So, how about it?
