I was born and raised around Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. I joined the US Navy and ended up living in/around Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., and Seattle.
After getting out of the Navy, I moved to Portland, Oregon to work for Intel to work on the team making the first generation of Pentium 4 processors. Good pay, excellent benefits, the good life (or so I thought). Then the market crash of 2000 left me on unemployment.
Then the US Government made up the world-renowned [/sarcasm] operation known as the TSA (Transportation Security Agency). I was a Lead Screener at Portland's airport making a REALLY good income with pretty good government benefits. They then discovered that they had hired too many people and were going to be putting a lot of people on part-time. No way was I going to be able to afford that with an $1,100 a month rental.
So I looked for other airports to transfer to. Thief River Falls, Minnesota looked promising. So the wife and son and I packed up everything we owned (biggest damned truck U-haul rents, a car trailer for the wife's Neon packed to the brim, plus my Neon packed to the point of an almost collapsed suspension, gave away the Dodge Caravan to Salvation Army), drove halfway across this HUGE country to what to me was the absolute boonies!!
Between what we had saved up and what we inherited when my father passed away we were able to write a check for a small fixer-upper on 10 acres of wooded land. Two weeks later the US government decided my position was redundant and once again I was on unemployment.
But let me tell you, we have struck roots here, made probably about $25,000 worth of improvements to this house (for under $6,000), and are looking to move an entire other house in as an addition to expand this little shack (520 sq ft) out to 1,500 sq ft. We've cleared about 3 acres of land out of the wild and have what I would call a really pretty yard.
My autistic son has an enormous area to play in with his two Black Lab pups, I can work on my own car without annoying neighbors looking over my shoulder and complaining that I'm "devaluing thier property", I can go outside my back door (if I had one) and let off some steam with a couple hundred rounds through my Ruger 1022 (or a fewer, more expensive but oh so more satisfying rounds through my .303 Lee Enfield) and the only thing I have to worry about is if my neighbor wants to come over and share targets!!!
I have neighbors that are willing to bend over backwards to help me out if something goes wrong (like the engine block cracking on my wife's Neon and the neighbor let me clog up his garage for a month while I changed it out), and the same neighbors I will bend over backwards to help out if I can (10 acres of trees can supply a house with a LOT of firewood).
I now make less than half what I did at Intel, but I work for a great bunch of people at Woodmaster making a product I believe in. I drive 15 minutes through the pretty countryside to a job I like, and the only tiring part of my commute is the waving to all the folks along the way who wave first at me, knowing full well they have absolutely NO idea who I am, but just wave because they are that friendly!!
I agree with the poster above that said something about carrying a pistol every time they left the house. It got to the point living in Long Beach, California that there were three things I grabbed on the way out the door. My wallet, my keys, and my Ruger P89. Now the only reason to carry a firearm when travelling anywhere is if you hit one of the several deer you'll see on a 30 minute round trip and have to put it out of its misery!!!!
How many people living in the city can say that a friendly bird has made its nest in your snow shovel not 30 feet from thier front door? raises hand
How many city folk can say that they no longer use an alarm clock and that the birds chirping in the morning wakes them up? raises hand
How many city folk can honestly say they wouldn't annoy thier neighbors if they took the exhaust completely off thier truck and did a full carb tune up on it? (don't ask) raises hand
How many of you living in a city can honestly say they've hand fed a deer and a racoon in the same day? rasies hand
I wouldn't go back to living in a city EVER again. Yes, there are some things that make life a little harder. No cable TV, no REAL broadband internet, 5 miles away from the nearest natural gas line, 10 miles from shopping, 15 miles from the nearest law enforcement, 10 miles from the nearest hospital. But those are things that you VERY quickly get used to the idea of.
The full extent of a trafiic jam around here is if one of the farmers has to move his combine from one field to another and ends up taking up the whole road (plus some) for a couple minutes. Hell, at that point you get to meet up with someone new as they come out to see why you pulled into thier driveway!! 
I guess what I'm trying to say is that from my point of view if I was in your shoes, it would be a complete no brainer as to what to do. City life is for people that LIKE having to down 6 cups of coffee just to have the energy required to do thier job. Coffee is for relaxing with around here. City life is for people who LIKE taking an hour and a half to drive 20 miles - ON THE FREEWAY!!! I can drive 15 miles in 12 minutes if I so choose. City life is for people that LIKE paying $1,100 a month for an apartment that goes for $350 a month out here for the EXACT same thing!!!
All I know is city life is NOT for me. Nor my wife. Nor my son. The fact that my son can play outside with his dogs for 12 hours unsupervised if he so chooses to and we don't have to worry about him unless he trips or falls is beyond comprehension of some people living in a city. A 12 year old autistic child playing outside by himself?
? :O Around here, no problem. In Portland or Seattle? No way in hell!!
