What do you all think about this age old urban vs rural living debate in light of the crisis (crises) in the US right now?
Still out in the country, still happy out here. The Frugalwoods article was pretty solid, and definitely covers most of it - you have to be able to do stuff yourself, which is a steep learning curve if you've not grown up doing that sort of thing. Kids are a bit bored not leaving the property, but my son worked out how to climb up on the tractor by himself, so has been spending most of his time up there lately...
I'm sort of in a best of all worlds situation, though, because I work remotely from the property (and have been doing so for... oh, about 4 years now - the whole WFH thing was literally no change for me, and I have the best office I could imagine for my needs). We just don't have to leave the property that often, and have family nearby enough to walk to.
Also, I disagree that rural areas are necessarily cheaper than cities overall. Yeah, the housing is typically cheaper but transportation costs will eat you alive due to the mileage, wear and tear, and the increased likelihood that you’ll wreck your car in a deer encounter. There are fewer stores so groceries are often more expensive. And since things are so spread out you have fewer choices.
Deer depend on where you live. Not a real concern out in the mountain west.
If your transportation costs are eating the difference in housing costs, you need to re-evaluate your transportation choices. Yes, distances are longer, but travel speeds are higher and in most areas, a used EV or PHEV really drives down the operating costs.
I figure running costs on our Volt, per-mile, are in the $0.07-$0.08/mi range. $0.03/mi in energy, $0.025/mi in tires (pessimistic - $1000 for 40k mile tires, so likely lower in reality, but I don't have enough miles to get good numbers as it came with used tires), and assorted other maintenance costs for infrequent oil changes and filters. At 12k miles/yr, that's under $1000 in per-mile operating costs, plus the regular fixed costs (registration, insurance, etc). My truck costs a good chunk of that, for rather radically fewer miles (though far more heavily loaded - I can't haul a few thousand pounds of concrete, lumber, or gravel with the car - which is part of why we have the car we have, because it doesn't need to do that).
Sure, if I went with the Escalade the local dealerships keep sending me marketing material for, at $800/mo and 15mpg, and we put all our miles on that, transportation costs would be high, but... if you do it sanely, it's just not that bad.
Of course, lately, our transportation costs have cratered. We've not put gas in anything since about March, and the car is occasionally running the engine in maintenance mode to keep oil splashed around everything.
If you try and import city life out to a rural area, yeah, it's going to suck. We don't go to downtown Boise very often (and haven't been there since about Feb, given all the stuff going on with covid), but we enjoy our time out here. The kids chase around the driveway with a PowerWheels (which now costs more than some of the cars I've owned... lithium pack, variable throttle, etc), play on the swings, in the sandbox, build stuff with scrap pieces of lumber, dig in the dirt, we go on walks... I can't complain.