my wife and i moved last summer in anticipation of the birth of our first child (we needed more space). she took a new job where she works from home, so that kinda opened things up for us in terms of where we could live.

we moved from our small 1-bedroom condo in downtown chicago to a much bigger 2 bedroom condo on the far northside of the city so that i could be closer to my job in evanston (just north of the city). it cut my one-way commute distance from 15 miles down to only 5 miles. i sometimes miss the longer commuting rides, but i love having the extra 80 minutes of time back in my day to spend with my family, especially my little baby girl who is the most amazing little baby girl in the entire history of little baby girls (there's a chance i might be a tad biased).

so yeah, you could say i kinda designed my life for what's important to me at the moment.



and oh yeah, i almost forgot, i rarely wear suits (someone's either getting married or buried). i thought i should mention that because it's apparently also relevant to the thread topic.

Evanston is a great place. It struck me as a good compromise between urban and suburban living.

I no longer own a suit but I have a couple different sport coats that I use when necessary. I do own a tux FWIW.

to clarify, we didn't move to evasnton, that's just where my job is. we're still in the city, in the edgewater neighborhood on the far northside.

i could see us possibly ending up long term in a community like evanston with that hard to find urban/suburban mix, but i wasn't ready to leave the city.

in the 6 months that we've lived in edgewater now, i've really come to LOVE it! so maybe we'll just stay put here for the long haul, who knows?

We're in the same boat and enjoy living in between London and Cambridge. If one can find a market village that has retained it's original charm (we think we did), one can have a pleasant experience around the house, be in central London in 25 mins or in Cambridge in 40 mins.

However, most of the money seems to have also realised this over the last few years, driving prices up quite significantly (roughly 20-fold over the last 10 years!)

I wish I had more occasion to wear a suit. My job is very casual dress, so even when I wear some nice pants and a sweater, I tend to get odd looks/coworkers asking if I am going to a job interview (on the plus side...it keeps people on their toes).

For people who don't understand dressing up all the time...it's different in Europe. From my limited experience across the pond, fits are also trimmer.

I definitely can't hit 12 miles in 40 minutes when commuting. It takes me about 42 minutes of riding to do 11, then add on time for traffic lights and such. I usually average around 14 mph, sometimes faster sometimes slower. I'm also hardly ever trying to push myself. Loaded down with clothes, shoes and lunch, my commuter is probably over 15 lbs heavier than my road bike, which I have no problem keeping around an 18 mph avg.

I think around 8 miles sounds about perfect. Long enough where I still get over an hour of cardio in the day, but short enough where I don't feel burnt out after a few days in a row

I recently got married and did not wear a suit.

I also recently bought an old tractor and I plan to wear a suit when I drive it. Just like Oliver Douglas, "Farm livin' is the life for me"

That's awesome, congrats. What are you planning to grow?

Thanks.

We are hoping to grow old, but other than that, there are no specific plans to grow anything else. The tractor is to plow snow, haul and level gravel (for driveway) and haul wood and pull a mower.

Hilariously, given this thread, I received two interviews today!!!! Perhaps, because it's a Monday.

One in Vienna, so I'll have to brush up on my German and go with tight jeans, pointy shoes, suit jacket and shirt (above) but no tie:


The other is in Solent (as they say):

Solent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

South Hampshire, so I'll have to brush up on my South Hampshirian!

I'm curious, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to... do you move around so much because the research contracts are always temporary, because it's the way to move up in pay/prestige, or do you just have a restless spirit that compels you to travel and see the world?

It's the fastest way to move up.

Also, it's the classic two-body problem. One person in the relationship always has the better job and the other follows. Right now my gf has a perm contract at the hottest biotech in Europe, so I'm try to move down to her in the London area. We're both on permanent contract, which is a very strong negotiating position, but does limit the number of jobs.

If I get this position, we'd stay in the London area for 5 years or so and only apply within commuting distance.

However, the schools in the UK are utter poo, so we'd like to head back to the continent before any children are 5 or so. That way they'd have Oxford English and German from birth and would get whatever was spoken where we'd move too.

Need to make the babies first though, once we're together!

actually .. maybe it's not commutable according to this ol' chap

WARNING: slight profanity due to British traffic

It's different in metropolitan Europe. Rural Europeans, like rural Americans don't dress up as often. Metropolitan Europeans do tend to dress more dapper than metropolitan Americans though.

Is there a rural Europe? Whole countries are urbanised, the Netherlands for example.

examples:

Suits make a guy look older and too serious. Suits make you look sedentary. Suits make you look like you a type of guy who is afraid to get his hands dirty. Wearing a suit just to impress people is vanity.
A 45 year old guy with a suit looks like a 65 year old
A 45 year old guy dressed in Adidas track suit or Underarmor looks like a 25 year old.
The type of clothing you wear can tell a lot about who you are and/or what your priorities are in life.

Is that a serious question? Yes, absolutely. France, Spain, Italy, Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Germany...etc. all have rural areas.

Considering my family is entirely comprised of people that come from rural Europe, I'd say yep.

Seems like your experience in Europe is limited to the urbanized western portion? Even England has rural areas...

There's a whole world outside of the city if you ever bother to step out. Great cycling, too.

If it wasn't for women...There wouldn't be suits....

You can't tell a book by it's cover,works for people also......

Living on the family "farm" places some restraints, but also allows us to live where would otherwise be far beyond our means. The proximity of home and work is mostly luck. Under different circumstances, commute distance would be a major consideration for me, but my wife's job isn't in a set location and wouldn't make a difference.

Having lived in Europe for almost 5 years, I noticed folks there are more likely to dress up, but there are still plenty who dress casually or are total slobs too.

I don't own a suit and never wear one even for funerals or weddings, I do have a tweed jacket for when I dress up, but I'm mostly thrift store "LL Bean" casual. I find people who put too much emphasis on fashion to be shallow and pretentious, personally preferring a happy median. The current trend of tight and short is uncomfortable and unappealing to me.

In my hometown, Novi Sad, women especially are almost always dressed up, make up, and (at least in my oppinion) the most beautiful of all the women I've seen. In the north of Italy people also dress (both women and men) very elegantly. While in Germany they are a lot more relaxed, casual.


Suits make men appear more serious, and more handsome. At least in the eyes of a vast majority of population. I don't wear suits, but if my income depended on working with people, I probably would.

Me too. I just wore a suit yesterday that I bought to attend my sister's wedding. Her daughter is married now.

+1

The Balkans produce some nice ladies! My gf's family was from southern Hungary and moved to Germany after WWII.

+1

A well-cut makes men look good. A normal suit is kind of boring and standard and it's looks forced in my opinion. Something different helps people stand out, which can be quiet attractive if done correctly.

Mine was given to me by my dad when I was 21. I had it tailored a bit and it still fits great.

The true cost of commuting isn't close to whats listed in that article.


The alternative I would have recommended to this couple, if they had asked my opinion, would be to make sure their house is within biking distance of both jobs, immediately sell both borrowed cars and replace them with a single ten-year-old manual transmission hatchback, and finally, let the good times roll.

What an absurd recommendation. Thank goodness this guy doesn’t get paid to consult as this sort of advice is worthless. It assumes people are mobile in their careers, which often times couldn’t be less accurate.




“Schools” are often used as an excuse as well, but until you’ve reviewed every close-to-work school personally and interviewed the principal, you might be making quite a bad trade-off for your kids. What’s better – higher standardized test scores and more rich kids, or real-world diversity and an extra two hours to spend with Mom and Dad every day reading books?

Why is it one or the other? I work 18 miles from home. My commute is 21 minutes. I live in a city.
If I didn’t own a car and biked or walked to work, I would have to live within about 3 miles of my work to have the same commute- 20 minutes. That severely limits the possible places I could work, if I stayed in my current home. Or it would mean we would need to sell a house and buy a new one all for a job- which is often times temporary in today’s economic reality.
So instead, I drive so I get the job I want and the schools I want. And my commute is the same as if I worked within a few miles of home and biked.
I get to spend the same amount of time with my kids and they are able to enjoy an education where they arent having to overcome the typical distractions that take away from learning in a poor neighborhood. For the record, my kids are in public school and in one of the most socioeconomically diverse schools in the region.
And actually, my commute is shorter since I pick my kids up after work. If I bike commuted, I would have to ride home to get the car to then pick them up. Instead, I just drive to pick them up on the way home. I have MORE time with them this way.
How this writer doesn’t address the realities of family life such as daycare and time commitments for youth activities is obvious- either he didn’t even think of them, or he had to ignore them since they don’t help his argument.



Public transit, although an afterthought in most of the US, is great if it’s available to you, because you get your brain and your hands back for the purpose of getting some of your day’s work done while enroute.

So he makes the argument that working close to home will free up time to spend with kids, and then cites public transit as an option? That’s nuts! With public transit, you have to conform to the schedule of the bus/train. You have less flexibility which often times doesn’t work well for families with busy kids(most families have busy kids). Furthermore, you are often times on a longer than otherwise possible schedule due to bus stops, walking to the stop/station, etc.




This article is as useful as those filler articles in home décor magazines that tell you 8 ways to creatively use felt.