It all comes down to how you want to spend your life energy. Exurban living has too high an overhead in money and time to suit me. I'm a fan of easy living. Over the years, I've liked it most when I had very short commutes and low housing expenses. The best situation I was ever in was when I lived in a rented apartment right across the street from my workplace. Free time galore, money piling up in the bank, a pool & hot tub I never had to clean, and quite a few stores & restaurants within easy walking distance.

I am moving to a new position where I work and need to get experience at that job before I move. Basically I am being promoted to what I really want to do without any experience. My school knows that and they know what I would like to do, so they are helping me do it.


I don't want to move because I would like to work at either at Carolina or Duke and I am at a great location for that.

Opinions on this probably vary quite a lot, and the answer probably depends a lot on the specifics of each alternative. But, I would tend to think that living close in to the city will tend to have a lower environmental impact overall. In the city, jobs and shopping are likely to be a lot closer to your home, making walking, cycling, and transit viable transportation options for more of your trips. You'll probably live in a smaller home, which took less materials to build, and which takes less energy to light and heat. All the infrastructure, like sewers, roads, powerlines, etc. are much more compact and more heavily utilized.

If you want to reduce your evironmental impact even further, I recommend buying food from a local farmer's market or CSA when possible. The food travels a lot less far, is often organic, and I find it to be fresher and tastier than what I can get from the supermarket. It does require a bit more creativity and flexibility though when you have to buy fruits and vegetables in season, rather that getting all your favorites flown in year round.

Another thing that you can do is to eat less meat, especially beef. It requires a lot more energy to grow a pound of beef than a pound of grain, and the industrialized meat production industry has large negative impacts on air quality, water quality, and public health.

I think what's going on here is more in your head than anything else. You sound wracked with guilt. No one knows your situation and no one can give you any directly applicable advice, just ideas, but I think you know that.

The best anyone can say is: if this then that. If you have an express bus route then you can buy a folder. If you can get a job closer to home then you can bike. You know these things already and you don't need anyone to tell you. You said you needed "ethical" help and your implied question was basically "should I not see my daughter nearly as much and should my wife have far less time to herself so I can lose the car?" That's a pretty asinine question to ask a bunch of strangers, so why ask it?

That bigger question was kind of couched in, "what else can I do then?" Well, I'm sure all the options pointed out have crossed your mind. I don't think you need someone to tell you you can take the bus if a bus exists where you're going. I think you're just kind of projecting your guilt. Hoping against hope that maybe something magical might be able to save you.

And now you ask which is more responsible, living in the country or living in the city? That's not a question with an answer, you could argue either one till the end of time. No one can tell you. No one knows your wife and kid, no one knows what your job is, what your expertise is, what other prospects you might have, what your financial situation is, how that might effect the job and housing, etc. No one knows what family dynamic exists, no one knows you. These aren't really ethical questions you're asking, for the most part. You're not asking "is it wrong to", "is it right to", well, you sort of are, but the questions are so personal they can't be answered. Maybe this really is about what's right and wrong. Maybe you see questions re: sustainability, low-impact living, etc., as pretty binary, and you're afraid you're doing it wrong. In that case my opinion is you're looking at it the wrong way. There's always a context in which we live and laregly you can only decide what's wrong or what's right depending on your context. I suspect you're having a bit of a war with yourself, over who knows what, and you're projecting this as an ethical question re: living low-impact because you're having a hard time dealing with it and you'd much rather not have it be up to you. It'd be much easier if it were a question a bunch of strangers could weigh in on.

I don't think it is. I may be completely wrong, completely off-base about all of this, and I don't mean to offend at all, but I'll bet you're avoiding what it is you're actually trying to deal with. Maybe you hate your commute, or your job, or maybe you're kind of stuck where you are for a while and you can barely stand it and you don't know what to do. Maybe you're kind of miserable right now to the point where you dream about ditching the car, or job, or whatever just to get some peace of mind, but you know it's wrong to put that on your family so you're kind of fishing for some way to to do it, to feel better, and not feel guilty about it. No one can do that for you and I think you know that.

Again, I might be completely off-base and just making as ass of myself, but still, you're not asking ethical questions. The answers you could get are far too dependent on the context you're in to simply fall into the larger publics' philosophy of what's right and what's wrong.

Overall you're right, I do feel really guilty about my commute.

What I hoped for was people who are parents' perspective on sacrificing time with family to benefit the earth, vs. sacrificing the earth to benefit family time. Not unreasonable or asinine to ask.

Secondly, the city vs. sustainable country living question, I was just curious as to what others thought. I assumed that maybe someone has thought through this before and had an informed perspective.

I've considered the city vs. country living problem. In fact, it's a hot issue for me right now. My significant other wants to live in the country but I'm already dug in pretty good at my condo in the city.

I don't think there's any way around the fact that country living makes you totally car & truck dependent. Whatever you manage to achieve in the way of sustainability and self reliance has to be balanced against that.

On the other hand, I know a few folks who have homesteaded for many years in the country. One pattern I've seen is to start out with pretty much raw land and a well, then build up everything else themselves. In 20, 30 years tops they have a homestead that suits them with gardens, pastures, cows, barns, hobby shops, the whole deal. But they are absolutely car dependent and they're always working. Not the life for a lazy guy like me.

Rule of thumb: Work where you live / Live where you work. To do anything else is to enact a toll on yourself, your family, and the environment. If you were willing to live within a reasonable commuting distance from work then you might just find that car-lite enhances family time.

Two anecdotes:
Nearly every morning, along a wooded MUP trail, I pass a father pulling a trailer taking his son to daycare. As I pass them I overhear them chattering about the birds and such around them. Compare the quality of that interaction with the typical chauffeuring of junior in the back of some luxury SUV. Dad has traffic reports on in the front while Junior watches cartoons on the DVD player in the back.

A while back, in these very forums, A father related what a joy grocery shopping by bike was with the family. He pulled the trailer while his kids "hovered around the mother ship" acting out some Star Wars escapade. It made what is normally a dull chore for most families into a fun outing.

If you intend to become a subsistence farmer, by all means go out and live on the land. Otherwise, just resign yourself to the simple fact that living the bucolic life your wife dreams about (and I don't blame her for wanting to do it) is going to have a much bigger impact on the biosphere than living closer in and going without a car. If you live in the country, being a modern American, you'll most likely still be reliant on businesses to fulfill your basic needs, and you'll not only deal with longer commutes, you'll have larger utility bills, you'll spend more time in the car just to amuse yourself and your family, you'll spend less time with your kids because you'll be out mowing grass and fixing things on your time off, and you'll possibly be dealing with a septic system.

stevep,
I am a bit ahead of you in the parenting game (both of mine are in college) I made several decisions when mine were very young, some good and some not so good. But I would lean towards spending time with the family and the children. I used to ride mine to school, and I took them camping once a month regardless. Both are in their 20's and still can remember various details of those trips and times together. When they were in the 5th and 6th grade I took a job that put me on the road and away from them. The money was much better but that will never make up for the time I lost with them. I also would look at not moving out to the sticks unless you can find a job near by. If you move far enough out you will have to drive most places for even the most mundane things. My favorite place to live would be a smaller house in an older established neighborhood that hasn't gone ape**** with covenants. I lived in one where I could bike to work, have a garden and work on my toys with minimal interference from neighbors and authorities.

Another issue is going to be compromising with your spouse. Whatever you do "If mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy". Only you will know about that and what will and won't work. My ex was never happy regardless of the situation, that is why she is an ex. My wife now wants both of us to be happy and is fairly flexible (we both are).

Aaron