The ridiculous violence in N.O.
I love the boonies. Couldn't pay me enough money to deal with the violence, traffic, and crowds city life has to offer! To each his own!!! :grin:
What bothers me about this sentiment is how you're making blanket assumptions that just aren't true.
Is there violence, traffic, and crowds in a city? Sure. More so than in the country? Of course.
But none of that slaps you in the face everyday. I live in one of the biggest cities in the world -- and yet I never deal with traffic, only deal with crowds when I choose to, and live in a very safe neighborhood. Same as when I lived in New Orleans -- I walked almost everywhere, knew most of my neighbors by name, and certainly wasn't afraid to go outside.
Saying that you don't like "city life" because of the violence, traffic and crowds is like me saying I don't like the "boonies" because of the meth, cow pies, and rednecks.
Now is there meth, cow pies, and rednecks in the boonies? Sure. More so than in the city? Of course.
Is it fair? No, of course not. Blanket statements like these just aren't the right way to look at the world.
If those are
really your reasons for living outside of the city, then I think it shows a real ignorance of what it is like to live in New Orleans (or really any urban area). I imagine that if you spent some time really thinking about it, you could find plenty of positive reasons for living where you do -- reasons that don't rest of blanket negative assumptions about the place you don't live.
DISCLAIMER: I don't actually dislike the boonies because of meth, cow pies, and rednecks. I was born and raised a suburban kid, and really enjoy getting out into the countryside. As you said: to each their own. There's nothing inherently wrong about preferring to live in the country (or the city or a suburb).
As Southerners don't we hate it when someone from the Northeast makes an uneducated remark about how we're all a bunch of inbred hicks? Or as a countryboy, doesn't it bother you when someone from the city makes a negative remark about the "boonies?" It goes both ways -- living wherever you do doesn't give you any moral high ground to disparage us fornicators in the city.