Today while I was chatting with someone about the sorts of places that they found appealing to live, and the reasons for this, I was struck by something about my own places of residence that I had never realized, and which is something that I have found puzzling as a result. Over the course of my life, I have lived in rural areas (mostly in my childhood), suburban areas, and cities, but I have always lived within an hour of a major city and an international airport. Though the world is a large place and I have certainly traveled to many places, some of which are pretty remote and unusual, I have never lived in anywhere that could be considered to be remote at all. Even when I lived in the country, I was always close to transportation networks that I and my family could access, was always within cheering distance of sports teams, always within the larger cultural sphere of a city that could offer something to me if I chose to take advantage of it, even though I did not always choose to do so.

What does this mean? Not only what does it mean to have always lived in a major metropolitan area, but what does it mean to not be aware that one has always lived in the orbit of a city, even when one has lived in the country and even when one’s own personal life has been dramatically shaped by that experience? My jobs and the jobs of those around me have been shaped by being in metropolitan areas. Certainly my interest in sports and culture, in being around good libraries, in being able to enjoy cultural opportunities like orchestras and movie theaters and even seeing the occasional opera or stage play, in being able to have easy access to airports for travel or concert venues, has been profoundly shaped by being close enough to these places to be able to enjoy them. Even being relatively close to highways and airports, and never living too far removed from them, has shaped my own belief in my ability to travel at relatively high speeds whenever I felt it worthwhile or necessary to do so. This sort of thing would have been much harder to do in an area that was particularly remote, where it would have been less clear in what area I was, or what there was to be done there or around there.

To be sure, some of the places I have lived have seemed somewhat dull, but there was always the chance to go somewhere and do something if there was the need to do so or even the strong desire to do so. Nowhere was too far removed from a mall that it was impossible to shop should an item be necessary. Nowhere was too far removed from a bookstore or a library that books were impossible to procure. Nowhere was too far removed from a highway or an airport that allowed access to another place. Nowhere was so far away from church that it was impossible to get there and back again in a reasonable amount of time. These are not things that everyone can say. If I have never particularly enjoyed being in the center of everything, at the very least I have always enjoyed being close enough to government offices, business districts, cultural opportunities, and transportation networks to do what I wanted when I wanted, without feeling deprived of anything that was necessary for a good life. If I have often enjoyed the feeling of enjoying space and a bit of privacy, I have also enjoyed the knowledge that should I need to involve myself in the larger world around me, that world was at the same time never too far away.

This has even influenced the way I have thought of imaginary societies. When I have constructed for myself imaginary nations and peoples, these people have always been organized and settled societies, with their own cities, towns, and villages, their own self-government, their own combination of business, government, culture, and education in ways that were accessible to the people in surrounding areas. It never occurred to me to create isolated communities without the amenities of life, so that even the small towns I pictured would have a grange of some kind that would serve as a place for art classes or dance classes or music performance, would have some sort of commons set aside for banks and courthouses and marketplaces, and some kind of links with the outside world that would provide what was missing in the local area, as well as the possibility of travel and communication to keep people connected together whenever they would wish. Even those small towns and cities I have traveled to have been appealing to me only if they served as some sort of place where one could find culture and education as well as local businesses to enjoy and some means of travel to other places where I would want to go. There have been museums and other historical places to find, evidence that not only I have found it to be a place worth gathering but that other people have already gathered there not only in the present but in the past as well. Is that a common experience, that we long to be places where others already are, and if we want space for ourselves, we still want to be close enough to enjoy all that makes life enjoyable and better?