City or countryside, new construction or renovation – the agony of choice!?

I find it somewhat strange to now be thinking about what will happen when the children are at "disco age." Honestly? I would choose the place where I feel most comfortable with my partner. Where we want to live, what advantages we have. The issue with the children will resolve itself. In the end, I buy a house against my own preferences in the city and at 16 the child tells me that they’d rather play video games than go to the club.

I myself grew up in the countryside and was never asked. My wife and I have also bought a plot of land in a rural area (no visible neighbors in two directions).

But during my studies, I unfortunately had to experience that some people think differently. One kept hearing about the advantage for the children.

130k inhabitants is not a real big city! The decision should be even easier in that direction! You have the entire range of services right on your doorstep but also everything that makes a village special nearby! So it's better to drive out to the farm shop than to have to go to the city for every little thing. Most advocates of the village didn't build in the city due to lack of or unaffordable land! Sure, I wouldn't want to live in a city like Berlin either, but there are many medium-sized cities that everyone would prefer over any village!

130k inhabitants is not a real big city! The decision should be even easier in that direction! You have the entire range of offerings right outside your door but also everything that makes a village close by! So you’d rather drive out to the farm shop than have to go to the city for every little thing. Most supporters of village life have not built in the city because of lack of or unaffordable land! Sure, I wouldn’t want to live in a city like Berlin either, but there are many medium-sized cities that you would prefer over any village!

I also know city dwellers who would like to move to the countryside if it weren’t for the fact that everything—jobs and social circle—is located in the city. I wouldn’t like living in a medium-sized city as much as in a small town either. The next medium-sized city is less than 10 km away and the next big city 30-45 minutes away, depending on where you want to go. When I lived in the big city, I also thought I’d go out every evening, but in the end I only went out on weekends because I had no energy to do anything after work. Also, I lost a lot of time due to city traffic and traffic jams. Absolutely stressful... Here in the small town, there is everything you need daily. I find the hardware store and mall in the medium-sized city. You don’t need those that often anyway. And I walk one minute and I’m out in nature, can go mountain biking everywhere, and have all kinds of sports clubs in town. What more could you want? Even if the land in the big city had been cheaper than in the countryside, I would still rather move out of the big city again, especially with children it is much more relaxing. You know each other, you greet each other. You hardly get harassed here, have clean playgrounds, and as a woman or child you can walk home alone in the dark without fear. Well, you can pretty much forget about public transport here. However, even here there is an S-Bahn 10 minutes away running every 20 minutes to the big city. But since we have two cars anyway, we don’t need that. As a single or a couple in their 20s-30s, the advantages of the city were there, maybe they will be again at retirement, who knows. But with a family, the countryside has a lot more freedom and quality of life to offer than the anonymous, concreted-over big city.

130k inhabitants is not a real big city! The decision should be even easier that way! You have the entire range right on your doorstep but also everything that makes a village nearby! So rather drive out to the farm shop than having to go to the city for every little thing. Most advocates of the village haven’t built in the city due to lack of or unaffordable land! Sure, I wouldn’t want to live in a city like Berlin either, but there are many medium-sized cities that everyone prefers over any village!

That is simply an untenable accusation; there are plenty of villages that have good infrastructure, which makes it quite possible to do without the "trouble" of the city. Many villages in my area are well developed with grocery stores, doctors, pharmacies, restaurants, etc. The 40 minutes (whether by car or train) into the city of Hanover is a good compromise. I lived in a city when I was young and consciously decided that it’s not for me. And I am certainly not the absolute exception here.

Especially in Germany, I notice that even in small communities we often have very good infrastructure regarding schools, pharmacies, gas stations, and especially grocery stores. I lived myself for a long time in a community of 3,000 inhabitants, and there was a doctor, dentist, pharmacy, 2 bakers, butcher, supermarket, gas station, postal agency, farm shop, poultry breeding, primary schools-secondary school, train station (S-Bahn every 30 minutes), various clubs, and 15 km away two medium-sized towns each with 20,000 inhabitants, so there were hardware stores, hospitals, university, five grammar schools, one of them English-speaking, all kinds of shops, etc. Ultimately, it is of course possible to find something you can only really experience in a very large city, but I live by the principle of what is often available and what is rare, and concerts of international stars, among other options, are rather rare as is visiting special gastronomy, among other things. I do not want to convince anyone of the quality of life in the countryside, otherwise it would get rather tight out here; in addition, the city is simply noisier, which has now become a knockout criterion for me.

Most advocates of village life did not build in the city due to lack of or unaffordable land!

...that may be true, at least partially, but that does not exclude that it was still a good decision to move to the countryside, even if that was the reason. I have experienced that my colleagues, who lived near their workplace in the city, mostly lived in ways I never wanted to live and they all had cars and despite public transport could not accomplish anything on foot, despite expensive city location.

So you see, city is not equal to city and village not equal to village, and even within cities there are big differences. For me, it is important that a certain infrastructure is available. And certainly, rural areas are not as anonymous as big cities. That also has advantages and disadvantages. Children grow up well everywhere; we are not talking about problem neighborhoods.