Making Peace with the Downsides of Where You Live

Why accepting unfixable downsides is key to thriving where you are

Many people have been making geographic moves. Some are looking for cheaper housing. Some for better governance. Some for politically or culturally like-minded neighbors. Some for lifestyle. Some for weather. Some for economic opportunity.

Some movers are trying to escape something they think is negative about the place they currently live, whether that be prices, politics, crime, dysfunction, or something else.

The grass often does look greener on the other side. I travel regularly, and often find many amazing qualities about the places I visit. There are many that seemed like they could be amazing places to live, sometimes even an upgrade from where I was living at the time.

But the reality is that just like every person has a rap sheet, every place has its negatives, too.

Wherever we choose to live, we have to make peace with the downsides that aren’t likely to change.

I’m not saying we can’t strive to make our hometown better. But realistically, some negatives are just written into the DNA of a place. They aren’t likely to change. If you let them bother you too much, you’ll just be banging your head against the wall in frustration. You might even be thinking about moving, even though any new place you go to is going to have its own set of negatives.

Let me give you some examples from places I’ve lived.

I used to live in Chicago. It’s a great city that played a very formative role in my life. But it’s also notorious for political corruption. I don’t think the city’s corrupt culture is going to change anytime soon. Chicago also has a chip on its shoulder about being the “second city.” As Brad Tusk, a New Yorker who did a stint as the chief deputy to disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich put it:

Chicago calls itself the Second City for a reason. They see themselves as a rival of New York City, and while they won’t go so far as to argue the two cities are equivalents, they see it as a close call. Of course, not a single New Yorker feels any rivalry with Chicago whatsoever. (Whenever someone would visit us from New York, their reaction was always a pleasant surprise, not because they had low expectations of Chicago, but because what Chicago is like had never once crossed their minds).

I also lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which might be the greatest neighborhood in the world. It’s also very expensive. Most apartments don’t have air conditioning, so you’ll have to install a window unit. Most buildings don’t have any laundry, so you’ll probably be using a laundry service at a cost of a few hundred bucks a month. And while NYC has good restaurants, most of them are not on the UWS, which is well known for mediocre food. Social life can also be difficult in NYC and it can be tough to make friends there. None of those things is likely to change anytime soon.

I live in the Indianapolis area now. As you know, I’m always championing Carmel, the actual city I live in. But you won’t be surprised to hear that this area has winters and is flat, without much interesting geography. It’s also very Middle America - the Midwest, not the coasts. Indiana actively suppresses ambition and the pursuit of excellence, which might be the trait I like the least about it. Unfortunately, it’s not one that I’m likely to be able to change.

Dealing with the negatives of cities has always been a struggle for me because I’m something of a perfectionist and I’m always thinking about the possibilities of what could be if we just did things differently.

Perhaps that’s why natural defects bother us less than cultural ones. We can understand that no city can control its weather or geographic setting. But the things that seem most driven by human choice drive us crazy.

It’s great to try to fix things. It’s also ok to do some complaining about things. Bonding over the sorry state of public transit is a longstanding way people bond together in many cities, for example. Talking about the performance, especially the poor performance, of your city’s sports teams can play a similar role.

But you’ve got to be careful not to let the unfixables drive you insane, to make you bloody yourself beating your head against the wall.

This is a lesson I need to hear as much as all of you. No matter where we live, there are going to be things that get under our skin. We must learn to navigate them with resilience and grace.

If you didn’t already read it, check out my toolkit for picking a place to live.

Cover image: A BART train in San Francisco by Wikimedia/Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 4.0