Our ideal place to live - a wishlist
As I mentioned previously, we are quite happy with where we live right now.
However, our son will start school in three years. And unfortunately, staying would mean having to send him to a public school with severe problems. That’s not something we are willing to do, so it is time to consider moving elsewhere.
But due to living in a rent controlled area, any move will cause our rent to triple or even quadruple.
If we are going to spend so much more money on rent, then we want the move to bring us other benefits as well.
To help us decide, we come up with the following wishlist for our new district:
- A great primary school: Most schools around here are all-day schools, but I don’t want my kids to spend all day in school (especially in their first few years). I’d rather have them back at home early, so that we have plenty of time for playing outside with them, even in the short winter days. In addition, I want the school to have a nice courtyard with lots of time for play. Of course, the school should score well in public inspections too.
- Access to nature: As a family, we love spending time in the nearby public park, be it playground dates, summer picnic in a tree’s shade, practicing bicycle riding or spotting animals. Wherever we move, we want a similarly sized public park nearby. On top of that, we want streets and bicycle corridors lined with trees – passing through those just feels amazing and makes me happy, especially in comparison to the otherwise concrete-packed scenery of a big city.
- Close to grandparents: Our son loves his grandparents and they are already an important part of his life. They get to meet each other at least once a week, which is possible it takes us about an hour to get there with public transport. Ideally, we can cut that time down to half an hour or less.
- Designed for pedestrians: The district we live in is really designed for cars, which seems to invite a particular kind of driver: always speeding, looking on their mobile phones while driving, overtaking others in dangerous situations, parking everywhere on the sidewalks, polluting everything with giant cars etc. I have to cross two such streets to drop my son of at daycare, and there’s an almost accident at least once a week. I don’t want that anymore.
- Walkable: Pretty much everything we need is already within a radius of 15 minutes of walking (work, supermarkets, daycare, playgrounds, parks, doctors, etc). This saves an enormous amount of time and I want to hang on to that.
- Close to public transport: Our city has a lot to offer, but things are far apart. Without public transport, it is difficult to get anywhere. Since we want to keep meeting our friends and do our hobbies, we are looking at locations that have a major train station within a radius of ten minutes of walking.
- Less loud: Although we live in a calm street (almost no car traffic, no bars or restaurants), we still live in a noisy district. Speeding cars, motorcycles, ambulances and the occasional shouting drunkard make it hard to find a quiet moment. Without kids, this didn’t bother me. But now it drives me crazy, especially while I’m trying to keep my baby daughter asleep in her stroller. I want our new district to be more quiet.
- Clean: It would be really nice to reduce the amount of dog shit, garbage bags, cigarette buts and old furniture thrown everywhere (and in particular on playgrounds). I’d love to live in a neighborhood where other people too take care of their surroundings.
I realize how unlikely it is for us to find a new district that will bring all these benefits at an affordable price.
But even if we won’t find such a place, this list will help us shift through the available options and come to a better decision.
Who knows though? Perhaps we will get lucky and find just the ideal place for our family.