The problem with living on the edge of the countryside is that eventually somebody else builds on the countryside part and you’re just living in another crappy suburb.
Exactly, this mindset just creates more suburbs, roads, cars, unwalkable districts, etc.
Houses with gardens are immoral, you should either commit to being a farmer, or live in a flat if you’ve got any sense.
Unhinged take
Yes.
Sweet damn you people must literally be sobbing all the fucking time. Explain to me the injustices of… Gardening is it now?
The issue is not gardening, it is taking more land from nature. That’s actually the first reason for biodiversity loss way before any kind of pollution we may produce. So the smallest is the ground footprint of your place the less you play a role in that, hence why an apartment in a tall building is best on that matter. Extended suburbs with gardens are the worst on that matter.
well i might be wrong about this but last time i checked all infrastructure of modern society (and i assume that includes houses and cities) takes up about 3% of our land. That is not so much, if you compare it to agriculture which takes up much more (i forgot the exact number). So i would argue that gardens aren’t the biggest problem.
Frankly, if you have ten billion people on a planet, of course it’s gonna impact the environment. There is no way to avoid that. I wouldn’t start nitpicking with whether people can have a garden or not, though. A garden can help people with a fresh source of vegetables which can improve health and wellbeing, and strengthen independence and community-building, maybe, if the garden is shared or vegetables are distributed among neighbours. It also reduces the transport distance for vegetables which saves on emissions. So, a garden can be a meaningful part of human life, i’d argue.
We need to rationalize land usage to succeed in the environmental transition. Producing food is definitely a good reason. If one uses its garden as well as a farmer would to produce food, then that would not be a problem. But I think the vast majority of garden owners don’t, so it would be more reasonable to give back this land for farming or leave it to nature.
Yes, 10 billion people are going to have an impact, but the impact on land usage is not the same if they live in suburbs of individual houses with gardens or in five stories apartment buildings withing walkable cities with public transportation.
About the benefits of the gardening activities, cities also offer shared gardening spaces, so people who actually want to garden can do it.
Is rural living also immortal to you? At least near me the economics of becoming a farmer aren’t terrible but lots of them have second jobs.
My advice in that case is to immediately plant some trees around the perimeter of your property and turn it into a little isolated grove
A man grove, with a man cave.
Listed at only $4.3M
Everybody wants that edge of city and country feel. It makes them feel like they don’t live in the city but they still have all the amenities a city offers close by. And thus the Suburban experiment was born and has ultimately destroyed north american cities and created an affordability crisis for housing.
well you can’t blame it all on “living on the edge of a city”. IMO HOAs have done a substantial part of the harm, creating the sterile and hostile-to-teenage-life experience, and then there’s zoning laws which make it impossible to get communal activity, like a small bar or club right between the houses, and then there’s the lack of public transport …
I have dreamed of this lifestyle for over 20 years, and just moved here a few months ago.
Septic is installed, we live in an RV. Just got this land leveled and ready to move the RV into place next to the storage containers we have. Right across the driveway will be a large garden area, but right now we only have a compost pile so far.
A neighbor said they will help us with chickens, so we only need some fence and feed. Things move slowly, but we are excited to jump into this lifestyle. Fresh air and beautiful views.
What do you do for water?
Currently getting water from a purification machine at the store, it’s expensive but we use very little right now. (42 cents per gallon)
We just got a 2,500 gallon tank, after I finish the plumbing I plan to order water delivery, should be about $200 to fill the tank. (Less than 1 cent per gallon)
After that I’m making a roof and collecting rain water. (Free water)
If you don’t mind me asking. Where are you located that you are able to do this?
Arizona has several counties that are not as strict and allow a lot of alternative living options.
how far away does the water delivery come from?
I think it’s a local company, Met them at a local event for the alternative buildings and living off grid. We also met a lot of YouTubers there, it was super chill.
When I call them, I want to ask if it’s from a well, is it drinkable, etc. I do have filters and the UV light for water that I will add eventually.
What do u do for a living
I run a few online businesses (streaming, YouTube, eBay), but had to put all that on hold as we were moving and getting settled here. Just about out of our savings, but we are very close to starting the business back up. I think maybe 1-2 weeks.
There is always set backs working here off grid, example is yesterday I was cleaning land to move the RV and the track came off the excavator. It looks like a simple fix on YouTube but it’s raining now lol
One thing is missing. Family… A loving partner, maybe some years pass and some children…
Bought 5 acres (with 1.5 of those acres flat on a hill) about ~20 min outside a medium city, ~1 hour equidistant from 2 very large cities. Geotechnical engineers have been to the property, report submitted to the county (took months). Sewage engineers have been out to the property and approved the drain field (took weeks). Well will be drilled once the county approves the build site. It’s slow going but it will be worth it in the end! My only fear is trump cancelling the rural broadband fund as I am slated to get the fiber cable run to my property line within a year. Staying with starlink for longer will not be awesome, but oh well, sacrifice.
What counts as a big garden, I would like bigger but my bungalow is on a 150m² total property area, 60m² of that is the indoor area. Spent quite a bit to have the concrete paved across the entire garden removed and I did all the labour myself with a sledgehammer. IIRC it was 8m³ of that crap.
Now mine is the only house on the street that you can see real bees at. My “lawn is untidy”? Fuck off, that is a meadow and it is glorious! As I am British there is no HOA for you to cry to. I am free to make the bees happy.
Unless it gets to the point I am blocking out the sun to the houses nearby there is fuck all anyone can do about my garden.
Raising a toast to you and your bee friends
I bought bee flower seeds, its a pretty large container (think half a Pringles can). I just sprinkle them around in my neighborhood. 😁. Can’t wait for the day weird flowers are starting to popup everywhere.
I should seedbomb the neighbourhood with my kid. He’d be good at that.
I love it! Bonus points if it turns to a bog in the winter, so I can collect potion ingredients.
What counts as a big garden, I would like bigger but my bungalow is on a 150m² total property area
And here I am thinking 600m² is small garden.
Fucking hell that is a massive area. Wish I could even hope to ever afford so much space.
I guess I realistically could buy that much land without a house on it if I wanted to buy some woodland or something like that, but it probably wouldn’t be anywhere near where I actually live and wouldn’t be allowed to live on the land.
Is Anon dreaming of dacha? Because it sounds same.
Nah I’ll take the city thanks. I would like a functional bus service and be able to walk places.
Also bathroom, kitchen and livingroom possibly together, bedroom, and maybe. Maybe! An office.
Man that was a good year before the rent increase and subsequent eviction.
Anon accidently envisions a solarpunk-esque lifestyle
what’s solar punk?
Like steampunk, but instead of steam, it’s solar.
So I’m longer in the tooth now nearing 50. Got 3 kids. My intention when my kids finish high school is to go back to the small towns from whence I came. City living is so goddamn expensive now. I can buy 50 acres for slightly more than what I pay for a 30*150 lot with a semi-detached home.
I’m gonna Christopher Robin my life when I nope out of IT and with luck build houses for my kids and build a homestead.
This is the way folks. Protect you and yours the best you can.
Unrelated, but:
from whence
Did you know “whence” means “from where,” so it’s not really necessary to say “from whence?” It’s not a mistake, exactly, because “from whence” has been around forever and is considered acceptable usage. “Whence” without the “from” seems, though, to be more correct in a sense, and has certainly been more common for a long time.
Decent discussion with interesting links: https://english.stackexchange.com/q/10906
Do it now. Land doesn’t go down in price unfortunately.
I would if it were not for the complexity of child support I don’t want to do my ex dirty like that. I’m ready to shift careers but that will mean a major pay cut
I want a house with a walled courtyard/atrium between the house and garage. I also want an underground space like a hobbit hole crossed with a bomb shelter.
I want either a Swiss Family Robinson style treehouse or a spaceship.
I’ll get the house, you the spaceship and we swap every other year or so?
Its basically what I have except that I have rented the other room to a friend of mine.
I live in this. I pay 500€ rent, in one of Europe’s most densely populated areas. I commute to work by bicycle, and I can take walks into the forest with my cats till we get too close to the Alpaka Farm, cause they’re afraid of the alpakas.
Unfortunately, we’re getting thrown out this year, and looking at 3x the rent for something worse which is further away.It’s so rare you can have cats who will walk with you. I used to have one like that.
Where in Europe’s densest areas can you rent anything for 500€?
Nowhere if the stars don’t align.
I live in Heidelberg, Germany.
This house is worth 3-4x more.
But my landlady is a little special. She lives in a hippie commune in another country, is fighting with depression and simply didn’t want to deal with the house at all.
So that was the deal, we could live there for cheap, I fix stuff myself and never bother her with anything.I had the same sort of life in the south too. Rent hikes has really fucked that lifestyle over. I blame the swiss for turning the whole german housing market into their buy-to-let playaground
Fun fact: My landlady lives in Switzerland, too.
But I’ve found a new place with the same price per square meter now.
Just a couple km further out, on a hill overlooking the Rhine.You’re going to be doing that every 6 years or so as others do the same, and as more landlords clock onto where future tenants are going.
The south is becoming very business friendly and that new rail line is only going to increase more swiss investment.If you can, start looking to buy a small apartment somewhere. France seems quite stable at the moment, but that’s where the German’s are looking to buy
The plan is to buy the apartment I now rent, when I’ve been there for a year and know that the neighbors are OK.
I know the owners, and they’re not going to sell to an investor.
I’m not going to leave the country.That’s good. I miss the Schwarzwald a lot. I used to bike 40km a day through mountains and forest and vineyards, through rain and snow and sun.
It was beautiful and my heart aches just thinking about it
I love her
Unfortunately you cant, that’s why they are getting thrown out and looking at paying 1500€ soon
small bungalow
proceeds to list a 5 rooms house
EDIT: ok, apparently i do not know what a bungalow is. Their size ranges from less than 70 square meters up to 130, my mental image was of a large wooden tent of ~40 square meters
Usually it’s the other way around.
“This spacious 400sqft condo features scenic fire escapes and running water…”
It could be running fire escapes and scenic water.
Which is a small bungalow…
Ours is 850 sq ft and we’ve got 3 bedrooms, so if we removed one we would be at 750 sq ft and rearrange the divisions and it could be smaller.
Post war housing built by the Canadian government was 600 to 800 sq ft bungalows with two or three bedrooms, 70s bungalows around here are 850 to 1150 sq ft with three or four bedrooms…
That’s what we used to have before landlords convinced you to live your whole life in somebody else’s spare room.
My first house was an 800 sq ft cottage - smaller than most apartments. The bedrooms could only fit a Full bed, not a Queen. It had the same number of rooms OP listed and was the perfect size for me. I’m not familiar with a “bungalow” but that’s what I’m imagining.
Just a small bungalow with its own private gym.
If you’ve got two bedrooms and only need one then having a gym in the other one isn’t a luxury. Hell, it’s less of a luxury than using it as a spare bedroom that is useless except for storage and getting visitors a few times a year.
Do bungalows typically have basements?
Regionally dependent, typically based on the weather, terrain, and how populated the area is. In cold places with more than 16 feet to bedrock, you will typically have basements because they’re cheaper to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. If the bedrock or the water table is close to the surface, basements are too expensive or impossible. If there is lots of space around you and it isn’t too cold, you won’t have basements because they cost more per square foot than building on the surface. If you’re densely populated (and don’t have the exclusion conditions listed above), you will likely have a basements because it costs less to have a second floor (above or below) than it does to buy more land.
In short, bungalows have basements where it’s more cost-effective than having a bigger bungalow.
Makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!
No.
It’s basically a two bedroom bungalow, that’s not that crazy to imagine is it?
Maybe it’s just my mental idea of a bungalow that equates it to a slightly larger wooden tent.
