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apparentparadoxMark & I are renting a house in Ashland, OR for several months. We've been coming up to Ashland for years, originally to see plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but as the years go by, more & more to see our friends Bob, Ellen, Jeff, and Nick. We've toyed with the idea of moving from the Bay Area for years, and Ashland is one of the places we've considered, so when the opportunity came up to rent a house up here, we decided it was a good thing to try.
It's been great being within walking distance of lots of restaurants, coffee shops (for Mark), and "culture". [People who live in SF or NY can certainly understand the benefits of that.] We're also within easy walking distance of some nice nature trails for Loupi, and there is reasonable bicycling routes around. [Not so common in SF - oh, and there's plenty of street parking where we are!]
We certainly haven't decided to move here, but I've been looking at the housing options to get a feel for the area in case we did decide to move here. Looking at some of the available options really points out how choosing anything can show a lot about one's priorities.
For example:
* Having a view from the house would be nice, but being walking distance to the "Plaza" is also nice. Which is more important? In many ways, these are mutually exclusive, especially if you want the walk to & from the plaza to be a reasonable walk even as we get older. Penny used to walk all the time from her house (which has a great view) down to Starbucks (past the plaza), but now going up & down the hill bothers her knees.
* Having a view while sitting in one's own home is great (I loved the views we had in Colfax), but one pays a premium for such things. Would it be sufficient to have a view from the general area of the house? Note that since we walk our dog essentially every day, we are walking around our neighborhood all the time. The house we're renting doesn't have much of a view from inside the house, but I appreciate the view from the sidewalk in front of the house every time I take Loupi for a walk.
* Ashland has some "historic" districts. In general, these have smaller (older) houses rather than McMansions. They also tend to have smaller lots, though. Some of the other areas have larger lots, which could put the neighbors farther away.
* Some of the renovated/newly constructed buildings in the "railroad" district have commercial use on the first floor, with housing above. What would it be like for a suburban boy like me to not have any ground floor access? Loupi loves running around our back yard at home, but wouldn't be able to do that in one of these units. On the other hand, the whole idea of mixed-use buildings really appeals to me -- cut down on sprawl, don't have to worry about noisy tenants below, since businesses aren't open during sleeping time. Is this one of those cases where I want other people to buy & live in such places, but I wouldn't want one? [A minor point is that I would prefer one-story living so that we could stay in the house until we were very old -- stairs and so forth can be a problem, so unless the building has an elevator, it might be dismissed from consideration.]
* Some of the available houses are actually multiple family houses -- either duplex or with some area of the house rented out (or rent-able). Again, as a suburban boy, I've generally lived in a detached single-family dwelling. Would the sounds made by someone sharing a wall or floor/ceiling be a problem? Would the rent money received be sufficient to compensate?
* Just how much space do we need? And how much space are we willing to have? The house in Colfax was too big. We knew that from the start, but the view made it all worth it. But, we ended up not really using about 1/3 of the space. Our current house is actually either slightly too big, or just has wasted space in a few places, but it's a pretty close fit to what would be good. In some ways, having too much space seems like more of a problem than too little space. Having too much space just makes me feel like I'm taking up too much of the earth's resources -- like I'm treading too heavily on the earth. One of the reasons to move to a small town would be to reduce our use of resources (like, lessening our driving, and things like that), so this isn't a completely specious item.
As I think more about this stuff, it just amazes me how many different things one must prioritize and decide on for this kind of a decision -- and I'm not even talking (yet) about the decision on whether we would move from the Bay Area, and where we would move if we did! [It isn't a foregone conclusion that Ashland would be our destination.]
It all reminds me of something a friend from grad school said: you can tell a lot about a person by what car they drive -- as long as you can figure out why they chose that car (and not what you think about that car and the people who drive it). Same with houses, although people don't generally buy very many of them so it's harder to see any patterns in their choices.
It's been great being within walking distance of lots of restaurants, coffee shops (for Mark), and "culture". [People who live in SF or NY can certainly understand the benefits of that.] We're also within easy walking distance of some nice nature trails for Loupi, and there is reasonable bicycling routes around. [Not so common in SF - oh, and there's plenty of street parking where we are!]
We certainly haven't decided to move here, but I've been looking at the housing options to get a feel for the area in case we did decide to move here. Looking at some of the available options really points out how choosing anything can show a lot about one's priorities.
For example:
* Having a view from the house would be nice, but being walking distance to the "Plaza" is also nice. Which is more important? In many ways, these are mutually exclusive, especially if you want the walk to & from the plaza to be a reasonable walk even as we get older. Penny used to walk all the time from her house (which has a great view) down to Starbucks (past the plaza), but now going up & down the hill bothers her knees.
* Having a view while sitting in one's own home is great (I loved the views we had in Colfax), but one pays a premium for such things. Would it be sufficient to have a view from the general area of the house? Note that since we walk our dog essentially every day, we are walking around our neighborhood all the time. The house we're renting doesn't have much of a view from inside the house, but I appreciate the view from the sidewalk in front of the house every time I take Loupi for a walk.
* Ashland has some "historic" districts. In general, these have smaller (older) houses rather than McMansions. They also tend to have smaller lots, though. Some of the other areas have larger lots, which could put the neighbors farther away.
* Some of the renovated/newly constructed buildings in the "railroad" district have commercial use on the first floor, with housing above. What would it be like for a suburban boy like me to not have any ground floor access? Loupi loves running around our back yard at home, but wouldn't be able to do that in one of these units. On the other hand, the whole idea of mixed-use buildings really appeals to me -- cut down on sprawl, don't have to worry about noisy tenants below, since businesses aren't open during sleeping time. Is this one of those cases where I want other people to buy & live in such places, but I wouldn't want one? [A minor point is that I would prefer one-story living so that we could stay in the house until we were very old -- stairs and so forth can be a problem, so unless the building has an elevator, it might be dismissed from consideration.]
* Some of the available houses are actually multiple family houses -- either duplex or with some area of the house rented out (or rent-able). Again, as a suburban boy, I've generally lived in a detached single-family dwelling. Would the sounds made by someone sharing a wall or floor/ceiling be a problem? Would the rent money received be sufficient to compensate?
* Just how much space do we need? And how much space are we willing to have? The house in Colfax was too big. We knew that from the start, but the view made it all worth it. But, we ended up not really using about 1/3 of the space. Our current house is actually either slightly too big, or just has wasted space in a few places, but it's a pretty close fit to what would be good. In some ways, having too much space seems like more of a problem than too little space. Having too much space just makes me feel like I'm taking up too much of the earth's resources -- like I'm treading too heavily on the earth. One of the reasons to move to a small town would be to reduce our use of resources (like, lessening our driving, and things like that), so this isn't a completely specious item.
As I think more about this stuff, it just amazes me how many different things one must prioritize and decide on for this kind of a decision -- and I'm not even talking (yet) about the decision on whether we would move from the Bay Area, and where we would move if we did! [It isn't a foregone conclusion that Ashland would be our destination.]
It all reminds me of something a friend from grad school said: you can tell a lot about a person by what car they drive -- as long as you can figure out why they chose that car (and not what you think about that car and the people who drive it). Same with houses, although people don't generally buy very many of them so it's harder to see any patterns in their choices.