Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of discourse (internet lingo for “everyone is yelling about their opinions”) about people leaving cities and why that essentially makes you a sellout because you didn’t try to stick around and make things better. It seems like the events of 2020 have caused a lot of people to reevaluate what they want out of life, and many people are deciding that they want to move cross-country or find a new job or whatever. I feel like I’ve been doing a good job of ignoring this discourse, but this tweet from a tech guy in San Francisco essentially arguing that high rent isn’t a valid reason to move really set me over the edge and I decided to write this post.
One day in early April of this year I woke up and randomly decided I no longer wanted to live in Cincinnati (or really Ohio) and needed to move as soon as possible. At that point I had lived in Ohio for 12 years, and I think I always knew deep down I did not want to spend the rest of my life here. However 2020 really forced me to confront the future and what I really wanted in life, and I decided I needed to leave sooner than expected. My job in Cincinnati was fine, but I was bored with it. I started bicycling a lot more this year and it pissed me off that Cincinnati didn’t have any bike infrastructure. When I started doing research into why that was, it basically amounted to political pettiness among local leaders, and I realized I didn’t want to live in a city that couldn’t even be bothered to install something as basic as bike lanes. I was really getting tired of Cincinnati’s insulated “small-town” culture and how unwelcoming people there can be to outsiders. I decided that I wanted to move to either Chicago or Atlanta, two cities that I honestly didn’t know much about but thought they were cool, and I spent six weeks applying to jobs only in those two cities. I was extremely fortunate enough to find an awesome new job during the pandemic and general craziness of 2020, and I moved to Atlanta a few days ago. It was absolutely insane of me to move to a city I had only visited twice prior, yet I’m already loving my new city and know this was the right choice for me.
The reason why the “leaving cities” discourse bugs me is because I think a lot of it can come from a place of ignorance and expecting people to stop complaining and just suck up bad situations. San Francisco is personally one of my favorite cities to hate because it is an unaffordable hellscape full of rich tech workers that sold its soul to wealthy homeowners decades ago. It is absolutely valid to leave San Francisco because you can’t afford housing! It’s perfectly valid to leave New York City because the quality of public transit has degraded to people fainting at sweltering train stations during the peak of rush hour. After four years in Cincinnati and 12 years in Ohio, I became extremely tired of sucking the bad things up that were probably never going to change or improve, and I realized I didn’t have to do that anymore. You don’t either!
There’s an argument to be made about fighting to improve the place you live in instead of leaving at the first sign of trouble. I know there are aspects of Atlanta that are going to piss me off, and I plan on working to address those things and making this city a better place to live for me and my neighbors. However, there’s nothing wrong with putting in work to improve your home and realizing that you may still need something different. By all means, please work to improve your community and where you live. But don’t view it as a prison - you’re free to do what you want.
Don’t let some asshole make you feel bad for wanting to move. Life is too short and there are too many cool places to experience.