How many of you want to work in a city?

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How many of you want to work in a city?

  • Yes

    Votes: 39 40.6%

  • No

    Votes: 16 16.7%

  • Do suburbs count?

    Votes: 35 36.5%

  • Leave me alone - I want space

    Votes: 6 6.3%
  • Total voters
    96
jeffk805dent

jeffk805dent

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Chatting on the dental forum it seems many go to work in a rural area/very rural area (by choice or by financial potential I have no idea).

Though I never want to live downtown in a big city I always want to be close to all the fun stuff that a city offers.

What about you guys and gals?
 
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I would like to be within driving distance of one but city living is too expensive and I only have a small family I need to be close to.

Weather for me is a much bigger determining factor and I would prefer to stay south of the mason-dixie line. On the coast would be nice but we'll see what happens.
 
darklabel said:
I would like to be within driving distance of one but city living is too expensive and I only have a small family I need to be close to.

Weather for me is a much bigger determining factor and I would prefer to stay south of the mason-dixie line. On the coast would be nice but we'll see what happens.
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Cyber high-five for warmer/cooler weather
 
jeffk805dent said:
Chatting on the dental forum it seems many go to work in a rural area/very rural area (by choice or by financial potential I have no idea).

Though I never want to live downtown in a big city I always want to be close to all the fun stuff that a city offers. I am a city guy, dont know how to explain it, its like when US troops in WW2 attack with the knowledge they have the Air Force backing them up - has a certain level of happiness to it.

What about you guys and gals?
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u fkn w0t m8
 
Depends on the city. You couldn't pay me enough to live somewhere like NY or LA. I think I'd give my left nut to be able to settle down in NOLA though.
 
Always lived in suburbia

Dense settlements (like Seoul) interest me very much, so something dense like NYC has always appealed to me.
 
City = no go for me. I was raised in a rural town and will most definitely live in one.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
There are people who seem to define "city" very narrowly (i.e. NYC).

I certainly don't want to live in the boonies, but there are a lot of decent size towns where I would be happy.

I don't particularly like suburbia (grew up in it) and would prefer to be closer to the urban center and/or work for wherever I end up.
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Like me? 😀

Ideally for me, no more than 30-40 miles north and/ or northeast of the city. Basically Westchester or Fairfield counties.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
There are people who seem to define "city" very narrowly (i.e. NYC).

I certainly don't want to live in the boonies, but there are a lot of decent size towns where I would be happy.

I don't particularly like suburbia (grew up in it) and would prefer to be closer to the urban center and/or work for wherever I end up.
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If I put NYC/SF/LA in a different category, some posters will say that I am narrow minded and view a poster's favorite city as boring.
 
fancymylotus said:
not easy if your name is jeffk805dent, super easy if your name is fancymylotus 😛
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How fancymylotus talks to patients

lets_put_a_smile_on_that_face_by_TensonStar.jpg
 
fancymylotus said:
Lol. the real question is why tf were you at work at like 8pm? thats just crazy. what are you geniuses doing out there in the wild wild west
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One of the patients couldnt make it at an earlier so we agreed for a later time. Life sucks when you have to pay back hefty loans. Le Sigh.
 
jeffk805dent said:
One of the patients couldnt make it at an earlier so we agreed for a later time. Life sucks when you have to pay back hefty loans. Le Sigh.
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lol. i will stay late for a patient as long as theyve already paid. i will also show up early for someone, but same rules apply. also, we dont block out large amounts of time for people who havent paid first.
 
Definitely not a huge city, but I might like a place a little bigger than the rural place I was raised in. I'm fine with anything from 100-300k people
 
Yes, but probably not NYC or SF. Too damn expensive.
 
mmmcdowe said:
I'm surprised, at least for residency there seems to be an overabundance of people in my field gunning for major urban centers.
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Residency is different imo. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're likely to see many more cases and a wider variety of cases in a major city just because there are more patients than you would in a rural setting or even in many suburbs. I wouldn't mind residency there if that's where the best training is. I couldn't handle spending the rest of my life in a place like NYC or Chicago though.
 
mmmcdowe said:
I'm surprised, at least for residency there seems to be an overabundance of people in my field gunning for major urban centers.
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I'm curious to know when residents become practitioners, does their view change when having a kid? With that said, I've seen a good number of parents successfully raise their child in a city and some parents not as successful in raising their child in a rural area.
 
NeuroSpeed said:
Is there really enough room in Allo for TWO dentists?


Oh, and rural within reasonable driving distance of small city FTW.
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the dental board is too right for me (even being myself as a conservative). Please let me stay😱
 
Stagg737 said:
Residency is different imo. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're likely to see many more cases and a wider variety of cases in a major city just because there are more patients than you would in a rural setting or even in many suburbs. I wouldn't mind residency there if that's where the best training is. I couldn't handle spending the rest of my life in a place like NYC or Chicago though.
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For sure, but it seems to me that people in my field fo there for residency because they want to live there, often at the sacrifice of certain weaknesses of their training program (for example, NYC hospitals have a lot more scut and less autonomy operatively, yet are extremely desirable)
 
jeffk805dent said:
I'm curious to know when residents become practitioners, does their view change when having a kid? With that said, I've seen a good number of parents successfully raise their child in a city and some parents not as successful in raising their child in a rural area.
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Speaking only from our personal experience, yes, this matters. We left a small, fairly isolated city of 100K for a large metro area for a variety of reasons, and high on that list was that we didn't feel it was a good place to raise children. The schools were subpar, the town didn't have museums, a zoo, cultural offerings etc. A lot of people tout smaller towns as "great places to raise kids", but bear in mind that they lack a lot of the things I described above, and those things are pretty important, IMO. If you are in a small town within an hour or so of a major metro, then great, but we were not.

It has been our experience that the best way to maximize income potential is to be a big fish in a small pond. This means you have to find a city that is not so small that you lack an adequate catchment area/referral base; but not so large that it is over saturated for your specialty. Seems like an MSA of 250-500K is really ideal. Keep in mind that highly desirable locations will attract lots of people who want to live there, and physicians are no exception. For example, in his old practice location, my spouse was the only one practicing in his surgical subspecialty for 100 miles in any direction. Now, we are in a city where he is one of 12-14. Our income took a major hit, but we did it for the quality of life reasons I mentioned previously.
 
The discussion and the poll question / thread title do not agree. The question was do you want to WORK in a city, but everybody is talking about where they want to domicile instead. It would be totally possible to live in a city and work in the countryside, or vice versa.
 
sazerac said:
The discussion and the poll question / thread title do not agree. The question was do you want to WORK in a city, but everybody is talking about where they want to domicile instead. It would be totally possible to live in a city and work in the countryside, or vice versa.
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Fair point and it's possible, yes. The most likely scenario I think of is a person living in a rural area/bedroom community, but commuting 45-60 minutes into the city to work. Common occurrence, I would think. The reverse would seem a little less likely. Maybe a GP who lives in the city, but wants to have a smaller practice where he/she has a much closer relationship with patients. But, if you are close enough to a city to be commuting everyday, there are a great many patients (usually higher income, well insured ones) who will insist on traveling into the city to see practitioners. There is a perception that those practitioners are superior to local ones (a perception that is often invalid, but there, nonetheless).
 
sazerac said:
The discussion and the poll question / thread title do not agree. The question was do you want to WORK in a city, but everybody is talking about where they want to domicile instead. It would be totally possible to live in a city and work in the countryside, or vice versa.
Click to expand...

good point. Given the massive commutes to some cities depending where you live, I figured the suburbs that are very close to city should be considered part of the city, though that defeats the purpose of calling it a suburb then.
 
I live in the city and work in the suburbs.
I would haaaaaate to work in the city
The reverse commute is super easy
And I can crash at my parents house if the weather is bad or if I get stuck at work late.
The end
 
fancymylotus said:
I live in the city and work in the suburbs.
I would haaaaaate to work in the city
The reverse commute is super easy
And I can crash at my parents house if the weather is bad or if I get stuck at work late.
The end
Click to expand...

I live a 15 min bus ride/10 min drive/30 min bike share ride from my work. I'm going to seriously miss it.

Doing reverse commute next year. I could have doubled my salary if I went farther out into the Burbs, but it's time to live the urban life on an attending salary while I still can. Plus, I'm also tied down by Ms. Ox's job.
 
sazerac said:
The discussion and the poll question / thread title do not agree. The question was do you want to WORK in a city, but everybody is talking about where they want to domicile instead. It would be totally possible to live in a city and work in the countryside, or vice versa.
Click to expand...

I still wouldn't want to work at most city hospitals. Some of them are fantastic and top notch, the ones I have worked or volunteered at were not and they tended to attract patients that were significantly harder and less desirable to work with. While I think the greater patient and case diversity would be a huge plus of working in the city, working with significantly more patients who are belligerent or non-cooperative does not appeal to me in the least bit.
 
Really depends on what you define as a city. If you are one of those Metropolis-born-and-raised type of people who doesn't consider anything below 1 million to be a "real city" then no I don't want to live in a city. I grew up in a small city of about 400,000 and that has everything I need without the hassle, headache and expense of living in a Metropolis. It has an IMAX, a stage theatre, large shopping malls with plenty of parking, enough restaurants for me to go to a different one every single day for an entire year and still not have been to them all... wtf do I get in a Metropolis that I don't get here? When you're an adult you really stop caring about "nightlife", which is really the only regular activity Metropolises have that smaller cities might not. All the other major special attractions of a Metropolis like museums, professional sports etc., people tend to not do very regularly and you can easily make the hour or two drive to go whenever you feel the need for a special outing. It is completely unnecessary and offers nothing of value to live right downtown NYC, Chicago etc. imo. I honestly don't see the appeal whatsoever. You pay much more for much less real estate, you cant drive anywhere without being stuck in traffic, you cant park anywhere, sounds like a nightmare to me.
 
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sidefx said:
Really depends on what you define as a city. If you are one of those Metropolis-born-and-raised type of people who doesnt consider anything below 1 million to be a "real city" than no I don't want to live in a city. I grew up in a small city of about 400,000 and that has everything I need without the hassle, headache and expense of living in a Metropolis. It has an IMAX, a stage theatre, large shopping malls with plenty of parking, enough restaurants for me to go to a different one every single day for an entire year and still not have been to them all... wtf do I get in a Metropolis that I don't get here? When you're an adult you really stop caring about "nightlife", which is really the only regular activity Metropolises have that smaller cities might not. All the other major special attractions of a Metropolis like museums, professional sports etc., people tend to do not that regularly and you can easily make the hour or two drive to go whenever you feel the need for a special outing, it is completely unnecessary and offers nothing of value to live right down town NYC, Chicago etc. imo. I honestly don't see the appeal whatsoever. You pay much more for much less real estate, you cant drive anywhere, you cant park anywhere, you cant get anywhere, sounds like a nightmare to me.
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I'm kind of like what you mentioned, I want to live close to LA but not have to always deal with the hellish traffic (moving 8 miles over an hour is considered an accomplishment) so there's a place called Thousand Oaks that has everything I need.
 
sidefx said:
Really depends on what you define as a city. If you are one of those Metropolis-born-and-raised type of people who doesn't consider anything below 1 million to be a "real city" then no I don't want to live in a city. I grew up in a small city of about 400,000 and that has everything I need without the hassle, headache and expense of living in a Metropolis. It has an IMAX, a stage theatre, large shopping malls with plenty of parking, enough restaurants for me to go to a different one every single day for an entire year and still not have been to them all... wtf do I get in a Metropolis that I don't get here? When you're an adult you really stop caring about "nightlife", which is really the only regular activity Metropolises have that smaller cities might not. All the other major special attractions of a Metropolis like museums, professional sports etc., people tend to not do very regularly and you can easily make the hour or two drive to go whenever you feel the need for a special outing. It is completely unnecessary and offers nothing of value to live right downtown NYC, Chicago etc. imo. I honestly don't see the appeal whatsoever. You pay much more for much less real estate, you cant drive anywhere without being stuck in traffic, you cant park anywhere, sounds like a nightmare to me.
Click to expand...
This is such a bleak and depressing outlook on life and lifestyle. Is all this driving (and rearranging your life to accommodate the almighty auto) really how the rest of America lives? It sounds like the car is getting the pampered life and the people exist to serve it, instead of the other way around.

I'm a middle aged family guy living in a city, and I've been thinking about all the stuff I've done with my little son recently: listen to a jazz concert, watch a magic show, grab a beer from one of the corner pubs, watch a parade. But here's the kicker- all of that happened yesterday evening (a Thursday) on the three block walk to the grocery store. We don't have to drive for two hours to do stuff, because in the city it comes to us. Sure we do own a car, but I only fill it with gas once a year.

IMAX, stage theaters, shops, hundred of restaurants, hell even the professional sports and museums (we have subscriptions to both) are all within a six block radius. Leave the car at home. City life is family friendly, accessible, and mighty convenient, as long as you aren't on the outside looking in.
 
sazerac said:
This is such a bleak and depressing outlook on life and lifestyle. Is all this driving (and rearranging your life to accommodate the almighty auto) really how the rest of America lives? It sounds like the car is getting the pampered life and the people exist to serve it, instead of the other way around.

I'm a middle aged family guy living in a city, and I've been thinking about all the stuff I've done with my little son recently: listen to a jazz concert, watch a magic show, grab a beer from one of the corner pubs, watch a parade. But here's the kicker- all of that happened yesterday evening (a Thursday) on the three block walk to the grocery store. We don't have to drive for two hours to do stuff, because in the city it comes to us. Sure we do own a car, but I only fill it with gas once a year.

IMAX, stage theaters, shops, hundred of restaurants, hell even the professional sports and museums (we have subscriptions to both) are all within a six block radius. Leave the car at home. City life is family friendly, accessible, and mighty convenient, as long as you aren't on the outside looking in.
Click to expand...

The schools though... That's probably the only thing that may cause problems long term.
 
sidefx said:
Really depends on what you define as a city. If you are one of those Metropolis-born-and-raised type of people who doesn't consider anything below 1 million to be a "real city" then no I don't want to live in a city. I grew up in a small city of about 400,000 and that has everything I need without the hassle, headache and expense of living in a Metropolis. It has an IMAX, a stage theatre, large shopping malls with plenty of parking, enough restaurants for me to go to a different one every single day for an entire year and still not have been to them all... wtf do I get in a Metropolis that I don't get here? When you're an adult you really stop caring about "nightlife", which is really the only regular activity Metropolises have that smaller cities might not. All the other major special attractions of a Metropolis like museums, professional sports etc., people tend to not do very regularly and you can easily make the hour or two drive to go whenever you feel the need for a special outing. It is completely unnecessary and offers nothing of value to live right downtown NYC, Chicago etc. imo. I honestly don't see the appeal whatsoever. You pay much more for much less real estate, you cant drive anywhere without being stuck in traffic, you cant park anywhere, sounds like a nightmare to me.
Click to expand...

It must be nice to be so content with suburbia....would make everything easier
 
So what's the definition of a city? Grew up in the country (around here it's the "Big City" with a population >25k), although college forced me to a city (pop ~4 million). But to me a population of 400,000 in the US isn't a small city because that's about the size of the 35-50th largest cities in America. In my opinion, if it has stoplights it's a town. If it has a Walmart, it's a city. And if it has a Walmart *and* a Target, it's a dad-gummed metropolis. Personally, I'd like to live and work in the boonies.
 
sazerac said:
This is such a bleak and depressing outlook on life and lifestyle. Is all this driving (and rearranging your life to accommodate the almighty auto) really how the rest of America lives? It sounds like the car is getting the pampered life and the people exist to serve it, instead of the other way around.

I'm a middle aged family guy living in a city, and I've been thinking about all the stuff I've done with my little son recently: listen to a jazz concert, watch a magic show, grab a beer from one of the corner pubs, watch a parade. But here's the kicker- all of that happened yesterday evening (a Thursday) on the three block walk to the grocery store. We don't have to drive for two hours to do stuff, because in the city it comes to us. Sure we do own a car, but I only fill it with gas once a year.

IMAX, stage theaters, shops, hundred of restaurants, hell even the professional sports and museums (we have subscriptions to both) are all within a six block radius. Leave the car at home. City life is family friendly, accessible, and mighty convenient, as long as you aren't on the outside looking in.
Click to expand...

To each their own I guess. I'm not saying everyone should agree with me, but I just don't see the appeal in it personally. Nearly everything you did with your son that night you can do in a smaller city too (concerts, magic shows, etc. are still common enough, even the occasional parade), although admittedly not all on the same night. But instead of carrying a ton of groceries by hand 3 blocks through crowds of people I'll comfortably drive home with them in my trunk. I look forward to sending my kids to a safe school without having to go private, and being able to pick them up or drop them off if I choose, because I won't live in a congested downtown core. They'll have a good sized yard to go outside and play with the dog and I won't have to worry about them walking across the street alone to visit a friend. On top of that my house will be about 3-4x bigger than an equally priced apartment in the core, and the thought of living in a cramped high rise apartment with a couple kids running around just does not sound very family friendly to me.
 
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sazerac said:
This is such a bleak and depressing outlook on life and lifestyle. Is all this driving (and rearranging your life to accommodate the almighty auto) really how the rest of America lives? It sounds like the car is getting the pampered life and the people exist to serve it, instead of the other way around.

I'm a middle aged family guy living in a city, and I've been thinking about all the stuff I've done with my little son recently: listen to a jazz concert, watch a magic show, grab a beer from one of the corner pubs, watch a parade. But here's the kicker- all of that happened yesterday evening (a Thursday) on the three block walk to the grocery store. We don't have to drive for two hours to do stuff, because in the city it comes to us. Sure we do own a car, but I only fill it with gas once a year.

IMAX, stage theaters, shops, hundred of restaurants, hell even the professional sports and museums (we have subscriptions to both) are all within a six block radius. Leave the car at home. City life is family friendly, accessible, and mighty convenient, as long as you aren't on the outside looking in.
Click to expand...

You grab a beer from the corner pub with your little son? You really are living on the edge there in the city.
 
sazerac said:
This is such a bleak and depressing outlook on life and lifestyle. Is all this driving (and rearranging your life to accommodate the almighty auto) really how the rest of America lives? It sounds like the car is getting the pampered life and the people exist to serve it, instead of the other way around.
.
Click to expand...

wtf?

Nothing in the post you quoted was bleak or depressing. Dude just said that most of the things he liked were accessible in a medium sized city.

Your post basically said city-folk are the inside and the rest of us are auto worshiping outsiders.

I live outside a 300k city with everything I could want and rent a 3 bedroom house for less than $900 a month a 10 minute drive down awesome curvy roads from a lvl 1 trauma center. The best part of my work day is driving my 27 year old 300k mile RWD 5-spd ultimate ****ing driving machine to work windows down with Tiesto blaring some goa trance like i was back in the old country. I can dance naked in my backyard, ride a 2-stroke dirt bike around the neighborhood, play AC/DC on my tube amp with the dials turned to 11 on my porch and no one gives a ****.

sazerac said:
I'm a middle aged family guy living in a city, and I've been thinking about all the stuff I've done with my little son recently: listen to a jazz concert, watch a magic show, grab a beer from one of the corner pubs, watch a parade. But here's the kicker- all of that happened yesterday evening (a Thursday) on the three block walk to the grocery store. We don't have to drive for two hours to do stuff, because in the city it comes to us. Sure we do own a car, but I only fill it with gas once a year.

IMAX, stage theaters, shops, hundred of restaurants, hell even the professional sports and museums (we have subscriptions to both) are all within a six block radius. Leave the car at home. City life is family friendly, accessible, and mighty convenient, as long as you aren't on the outside looking in.
Click to expand...

I'm a young guy with no kids in the suburbs surrounded by God's country. I can order anything in the world and it comes to my door in 2 days. I can drive 20 minutes in any direction and be on top of 3 different mountains. I can park my ballin' car after a relaxing 9 minute drive, watch 2 imax penguin shows, grab one of 5 different microbreweries in town, see hundreds of fish at an aquarium, watch a MAGIC ****ing MYSTERY SHOW, and walk across a 100 yr old bridge on any night of the week. From my rental house I can walk to a 40,000 acre lake with fishing, wakeboarding, swimming, anything you could want for free.

Southern by the Grace of God.
 
e30ftw said:
wtf?

Nothing in the post you quoted was bleak or depressing. Dude just said that most of the things he liked were accessible in a medium sized city.

Your post basically said city-folk are the inside and the rest of us are auto worshiping outsiders.

I live outside a 300k city with everything I could want and rent a 3 bedroom house for less than $900 a month a 10 minute drive down awesome curvy roads from a lvl 1 trauma center. The best part of my work day is driving my 27 year old 300k mile RWD 5-spd ultimate ****ing driving machine to work windows down with Tiesto blaring some goa trance like i was back in the old country. I can dance naked in my backyard, ride a 2-stroke dirt bike around the neighborhood, play AC/DC on my tube amp with the dials turned to 11 on my porch and no one gives a ****.



I'm a young guy with no kids in the suburbs surrounded by God's country. I can order anything in the world and it comes to my door in 2 days. I can drive 20 minutes in any direction and be on top of 3 different mountains. I can park my ballin' car after a relaxing 9 minute drive, watch 2 imax penguin shows, grab one of 5 different microbreweries in town, see hundreds of fish at an aquarium, watch a MAGIC ****ing MYSTERY SHOW, and walk across a 100 yr old bridge on any night of the week. From my rental house I can walk to a 40,000 acre lake with fishing, wakeboarding, swimming, anything you could want for free.

Southern by the Grace of God.
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this sounds like the great state of Georgia. gimme that peach ale.
 
And none of them damn non-whites around, amiright
 
e30ftw said:
wtf?

Nothing in the post you quoted was bleak or depressing. Dude just said that most of the things he liked were accessible in a medium sized city.

Your post basically said city-folk are the inside and the rest of us are auto worshiping outsiders.
Click to expand...
When I read his post, it was all about drive here drive there park here park there. Then the post ragged on cities because it was difficult to drive and there was no place to park. The approach to cities was all wrong. The fact that it is difficult to drive in a city is irrelevant to a city dweller because we are always walking.
 
calvnandhobbs68 said:
You grab a beer from the corner pub with your little son? You really are living on the edge there in the city.
Click to expand...
My point was that there are multiple corner pubs here, like 3 within a half block. We don't have to go to the pub, because the pubs come to us.

Also, if you grab a beer while you are driving to the grocery store, you get arrested for drunk driving. Which is another thing city dwellers never worry about, because we don't drive.
 
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