Escaping the rat race.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, when the only large city was San Francisco, and all the other cities like Oakland and San Jose were small, and the towns that were sprinkled around the bay were small, divided by ranch land, farms and forests. It was a beautiful place to live. Over the years the roads that connected the cities and towns grew wider and busier with traffic. Then 2 lane freeways were carved out to handle the increase in traffic, but that just promoted more population growth, so more homes were built, more shopping centers and strip malls, more high density housing, and so more traffic on the roads, more traffic jams, more accidents. The freeways were widened to 3 lanes, then 4 lanes. The ranches and farms shrunk and finally disappeared and the towns ran into the next town.Slowly but surely the Bay Area was becoming undisireable as a place to live. Crime increased, graffiti started showing up on bridges and buildings, noise pollution like engines and sirens were heard all the time of day and night. My job sent me all over the metropolitan area, so my commute time went from 1/2 hour to 2 1/2 hours. I was leaving earlier in the morning to beat the morning rush hour traffic and stayed later at work so I would avoid the evening rush hour. My commute was becoming brutal. My quality of life was deteriating to the point that I was not liking where I was living. The homeless crisis was getting worse by the month, tent cities were springing up on every street corner and public park. It wasnβt safe or pleasant to walk in my neighborhood anymore. Beggars accosted me all the time and they were becoming more aggressive. I had to move away just to keep my sanity. But I had always lived in a city, so what were my options?
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