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526 points cactusplant7374 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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jeffbee ◴[] No.44074612[source]
It makes a certain amount of sense and I myself bought a little place way out in the hinterlands of Michigan for similar economic reasons ... but I live in Berkeley because subjecting your children to life without opportunities for art, culture, education, sports, friends, etc is cruel. So if you're white, or just don't care that your ethnicity is absent, and if you have no children, and also don't mind living in a car-dependent place where the public transit to the nearest major city is a minimum of 15 hours with 3-4 transfers, then sure Massena NY is dope.
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seabird ◴[] No.44075778[source]
Is there no culture, or no "culture"?

When you talk to people from a major metropolitan area about culture outside of a major metropolitan area, they're very often not talking about culture. They're talking about entertainment, and a specific kind of it.

I live in semi-rural Michigan and the idea that there's no culture here is just kind of absurd. The culture just doesn't consist of having a constant stream of touring musicians and restaurants for you to spend money on.

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1. occamsrazorwit ◴[] No.44076038[source]
How would you describe the local cultural opportunities in your area?
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2. seabird ◴[] No.44077403[source]
Different than what's in a city, and generally not as enjoyable if you're just passively consuming it. Lots of motorsport (auto manufacturing was huge in the area, very long tradition of it), fishing/hunting, local music (some styles represented better than others, but that goes for everywhere), hobbyist heavy industry. There's definitely plenty of other stuff going on that I just haven't heard about. Pretty often I run into situations where I'm talking to somebody about a new interest and they say "yeah, there's actually plenty of that going on, look into/talk to X, Y, or Z". Not so much culinary or visual/fine arts stuff happening, so if you're looking to participate/collaborate as far as that goes, I can tell you off the top of my head that the area would be a bad fit.

If you're looking to be involved in culture for just a few hours at a time by going to a restaurant or show and not being involved much past that, you're going to be painfully bored here. I don't think doing that is a moral shortcoming or anything like that, but there are a lot of people that are doing that, don't realize it, and misinterpret the lack of opportunities to do so outside of a large city as that place just not having any culture at all.