I enjoyed reading all the comments above and found they helped confirm my recent decision. I grew up in St. Paul, MN in a large Irish Catholic family. We moved to Southern California when I was 18 for my father’s work. What a change THAT was! The family all moved back just 18 months later while I stayed and started my life as a young woman. After a few years I moved to Hawaii and lived there for 16 years before moving to Coronado. I’ve spent the last 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Last year I decided to try living back in St. Paul near my family…well, most of it. As they say…you can’t go home! It has not worked and I’m moving back “home”…back to the Bay Area where I held on to my condo. Through a interminably long and bitterly cold winter I discovered that my “family” are the women and men who’ve seen me through the tough times over the last 45 years! As well, I found I missed the energy, diversity, light, water and weather. It was an expensive and difficult move but a learning experience that will inform how I live my life when I get back to my condo on the Bay! I’m a Tour Guide in San Francisco and a Tour Manager which allows me to travel all over the world where I have dear friends in wonderful places….so I consider myself a citizen of the world as well. Thanks! Susan

I have lived in both Brooklyn and Queens, but now that I am retired I am thinking of moving. First I thought about an equity community, but I am not sure gated living is for me, being single, even though there would be lots of things to do. Now I am thinking about living in Delaware have been investigating areas near the shore online. I will still keep my apartment here just in case I miss city life.

I live in a two-bedroom rent-controlled apartment in a 1915 Victorian in the heart of Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, California. I’m 26 minutes from the Ferry Building in San Francisco, 45 minutes to the coast, an hour from Sonoma and two hours from Monterey. I’ve lived in other places, but this has been home since 1979. I stay because I have the most exquisite light through bay windows, and I can’t live without it. I feel safe here because I know the area and I know the people. If I left here, I think it would be for Spoleto, Umbria.

I was born in a suburb (do they still use that word?) of Chicago, and actually went to the same high school as my mother and step-father. I now live in Scottsdale, AZ with my 78 yr old mother in the house she and my step-dad bought when they moved here. She and I are the last two left of our lineage. We’ve both been in AZ for over 30 years which qualifies for being a ‘native’ in the last state of the contiguous US to join the Union. I am a loyal desert rat and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. 70 degree’s is winter to me, and don’t really believe it feels hot until it gets over 110 outside. But, it’s a dry heat, LOL, only 5% humidity today. This is my home. I love to travel…always have, always will. Before you can say ‘let’s’ I’m packed. I still believe Chicago has the best food in the country. If I don’t experience the ocean at least once a year I feel deprived. Mom’s a widow who also loves to travel and requires my assistance to do so (tongue in cheek). Life isn’t all cactus thorns, and there is a whole world out there to enjoy.

After having spent most of my life near the ocean, I moved to the mountains nearly eight years ago. When friends asked me why, I said, “I want to go where the wind sings in the trees.” I underestimated the “song.” My first winter it was stormy for weeks and snowed so hard and so long that several tall trees fell. Not a calming experience. But I stayed to experience all four seasons in all their glory. I’m about an hour from the nearest city of any size, but when I need a city fix I don’t mind the drive because it’s beautiful. The great advantages to living in a small community are that it’s relatively safe, people know one another by sight if not always by name, and there are opportunities to volunteer and to serve on the boards of non-profits that address the needs of the people who live here. The arts thrive here, too…plenty of classes, art groups, galleries, open studios, and an abundance of breaktaking scenery to draw and paint. Probably should mention that my son, daughter-in-law and my terrific teenage grandchildren live close by. They are compensation for leaving the ocean which is now a three-hour drive away. If I were to live anywhere else it would be on a houseboat in Sausalito.

I spent twenty years in the same house. Married and spent 17 years in the same house. After the divorce I never stayed in the same town for more than a year or two. Loved Seattle and San Francisco. I moved back to my home town a few years ago and now realize that you really can’t go home again. The gypsy in my soul has been pressing hard and I plan on moving soon. Every place I have ever been has had it’s own beauty and reason to stay but the next place is always whispering in my ear that I might be missing something. My dream is to go to New York. I would love to just once look up at the Statue of Liberty. As much as I whine about what is wrong with our country I still get goose bumps when I think about stuff like that.

Born in Manhattan. Live in Manhattan. Third generation, Manhattan. I have always felt I was from and live in an INTERNATIONAL city that was a hub and beehive of ACTIVITY, ENERGY as well as my home pivot. I have traveled all over the world, went to boarding school in other States as a child — but ALWAYS felt anchored and centered out of NYC. I drew/draw my strength and sense of confidence I could manage anything, anywhere — from this place. I remember the downward spiral during the 70s and choosing to remain and raise my child here, working and waiting for the renaissance — which thankfully began during the 80s. I have NEVER regretted that decision, despite the difficulties. Many transplants continued to arrive in droves during that period, attracted despite the grime and the grit. The positives even then outweighed the negatives. Now my daughter has the same life pivot and perspective, and an appreciation of others and the world, thanks to the CONSTANT stream of International visitors. The REAL appreciation of the culture of others I believe unique to this GREAT American and International city! We are immersed in our differences, celebrate/study them and CHOOSE not to isolate ourselves from what is different. I LOVE this town! Where else do you have 1 million seniors aging-in-place, woven into the social fabric of everyday life — seamlessly? During blackouts, we carry them down the stairs and walk their pups! While raising my daughter, neighborhood seniors kept watch and, when the sitter had a challenge — pinch hitted, on-demand! New York City IS a series of little villages. Where else can rich and poor co-exist? We are a tapestry, daily extending our hospitality to millions of surban guests from several other States — daily. Watching NYC and New Yorkers rebound after 9/11 is something I am most proud of. I am glad my daughter has also learned not to FEAR and be resilient. She can face whatever the future brings with CONFIDENCE. This City and its amazing array of people is both home and teacher — each and every day. It’s worth the financial and other sacrifices. How else to explain empty-nesters scooping up studio apartments and relocating to…New York?

I spent the first 13 years in Portland Oregon. I believed I owned the YWCA, the Museum, the downtown Library and our wonderful Oaks Park. My sister and I were sent to stay at Castle Airforce Base the summer of 1950 while my parents moved to a small town in central Oregon. I never recovered, then I found myself a city girl married to a ranchers son right after high school. Eventually our life took us to the campus of UofO. Which I loved. Next came New Orleans which was the second time I fell in love with a city. The first being San Francisco in 1950. Eventually we worked our way back to Oregon after 6 years in Dallas. Our first year back home was spent on Mt. Hood in a rented log cabin. Since my husband was commuting my two teenagers and I had a ball. We moved down the mountain and built the dream house on a bluff with a view of Mt. Adams. It was cedar and glass. It also was the down payment for the first ranch we owned. I lasted two and half years. I ran away to Portland and got an apartment as close to down town as I could get. My grown daughter joined me. Because I foolishly loaned my not quite ex my half of our assets to buy himself a ranch I ended up spending four and a half years on that place during the early eighties all alone. Just me, two dogs, one cat and a bunch of cows on 310 acres. When we were finally able to unload it I bought my first home alone close in SE Portland. It was a 1903 Queen Ann. I remember sitting on the front porch after I signed the papers [it was my 49th birthday] buying what was at the time the cheapest house in all of SE according to real estate book at the time. I could see the skyline of downtown from that front porch. I remember thinking it’s not perfect but it was mine all mine. I spent the next 11 years painting and polishing it. Eventually it became a concord blue painted lady with a five color paint job. I only discovered after opening a five gallon container, that Concord was another word for grape. Yes, it was purple. That was $200 worth of paint in 1987 and I wasn’t going to change my mind. I remember one neighbor from the next street over that she thought it was going to be ugly. My own mother told me she wasn’t going to ever stay with me if I didn’t change the color. Eventually they both apoligized. One morning after a foot of snowed had fallen through the night, the neighbor across the street called to say thank you. When I asked for what, she said I needed to see my house from over there. She said it was beautiful in the snow. What a lovely thing for her to do. I had finally gotten it all. A view, a house with character, enough room for my books, room for my art collection, five blocks from a jazz club, my business in the basement. A dining room big enough to sit the whole family for dinner parties, a downtown full of art galleries, a lot different than when I’d arrived in 1970. I’d fallen in love with my hometown. Eleven years ago in preparation for retirement I sold the victorian for a home built in 1900. It has been converted into a triplex. I live in one unit and rent out two. I have two garages that I rent out for storage and a two story space on the back of the garage I rent out as an art studio. My business is in the basement. I now have my little empire. I am 1/2 block from the bus, 1 block across a park to a large store. 12 blocks from a huge shopping center called the Lloyd Center, the first shopping center of it’s kind in 1963, i remember reading about it in the paper when we lived in Dallas, 12 blocks from a Max station that goes to both the airport and downtown which is 28 blocks away. So I’m 28 blocks to the symphony, theater, library, museum, art galleries. I have a wine bar on the corner and can walk to an English pub with the finest fish and chips in town. My plan is to age in place.

I’m from a college town in the Midwest. My parents went to school here and settled in. I’ve managed to leave a few times (1-2 years each) but I keep ending up back here. This time it’s my husband’s fault for choosing to go to grad school here. Once law school ends though, I’m OUT OF HERE!

A really pertinent question to me right now, as I am currently negotiating a move of job to London. Money isn;t important, beyond that I will be able to afford to maintain my modest home here and return for visits - So yes I guess I am rooted, is that sad?