I live in walking distance (which for me is about 2 miles - I like to walk) of almost everything except two of the very major things: my kids' school, and my job. There's a shut-down school about half a mile away, that closed because too many people with kids gave up on the city schools and moved to the suburbs or put their kids in private school. The existing school is great, but it's over 2 miles, and while it's ok for me it's too much for little kids to walk without mucho hassle and whining.

Yeah, it's about a mile and a half. Including walking down into the wash and back up. But to be this far out in the middle of nowhere and to be able to get milk and eggs, albeit severely overpriced milk and eggs, it's worth it. You can also get tire chains and bait and, like, I dunno, a chisel set. It really is a general store, like you picture.

Schools are also the huge reason we can't move close to my job and mr. flea's job easily; the school in the neighborhood near work is a magnet, and will not accept my older child (it's a foreign language immersion magnet). The "neighborhood school" for the neighborhood (takes everyone) is actually not in the neighborhood and is more heavily poor and minority (like, 95%+) than we're ready to handle, and the other good magnet schools would be a looong bus commute for her.

Have I mentioned I am starting to hate the school district (and the behavior of the people with children in the greater metro area with respect to it)?

I have dreams of one day taking care of the filing.

My dreams are small and pathetic and speak to my woeful mastery of grown-up skills.

I live in walking distance of a decent amount, but I don't walk. When I lived in Polgara's nabe (technically I still do, honestly), I walked a lot more. Restaurants, bars, supermarkets, library, post office, cinemas...all within a trivial foot distance.

Big urgent project just dropped into my lap. Hey, thanks, guys! Because I was totally recovered from that last one (not tied up with a pretty bow yet), and I didn't have any ongoing issues to deal with. And this one has two or three Directors and a CIO involved.

There have been stories about schools where none of the kids walk to school, regardless of how close they live - there aren't any sidewalks

Yeah--that's how it was where I grew up (Indianapolis, which I've always described as one big suburb of nothing). I guess downtown is fairly nice now (I hear from the Superbowl), but it didn't used to be, and though my elementary school was less than a mile away, there were only sidewalks for one block of that distance, and my neighborhood had none. Combine that with terrible public transportation, and it was very frustrating until I got my license! I love living in a walkable neighborhood now, and paid a premium for my house because of that--I could've got something much cheaper further away from things.

I wish Nashville were more walkable. There are a few decently walkable neighborhoods, but they're few and far between. In fact, I think we've lived in both of them now, and if we were looking to buy a house, we wouldn't be able to afford much in either of them.

The neighborhood we lived in when we first moved here was small but fun -- we were within a block or two of several good restaurants & bars and right across the street from a nice little park -- but even the grocery stores, though they were fairly close, weren't *really* walkable. The closest was Kroger (just under a mile away), and it was down a long steep hill that only has sidewalks about half the time. My poor mother walked there once in the July heat and the walk back wiped her out for the rest of the day.

Where we live now we're a little farther from the nearest commercial district (about a mile) but it's a pretty pleasant walk. Still, there's not *all* that much there -- a small grocery store, some restaurants, the post office. How I long for a bookstore or movie theater in the neighborhood, let alone a pediatrician!

I mean, I shouldn't complain; they're perfectly good neighborhoods. I just wish they were the rule around here, and not the exception.

Yeah, Indianapolis downtown is much much better than it used to be. We've got a convention coming up there this fall, and although we have folks in town, we're going to just stay downtown so we can walk to everything and not have to deal with driving in and out with the traffic every day.

The city as a whole is still mostly strip mall suburbs, though.

Old Town Wichita was reasonably walkable when we lived there, although it's trendied up a good bit from when we were there, dunno if we'd be able to afford it now. But that was the best in terms of walkable entertainment. I do miss that.

I kinda envy people living in West Hollywood, but part of my brain is convinced if I were close enough to be all Whee! Ho! I'd never get rest when i wanted it, which is most of the time. Santa Monica becomes an issue of price, because you're also getting closer to the ocean. Polgara's neighbourhood is pretty convenient for a bunch of stuff.

remember the stories about Mitt Romney and his dog? I won't rehash them here, but I will add that apparently the dog ran away in Canada at the dog's first opportunity.

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