Category Archives: Where should you live?

Interviews

It’s not all urban farms: a q&a with Achille Bianchi and Michael E. Burdick about living in Detroit

by Henry Goldman • August 27, 2012

A few months ago, responding to the steady stream of media reports about Detroit’s creative/hipster renaissance, I wrote a list of hyperbolic things you could say about “America’s Comeback City.” I just didn’t believe that a small cadre of twentysomethings in live/work lofts and urban farms actually constituted anything more than an anecdote. Anyways, I also included a callout to people who live in Detroit, because, never having been there, I was curious how it felt to live in inquisitive glare of GOOD Magazine and the New York Times Sunday Style Section, while also living in a shrinking, former economic juggernaut of a city. So, after posting the article, I had a nice chat with Achille Bianchi and Michael Burdick, two locals who had a lot to say about the whole thing.

So first off, who are you guys, and how did you each end up in Detroit?

Achille: I’m a journalist and photographer in the city. I’ve been down here for nine years, now. Graduated in 2003, came down here pretty much immediately after I graduated. My sister was down here studying design at the College for Creative Studies and I didn’t have much direction, so I applied for university here, and haven’t left since.

Michael: I grew up outside the city, in a suburb about twenty minutes away. Went to College for Creative Studies for illustration when I was 18 and yeah, also never really left.

So you’ve both been there for a while. I’m curious when you became aware of this media narrative that there was a surge of hip, young people moving to Detroit?

Achille: I can pinpoint that exactly. It was 2009, and actually [Michael’s] boss, Toby Barlow, broke a story about a $500 house in northern Detroit, with a couple friends of ours, Mitch and Gina, who run the Powerhouse Project. And then, kind of before then, 2003 to 2008, there was some cool stuff going on, but no one [nationally] gave a shit. But as soon as that story hit the New York Times, that’s when it all started.

Michael: And then, two years ago, Phil Cooley, the owner of Slows, got on Huffington Post person of the week, or something like that.

Achille: So, I’d say 2008-2010 was the “ruin porn” era, and the 2010 to present is the “hope porn” era.

… KEEP READING!

Where should you live?

Why you should live abroad

by Dan Abbe • August 10, 2012

At the beginning of 2009, I moved from San Francisco to Tokyo. I was 24, and I had some fairly idealistic motivations to go: boredom with my job! a long-distance relationship! an interest in photography! The first two reasons exhausted themselves pretty quickly, although the third one has kept me here until today. No matter what reasons you have, though, I think it’s worth living outside of the U.S. for some time if you can make it happen. Here are a few reasons why:

… KEEP READING!

Where should you live?

Some things I learned at Summer Commune

by A. Nicole Kelly • August 7, 2012

Summer Commune is a mobile intentional community which brought 20 “new adults” from cities (including San Francisco, LA, London, and Vancouver) to Moscow, Idaho (pop. 24,000) this year. Communers hang out, work virtually, go on field trips,  and produce community events. A. Nicole Kelly is one of this year’s organizers who wanted to share a bit about this last summer. We previously covered Summer Commune earlier this year, in an interview with fellow organizer Joshua Heller.

I had hoped Summer Commune would help me feel creative—energized and inspired by like-minded people. I thought Summer Commune was my DIY writer’s residency. But while I do feel creative, inspired, and energized, and while this summer has been productive for my work, it’s turned out less like an artists’ commune and more like existential summer camp.

Most everyone drawn here seems to be at a crossroads. Summer Commune is this liminal space in which we’re figuring things out, asking what we want, defining what we don’t, and then trying to imagine what that looks like. We’re trying to change the ways we think about living.

… KEEP READING!

Interviews

Living in Portland: A Q&A with Portland-transplant Danish Aziz on life in America’s “2nd best city for hipsters”

by Henry Goldman • August 6, 2012

Portland, Oregon, thanks to pop culture myth, reports on up-and-coming cities in national media and the TV show Portlandia, has seen it’s reputation as a “hip city” expand drastically in the last decade (Travel + Leisure declared it the 2nd best “city for hipsters” earlier this year). Now, I grew up in Eugene, Oregon, a couple hours south of Portland and when I went away to college, my folks decamped to the “big city”, so Portland feels a lot like home these days. That said, I was curious how Portland seemed to a transplant, who’d lived in other cities, and for whom the Northwest’s culture of microbrews and college football obsession wouldn’t be second nature.

Enter Danish Aziz, a San Francisco friend, internet savant and an astute cultural observer. Danish moved to Portland a year ago, so I wanted to get his impression of life in the city, in your late 20s, for a non-local. So I hit him up on his lunch hour a little while a back and we rapped about Portland living and how it compares to other cities.

So first of all, what are you doing in Portland?

When I graduated from college, my parents lived in California. Then, once I’d moved to California, they’d decided to move to Oregon. So after I had to leave my last job, my dad was sick and I wanted to be near them, and Portland was the closest city to where they lived on the coast. So basically I want to be close to them in case anything happens to my dad.

And I wanted to try a new city and Portland seemed cool.

So what was your impression of Portland before you moved there? Had you visited before?

Yeah, because that’s where’d I flown in previously to visit my parents. And my brother lived here and I had a couple friends from high school who lived here so I’ve known Portland for five years.

I think as an outsider, it seems like a west coast Minneapolis. Or a sort of townier version of San Francisco. It’s a pretty small city but it has the amenities of a larger city. It seemed very Pacific Northwest, woodsy and green and with mountains. Most of the people seemed to be white. And they’ve got public transportation and lots of places to eat and drink and a lot of good music coming through. So it seemed like a good a mid-market city. Just like their basketball team.

… KEEP READING!

Interviews

Living in Paris: A Q&A with expat Parisian/musician Gabriel Gorman

by Henry Goldman • July 6, 2012

Gabriel Gorman is a Canadian friend from college. A couple years after graduation, Gabe moved to Paris, on whim, hoping for a change and to practice his French. In the intervening years, Gabe hasn’t left, became the frontman for a independent French/English band, called DAD, (they have an album coming out on ObliqSound and a North American tour lined up for later this year), and has pretty much turned Parisian. So, a little while back, I hit Gabe up to ask him how he did it and what it was like.

So, what are you doing in Paris?

I am a musician in Paris, making bucks wherever I can, but working most days on music, writing and things of that sort. I have to make money, so I teach English. In the past, I had a café job and I tour-guided. At the moment, I’m not making enough from concerts to make ends meet, but that’s the goal in the next little while.

… KEEP READING!

Where should you live?

11 hyperbolic things you could say about Detroit’s twenty-something boom

by Henry Goldman • May 29, 2012

“Young people moving to Detroit in droves” is one of my favorite media-created memes. If you read any national media outlet that covers the movements of new adults, you’ve probably read about the quote-unquote “trend”; Hip, motivated, young people have been re-populating the desolate post-industrial wasteland of Detroit an unlikely pace, buying abandoned homes for nothing, building urban farms, living in art-warehouse co-ops, starting social enterprises or food trucks or boutique ad agenecy. Basically, all the “interesting” things twenty-somethings purportedly do in other cities, they’re doing in Detroit. But the narrative crafted around this meta-story is more meaningful, because Detroit is symbolic of America’s previous century, and now, in it’s deteriorated state, it’s symbolic of America’s post-millennial soul-searching/the death of the blue-collar middle class. And the fact that apparently hip people are moving there to revitalize it makes a great story. But it’s just a story.

… KEEP READING!

Interviews

What’s it like to live in the Yukon? A Q&A with bushman/adult Tom Witte

by Henry Goldman • May 14, 2012

Tom Witte is an old Montreal friend, a Canadian, a savvy drinker and talented raconteur. When I knew Tom, he was a city guy, who knew the best Montreal microbreweries, the fastest bike routes across the city and which weird experimental electronic music shows to go to. Nowadays, Tom is a bushman, having spent the last five odd years in Dawson city (population 2000), deep in the Yukon territory. Dawson is next door to Alaska, at about 64º latitude, and a five-hour drive from the next biggest “city” (Whitehorse, pop. 20,000). I wanted to know what it’s like, spending your twenties in a town of 2000, how twentysomethings there compare to us city-folk, and just what the fuck he’s doing there.

First off, why don’t you describe Dawson City.  
I think more Americans are getting to know Dawson City thanks to that TV show “Gold Rush Alaska”, though they might not realize it’s in Canada, since the show is pretty vague on that little detail. Historically, Dawson City used to be a thriving hub of gold-seekers at the close of the 19th century, booming to around 30,000 people at the height of the Klondike rush.  Since then, it’s dwindled in size, frozen and thawed countless times, rotted and rebuilt and survived thanks to the continued efforts of small-time gold miners, tourism, and an active first nations community.… KEEP READING!

modern adults

On being held hostage by the highest rent in the country

by Henry Goldman • April 3, 2012

A couple weeks ago, news stories started to come out around a report that announced that San Francisco, the fair city where I’ve live for the past four years, has the highest rent in the country. No one I know was shocked or even surprised. First of all, San Francisco is (arguably) one of the most livable cities in North America. Our fair burg boasts beautiful architecture/streets/landscapes, dense neighborhoods with great restaurants/bars/things to do, public transport good enough that you don’t need a car and weather that, while it isn’t as great as LA, is never oppressively bad. Secondly, while the rest of the country has been trying to get out from under the not-so-Great-Recession, San Francisco’s economy has been booming. Seriously. Every tech company here has been hiring constantly since ’09, often offering people who do tech things HUGE salaries (not to mention other perks, like free shuttles to work and free lunches). This means there’s a ton of people in the city will to pay exorbitant rent to live in the city.

All in all, this means, I’m terrified to ever give up my (relatively) decently priced apartment in an awesome part of town, because I’m scared I’ll never get anything like it again.

… KEEP READING!

international adults

Adults in Spain: a discussion with expat, Will Payne

by Henry Goldman • April 1, 2012

One of the things that personally interests me about the concept of new adulthood in North America, is how it corresponds with new adulthood in other countries.  Without diving too far into cliché about how the world is flat and it’s all connected, it’s fair to say that there is more of shared culture, brought about by new media, than ever before. So I wanted to start having discussions with people living in other countries, who are perceptive about new adult culture here AND there. First up is my old chum, Will Payne, a writer and new media marketing bro living the dream out in Spain.

Henry: First off, we should find out who you are and what you’re doing in Spain? Sum it up, buddy.

Will: My wife and I got married last year, and decided it was time to get out of our job ruts in the Bay Area and try something completely different. She got a job teaching English in a public high school 10 hours a week that pays our basic bills, and we both do private English lessons and other projects to be able to afford to explore. Despite a few rollercoaster moments dealing with Spanish bureaucracy and cultural clashes, it’s been a lot of fun, we aren’t broke yet, so that’s good.

… KEEP READING!

copyright yr an adult © 2012

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