We tried living in a city for a year; decided to stay, leave suburbs

August 3, 2026 - 21:21

For ten years, we lived in a quiet suburb with a big lawn, a two-car garage, and a fifteen-minute drive to the nearest coffee shop that was worth visiting. My husband, a lifelong suburbanite, would often talk about the energy of downtown, the walkability, the late-night food options. I always laughed it off. Then, last summer, he proposed a challenge: sell the house, rent a high-rise apartment in the city for exactly one year, and then decide where we truly wanted to live.

I agreed, mostly to prove him wrong. We packed up our furniture, put most of it in storage, and moved into a 22nd-floor unit with floor-to-ceiling windows. The first month was chaos. The noise from the street below kept me up, and I missed my garden. But something shifted by the third month. I stopped driving everywhere. I walked to the grocery store, took the train to work, and discovered a bakery that makes sourdough better than anything I had in the suburbs. My husband was thrilled, but I was the one who started keeping a list of all the small wins.

By month six, we realized we had not used our car in over a week. By month nine, we had made more friends in our building than we had in a decade of neighborhood block parties. The trade-offs were real: less space, no yard, and a monthly parking fee that stung. But the convenience, the culture, and the sheer variety of life outside our front door won us over.

When the year ended, we did not move back. We sold the suburban house and bought a smaller condo two blocks away from our rental. My husband got his city life, and I got something I never expected: a home that feels alive. The suburbs were comfortable, but the city is where we actually live.