> But sadly, as with most things commie, it's totally soul crushing. And fugly.

Is it though?

I grew up in the countryside, in a detached house in a middle class family. There were no kids my age nearby. My grandma (which was taking care of us after school) was overprotective and didn't let us go play outside. Which meant we sat in the living room for 3 hours waiting for our parents to go back home. There were 2 TV channels, no computer, no smartphone, no internet. I've read literally every book our village library had, including romance books.

Compare that to the childhood my cousins had in a medium-sized city. They had dozens of friends in 100 meter radius. They had a playground 50 meters from their home and they spent most of their free time playing with their friends outside cause it was safe and there were things to do. My step sister was doing historical reenactment, my step brother was making RC planes in a nearby club. The only pastime people were doing outside in my village was drinking cheap wine on a bus-stop or fishing. Sorry, we had a basketball field as well. Until it was destroyed to make space for a new church parking.

What I did in free time was reading books and eventually programming once I got a computer.

When we all went to a middle school to the big city - they had public transport going every 30 minutes to her home. I had 1.5 hour between waking up and arriving at school which means I was waking up before 06:00. It was still dark most of the year. When I was going back it was already dark again half of the year. So no point going outside. Unless you like walking through a village where everybody sits inside and it's dark and dogs are barking at you from behind the fences. So relaxing.

BTW the last bus back was around 20:30, which means no middle school parties for us.

When I went to the university I started living in the big city and that's when my social life started. I could actually do things with people my age besides taking classes.

I returned after university for a short period. I commuted again for about half a year. I had almost no free time if you discount the commute. Wake up, it's dark, go to work, work, go back, it's dark again. Go to sleep or do sth in your house. Talk about soul-crushing.

I went back to the city and bought a flat there. I changed a job a few times, moved to another city then went back. All that time I never had to commute longer than 30 minutes one way. And most of that time I commuted by walking for 20 minutes through a park.

Now I work remotely, so I guess I could do that from the countryside. But still, I prefer living in a block cause it's much less dumb maintenance work. I haven't had to shuffle coal for over a decade. Or snow. Or to rake leaves. Instead I walk about 7 km per day for the last 2 years to keep in shape and listen to audiobooks and podcasts.

And BTW this is how the ugly soul-crushing commie-blocks look like:

https://d-art.ppstatic.pl/kadry/k/r/23/f5/5ed8b60e6c25b_o_la...

https://www.lut.esn.pl/sites/default/files/filaretow-wawoz08...

> You know: the kind of place where are actually grown and produced the stuff the city dwellers do eat and drink.

That place is perfectly fine without people like us. In fact suburbanization is interfering with agriculture there.