I have a job with various moments where I have to wait for stuff to finish. Being bored and not doing anything in parallel, I started randomly thinking about stuff and then decided to write down as I think, and this is what came out, hence the title of the post.

Whenever one chooses where to live, there are many compromises involved. A lucky few may end up in their ideal life/place. Most do not. Almost every aspect of human existence is about compromise. One’s home is no different. Living space, jobs, infrastructure, local laws, proximity to family, climate, culture and so forth.

Due to the covid thingamajig, many a company which had the ability moved to working from home, more or less, at least temporarily. This has led to some of the more optimistic dreamers out there to see a world of generalized work from home, where office work is rare, the torment of the daily commute is a distant memory and everyone is happy and productive. This, like most calls of imminent change, is rather naive in my view. More realistically, already existing trends towards increased work from home may somewhat accelerate. The death of the office building in greatly exaggerated. Some claim even the opposite, people will realize they need to work from an office and nothing will change – depends on the home space and how much you like your family.

Off course, even people who want to mostly work from the office may appreciate a day or two from home. And it will depend on the job, the company and the management – some managers will want to keep seeing asses on chairs. This may or may not end up being a fundamental change. The office space real estate biz is huge. Even now in Bucharest more and more office buildings are being built. Some of them may end up with fewer tenants than expected.

Irrespective of how one may think it will go, just the existence of the conversation about it shows there is something there. People flocked to big cities because that is where the jobs were. This led to all things we know and love about big city living. Huge housing costs, noise, dirty air, traffic, congestion, crowds, and long uncomfortable commutes… and so on. It, of course, also lead to high concentrations of bars, restaurants, theaters, museums, galleries and so forth. Many of these things require a critical mass and this may be pretty numerous. Some people flock to the cities for the nightlife, the walkable neighborhoods with hipster restaurants of every imaginable culinary tradition, the museums and art galleries and live music and theater. But these people suffer nonetheless from the overcrowding. And the spread of the commuting radius around cities shows that most people are not there to live in the center of things, because they cannot. Work from home may lead to smaller pressure on city real estate while keeping some critical mass of people, with a much larger and cheaper commuting range, where it is uncomfortable to do it every day, but bearable 2 days a week. And when one can pop over to the city for an event they really want to attend.

I think, myself, 2 days a week in the office is plenty. Enough to socialize with colleagues without commuting every day. Others prefer full time office, others full time home. But this got me thinking. I always considered myself a city person, born and raised in the biggest city in the country. But I also had plenty of country experience, 3-4 months a year when young. I see the value in both. I am not a very social person, so I do not take anywhere near full advantage of what the big city offers as socializing and cultural activities. But, for some reason, I like the things to be here, nearby, just in case. Or maybe I thought I did.

As I got older, I noticed that while I still don’t mind the city itself, I mind the noise and in Bucharest the horrible air quality. And visiting my mom’s house with a garden by the lake, I would like more open space next to my home. So I started thinking, what would my ideal home be? Let’s say Pie get 100 million US moneys, so economics is no constraint. Where would Pie live?

I don’t think a 0 compromise solution exists. I like a nice clean lake and I like mature trees/forests. So an ideal place would basically be near a lake surrounded by forests. A clean lake so, in the warm months, I could just swim in the lake from my property. A lake large and deep enough to swim and mess about in a canoe or a boat. So Pie’s ideal yard would have at least one side to the lake and one side to the forest. The other two sides matter less, but a road nearby would help.

Size wise… I don’t like to do much gardening, so it would mostly be trees and grass that needs no regular mowing. Size is a problem if too much work goes into it, otherwise not so much. But I would like to have at least 20-30 meters to the neighbor on the non-forest/lake side, so I assume a couple of your acres would do, with a house and a bunch of trees.

Ideally this would be reasonably close – under 100 kilometers – to a large city, with restaurants, theaters and an international airport for easy travel. Closer, under 10 kilometers and preferably under 2-3 to be able to easily walk, a smaller town but large enough for essentials, with a good bakery, a good butcher, a nice hipster coffee shop and a bar/bistro/diner/restaurant. Maybe a village with a community of 100 or so families of people who are well employed eventually working remote could support the commercial part, so no need for a town.

Climate wise for me would be rarely to never over 30 C, rarely to never under -10 C. Nighttime lows under 20C in summer. Basically a place where in summer the highs are about 25-30 and lows 15, where I would not need much AC and would be able to sleep with the window open. I cannot do this now because it is too warm and  too noisy. But in my ideal place there would be little noise and clean, fresh air. In Europe, climate and location wise, this would be probably in Switzerland, around Geneva/Lausanne. Although culturally I am not sure how I would fit in. In Romania somewhere towards the mountains from Bucharest. I know of no place with both a clean lake and nice forests, but there must be one or two.

In the end, all this is basically an introduction to a glib question round, so I would ask three questions to the audience. Where do you think work from home will be in 10 years? How much of it do you want to do? Finally, what is your absolutely ideal place of residence (and how close are you now to it) ?