Hi, this is Chris Hubs.

I don’t know why you’re listening to this, but since you are, let’s talk about city life.

For work this week, I’m in Washington, D.C., and one of the things I always love about coming to D.C.

is just the ability to experience life in the large urban city.

It’s got a more or less functional metro system.

You can get off at the airport, jump right on the train.

Last night when I did that, then I could get off just like six blocks from my hotel, quick walk, and on that walk from the train to the hotel, past most of the shops that you would need probably in daily life.

There was a medical center.

There were food stores.

There were so many restaurants.

There were all sorts of service shops and things.

And there’s a part of me that would just really love the idea of trying out life in a big walkable city like that.

My childhood, I lived mostly in small towns and in rural areas.

The small towns were such that as a kid, I could bicycle around, I could get to the library and to school and things like that, and that was cool.

Out in the rural areas, nice to have lots of space, nice to explore, but pretty disconnected from things, right?

And so that’s the classic urban-rural trade-off.

In my adult life, then I spent most of it living in what’s essentially a suburb of a medium-sized town.

And again, so mostly just neighborhood walkable and, in most things, just a short drive.

So I have been through that experience, and so why it’s so delightful and different then to come to a big city and to have public transportation that efficiently can get you around from place to place.

The idea of walking, being able to walk to work and have it be a relatively short transit and to be able to pass lots of useful things.

When I head to my meeting this morning, it’s less than a mile.

The map says it’s a 15-minute walk.

It looks like it’s about eight or nine blocks.

I have my choice on that walk of half a dozen places if I want to stop for a coffee or if I want to stop for some breakfast, if I needed to pick up miscellaneous stuff at a drugstore or pick up some snacks to keep me going during meetings today, things like that, it’ll all be right there.

And I think if I were going to try life in the big city, that would be the way to try it.

I know I run into people who work in D.C.

at many of my meetings who commute in and live out in Virginia somewhere.

I talked to a guy who takes the train and commutes somewhere over an hour each direction every day to get from his home in Virginia into the office in D.C.

And I just, to me, that seems like the worst of both worlds, that you work in the city, but you also get all of the commute time.

So I don’t know.

I don’t know if I’d actually like the big city sort of carless life if I had the opportunity to try it.

But I sure do enjoy coming on business travel and getting to experience it for a week.

Similarly, when I’ve traveled to Europe and had the opportunity to spend time in places like Cologne, Germany, Brussels, Belgium, where similarly they’ve got nice public transportation and they’re more traditional urban cities.

I really enjoy the opportunity to stay there.

Again, I don’t know how well my business travel reflects real life, but for the short term, I really enjoy it.

So that’s some thoughts on city life.

We’ll see how much I enjoy it by the end of the week, but for now, I’m going to finish my coffee and head to my meeting, and we’ll talk later.