We're Number One

According to a recent poll, the area I live in is populated by the most cantankerous and unhappy people in all of the UK. In a country that takes pride in its world-class reserve and pessimism, this is quite a distinction. Add to that the fact that my town was recently voted one of the worst places to live in Britain and you might conclude that I had the misfortune of fleeing Upstate NY only to find myself in the most miserable spot on the planet.

Then why do I like it here so much?

My theory is, they are using the wrong set of criteria to judge whether a place is good or bad to live in. The young people find it too boring, the old people find it too frenzied and they all agree it is way too crowded (mostly with those pesky immigrants).

Granted, there are a lot of folks living here (the crush of cars on the inadequate highway infrastructure is such that a strategically-placed fender-bender can make one third of the entire population of Britain late for work) but I grew up in an area where, if you didn’t get to the general store by five o’clock on Friday you had the option of drinking well-water for the rest of the weekend or going thirsty, so I’m here to tell you that crowded isn’t always a bad thing.

And having grown up in rural NY State, I have an entirely different set of criteria to judge whether or not a place is fit to live in:

- The weather won't kill you.
     Where I come from, accidentally locking yourself out of the house during the darker months of the year can make you the lead story on the morning news and land you flat on a slab in the local mortuary—once they thaw you out, that is.

- You're unlikely to be eaten by the local wildlife.
     Few things are more startling than coming nose to nose with a bear while taking out the trash. But at least I lived in the north; toe to nose with an alligator sounds even less appealing.

- Losing your way on a forest path is unlikely to result in Search and Rescue being called out or a hunter stumbling over your bleached bones three years later.
     Being lost in Sussex generally means an extra ten-minutes of walking until you happen upon a road (although sometimes you have to endure a few, “I told you we should have taken that path back there” jibs en route). This is also a good way to find those off-the-beaten-track pubs.

- You can walk to the pubs.
     As pointed out in the previous item, you can sometimes walk to a pub without meaning to. And you can get a good pint of bitter, if it pleases you, instead of a bottle of Bud.

- There’s a lot to see and do.
     A typical days outing can mean going to the theatre in London, visiting an ancient castle or simply walking the prom in Brighton, not another visit to the Utica Museum of Cheese.

And, as a bonus:

- There's a moat between us and the Continent.
     The Channel keeps us from being overrun by French people and is directly responsible for the fact that the locals don’t speak German or eat bratwurst instead of steak and kidney pudding.

- Barbra Streisand doesn't live here.
     It’s not that we don’t have our share of hypocritical do-gooders who think they have the right to tell us what to do with our lives, but at least none of them had anything to do with Yentl.

So why all the moaning about what a crappy place this is to live? If it’s so bad, then why is everyone moving here instead of, say, Manchester, where they won’t be snarling up our roads and overstretching our water system and electrical grid and just generally being in the way all the time, especially when you’re trying to get through the town center on a Saturday morning. Sheesh! Look at that mob! All I want to do is buy a loaf of bread and it’s going to take me an hour with all those people in the way.

And I’m sure most of them are immigrants.