Busy. Before the political environment changed, I had my heart set on moving to Buenos Aires.

in my daydreams, I want to live
in a busy, busy city, five hundred stories up
watching the traffic from my window
darting between the buildings
above and below the plaza level

where kids run and shopping gets done
in a calm and overcast warm day
the holograms splashed over the buildings
with every vibrant color, no advertisements
but art and music and wonder and beauty

and along through all this bustle
with the a-note of the flying vehicles
gliding by peacefully amongst this grandeur
i am at my window, taking it all in
looking up from my book, pen down

from my wooden chair i rise
my room as bright as outside
and my whole residence is perched
on the loft of a tea shop
greenery in every corner

and the customers come in
stressed out, in the fashions of the day
chasing that trend they can never really find
and they drink good tea, real tea, in this sincere place
with plants and flowers in every nook and cranny

the trick to this wondrous magic
is that the tea is always grown by hand
with real sunlight and real soil
by real hands doing real work
and none of it is replicated and created

and before the customers whoosh off
heading to their next meeting or their next job
they take an hour with me, and they sip
forgetting that they’re a half-mile up
and they walked on a holo-bridge to get here

for maybe just a moment i bring them peace
perhaps this is the only part of their life
done in the style of the old ways
and it’s good hard work
being a tea witch in the present day

(yes I wrote a whole-ass poem for this, you're welcome)

(no, don't imagine Night City from Cyberpunk, that's gross. Imagine Academia from FF13-2.)

Cosy and quiet, for sure. But close enough to the busy and buzzing spot that I don't have to worry about getting a hotel when I go out.

It fits right there next to my:

So suburb?

Literally me. Give me a cabin in the Nordics and the ability to bicycle 15 minutes towards the city and I'm happy.

Montevideo then?

I miss living some place walkable. And having neighbors who are interested in being neighborly.

I've yet to visit, so I can't speak from first hand experience, but it would be a nice backup plan, as long as it's not too expensive. The exchange rate isn't as friendly to Uruguay!

Busy and buzzing for sure. I grew up in more cozy and quiet and I found it too boring because you have to get in a car and drive to see people (at least in the US). There were great nature paths to walk around, but I much prefer people watching while I walk around. I also prefer to be able to walk to as many places as I can. If I can walk to the grocery store, I’ll gladly walk there every other day for food shopping vs one big trip less often.

I want to live somewhere that is both. Busy and buzzing from all the people, but also cozy and quiet from the lack of cars.

I lived in medium busy SanDiego near downtown. It was great. Now I live in Washington state near lake Washington. Big difference.

This place is partly walkable but only for exercise. Like you can't hope to go to MacDonald's, get a burger and comeback home. I'd be surprised if you got to the McDonald's and could still stand up straight. This February has been weird and you could probably one day return home. Most years a search party would find your body among the brown road slushy snow.

If you love nature, come over between April and June. If you want fried chicken then between July and August. And if you don't care to refrigerate anything, that's the rest of the year.

People lose their job from Microsoft and Amazon and they lose their home, yet no homeless anywhere to be found.... Don't look in the snow. I heard that we keep homeless in shelters like human beings. Actually I have seen people living in tents near the various urban areas. You'd be crazy to try living a life of walking around anywhere else in this crazy weather state. Don't try...you'll be soggy. That's not a typo. It rains like if you were a shower curtain. You know its happening, you're all wet, but the action is freezing lizards off trees in Florida. Like if we get a little breezy rain here, someone's getting a category 7 super cell storm in their eastern state soon. Here you clean the moss from the roof, the trees, your windshield, your glasses, your shoes...the moss...it wants you dead.

traditionally I get so overstimulated that I can't do anywhere with noise - my ideal is a cottage deep in the woods miles away from other humans

but in the past couple years my mental health has significantly improved and I'm starting to learn to enjoy other people (sometimes) ... so I actually don't know - this is a major problem because I don't know whether to live in the city or more in the suburbs.

Nah, suburbs are too car centered. Can't really ride a bike for transportation, only for exercise. Typically too dangerous to get on the freeways that connect them to the city and fast enough busses that you could bring them on often are only available for commuting during office work hours. Semi-secluded neighborhoods in the city are usually best, but typically very expensive to live in one. I was lucky enough to find the cheapest house in one in my city. But bus coverage sucks except to GP downtown, and it's on too steep of a hill for biking. Rich people like it that way, though. Lol.

Edit: at least in most of the US.