This week’s question (Have your own? Email us.):

We moved to the suburbs for space and schools, but now we spend half our lives in the car and barely know our neighbors (who, after repeated attempts including a block party we planned, don’t seem to want to know us or each other). We wanted a bigger house so the family would feel less cramped, but the space has allowed the kids to retreat into their parts of the home. We come back to the city all the time to see friends and for events (like this weekend’s Italian Market Festival) because our town is, frankly, boring. Should we just move back?

Abigail Covington, Life & Culture Reporter

Listen, from the way you are describing it to us, this seems like a no-brainer: move back. But also, maybe make a pro/con list first? If you can’t think of any cons for moving back (because you are suffering from too much buyer’s remorse), let me help you out: you would have to move again: pack boxes, get the movers, the whole shebang.

Evan Weiss, Deputy Features Editor

Transitions like this can be very hard. I think they need to give a real go of it first before settling back into what they know.

Mike Newall, Life & Culture Reporter

I’m a city kid. It’s what I know. I got my license when I was 21. I happily live my life according to an endless rhythm of corner stores and neighborhood shops. I thrill in the unexpected encounters of city life. The history. The diverse, swirling creativity. The inspiration. A city is scarred concrete and broken windows and shedding skin. It dies and reappears new. It sustains.

My flirtation with the suburb — which of course happened after my 5-year-old son was born and we started considering schools — lasted about a week when I realized that after 25 years in Philadelphia, I really couldn’t find the suburbs on a map.

Evan Weiss

There are different benefits to living in the suburbs (nature!) vs. the city (culture!). The writer needs to figure out where they are on that spectrum and where they want their family to be.

Abigail Covington

I’ve lived in both the city and the ‘burbs and enjoyed them for different reasons. Like Evan said, the space and quiet of the ‘burbs is pretty nice. But as Mike quite poetically described, the city is a beautiful garbage can! In addition to asking where your family is on the nature-culture spectrum, maybe ask what matters most to you right now. What originally brought you to the burbs?

Mike Newall

Okay, let me get off my city high horse. I get it. A nice big home. Grass for the kids and the dog. No more parking wars and scowling neighbors armed with orange cones. No more gunshots.

I want my kid to grow up safe, and not within walking distance, or a bus ride away from some of the East Coast’s most bustling drug markets. I want his schools to be palaces.

But I also want him to be accepting and aware and free to be himself. And I don’t know, but I always thought that was just a bit easier in a city. I guess, like Abigail said, it comes down to happiness and priorities.

Abigail Covington

I’m actually going through this same debate right now, and it’s not easy. There are plenty of good schools in the city. I guess my hope for future me is that whatever I choose, I give it a good college try before I change my mind. It’s easy to focus on what you left behind when you’re somewhere new. But I would challenge you to take a half-glass full approach to your current situation because, well, it’s the life you chose. And you had your reasons.

Mike Newall

Abigail is right. The suburbs have their splendors. Main streets and trails and Wegmans grocery stores the size of gothic cathedrals. My brother and sisters fled Brooklyn for the ‘burbs. Their kids have character and spunk and originality. They’ve enjoyed every comfort and never experienced the charm of car alarms at 3 a.m. and a city government so hapless they can’t plow the streets. It comes down to what you make of it. And you’re always a bridge ride away.

But if you do stay, and learn to love it, don’t start bad mouthing the city you once loved. Because then we’re sworn enemies. Keep the city alive in your family and home and it’ll always be a part of you.