Best Location/District to live without a car-downtown where?

[stacey]

I've been looking around for the last few hours both on this site and others...there's just so much information, but it is so hard to get as good idea as one would get once having visiting and being there...

Around Districts 1,2,6,7,8,9,10 if I an sort or close on this... where could I get the best city living feeling; where could I live walking distance to food (grocery stores and/or restaurants) and public transportation. I know it's not the same, but where do you get the closest feel to a downtown living as you would get in downtown manhattan, nyc, or london, uk, and those are the only two places that I've lived for the past ~15yrs...

thank u so much... I'm from a much smaller city than those, in Florida, so at least I know the weather would be favorable at least as compared to winter times, although I'm not a huge fan of the hot weather in south florida, perhaps that why I've lived in colder cities afterwards

Any feedback would be welcome. I would love to hear from others having come from big cities, and whether you at first chose the right place to live, or perhaps chose the wrong place first but have now found your way to a more fitting place....

thanks so much!

[durain]

i am a city boy and the good thing i find about singapore is each small town has it's own mini "downtown". if you live near the public transport hub, there's going to be lots of shops for shopping and food.

[stacey]

thanks - that's simple and makes a lot of sense...
i'll be at work mostly but my partner will be at home mostly at least at first, so some kind of buzz and convenience nearby would be great.
what are the two or three bigger transport hubs, is it around where two mrt lines connect for example...

[durain]

what are the two or three bigger transport hubs, is it around where two mrt lines connect for example...

there are LOTS! even if you are living outside the hub, it is easy to get public transport there.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Think any large metropolitan and surrounds of around 4.5 million people with a first world+ transportation system and infrastructure and you have Singapore. New Towns are the equivalent of suburbs to the major central business district. the only real difference would be a major city like Miami where the suburbs are all located North, West & South due to Dade County bordering the Atlantic. Here it is similar as the port is located on the South Side of the Island so that is where the Business District is located.. You are only 45 minutes from the business district from any point on the island.

[stacey]

45 minutes peak or off-peak....

45min peak in miami will get you through 100 blocks on the highway.... and as narrow as manhattan is, it will take you 45 minutes to crosstown on the 34th street bus during rush hour!

considering i dont get out of manhattan much... singapore must be pretty big to me!
i dont not go to the other boroughs out of snobbishness, i just dont, although i do wish i lived in brooklyn or something...

[cbavasi]

stacey - in re: to commute singapore is not dissimilar to NYC. best to live close to the MRT so you can count on that for your commute on most days - but if you get lazy it's still not that expensive to take a cab. after living in NYC for so long we moved to central london (near an MRT) and my first week of work i was lazy and took a cab and it cost me the equivalent of $40USD one way. and we were only about 15 minutes away from my office! try having a search near orchard, douby gaut, sommerset, newton, novena.
the "feeling" of the city is not like NYC - but then what is? i would compare singapore more with san francisco in terms of the pace. it's a city, it's clean but not as nitty-gritty as NYC.

[stacey]

thanks so so so much cbavasi....
i think your feedback helps a lot so I appreciate it...

i wish and want, or more like wanted, to do like you and move to central london next... but there are no jobs there I almost got one recently, so close yet so far...
still considering whether to move to london or singapore, heart says london, but job will likely say singapore... or maybe neither and who knows what else next...

[cbavasi]

i'd pick singapore for sure! i was so excited to move to london and honestly found it a big slap in the face from living in NYC for so long. everything was so far away - and we lived in west kensington so we were smack in the middle of everything. it was also SUPER expensive. not that singapore is not - but you'll find it not too different from what you are paying now in terms of day-to-day stuff. plus - it's such a great experience if you have the chance to live in asia - go for it! you can always try for a job in london at a later date.

[stacey]

that's so true... london can always come after singapore... but I doubt it would happen the other way around...

i would want to be in SG for a year or two, or in non-numbers terms, until there's an attractive opportunity elsewhere and/or until next promotion is secured...

there's a few things about SG that bug me, but I could say the same thing about NYC and London. Except that I love being able to go out at midnight or 3AM to buy eggs or milk or drinks or vegetables or mostly anything else...but also also prefer to be sleeping at those times so I'll be fine if everything is closed over there at night

[JimH5]

Hi Stacey--

My wife and I spent 3 years in Jacksonville, and spent a fair amount of that time traveling throughout the state. You'll find Singapore to be very similar to South Florida in terms of temperatures. It's cloudy here a little more, but the breeze is pleasant.

We live in the Newton/Novena area, and have been here the past year without a car. We do everything on foot, or by MRT or occasional taxi. Not sure that we'd be able to do 24-hour food shopping, but I suppose a ride to Mustafa Centre would scratch that itch.

And while I've never lived in NYC, we did live in NJ, and spent many weekends in Manhattan. And while Singapore is a very nice place, it's not Manhattan. The culture isn't nearly what you'd find in NYC. Museums, theater, shopping, parks, the newspapers, history, sports...You're going to miss New York.

Though I'll admit to being completely biased.

[Saint]

i'd pick singapore for sure! i was so excited to move to london and honestly found it a big slap in the face from living in NYC for so long. everything was so far away - and we lived in west kensington so we were smack in the middle of everything. it was also SUPER expensive. not that singapore is not - but you'll find it not too different from what you are paying now in terms of day-to-day stuff. plus - it's such a great experience if you have the chance to live in asia - go for it! you can always try for a job in london at a later date.

Oh I feel so sorry for you most awfully

[cbavasi]

i'd pick singapore for sure! i was so excited to move to london and honestly found it a big slap in the face from living in NYC for so long. everything was so far away - and we lived in west kensington so we were smack in the middle of everything. it was also SUPER expensive. not that singapore is not - but you'll find it not too different from what you are paying now in terms of day-to-day stuff. plus - it's such a great experience if you have the chance to live in asia - go for it! you can always try for a job in london at a later date.

Oh I feel so sorry for you most awfully

hey now, i didn't say "kensington"
my point was that london was really big compared to what previous two long term living experiences were (san fran & nyc) and also quite expensive at the time we moved (2001).