I live in Philly. Most of you know that. If you want to know why I live in Philly, well this pretty much sums it up:
“We got priced out of Manhattan, and we moved to Brooklyn,” said John Schmersal, 32, of the three-member band Enon; two of them migrated here in January. “Then we got priced out of Brooklyn. Now we’re in Philadelphia.”
Replace Brooklyn with New Jersey, and there you have it. There is a good article in the New York Times about the migration to Philly from Manhattan, and the 8,000 people living in Philly that commute to work in New York.
So, why do you live where you live? And where would you like to live instead?
and the spouse still considers it “home”, but it’s too damn pricey. Even with rent increase, we’re still paying about $300 – 400 less than we were in Palo Alto, and it’s a lot better place; we’ve got a nice pool/spa, a fitness room, and our unit has its own patio, storage room and pantry, plus the spouse and I get our own bedroom closets instead of having to share one. Here in Sunnyvale, we’re also closer to transit (bus and CalTrain), and more centrally located if we want to leave the car at home and take the bus to dinner and a movie.
Purchased housing isn’t really in the works until we see what’s in store after the in-laws are gone; with the spouse planning to retire in 9 years (oh my God), we don’t want to get involved in any sort of mortgage. We’re having dinner with the in-laws tomorrow and talking about what they have set up in terms of assorted trusts; they have a regular revocable living trust (probably similar to what my mom had), plus a special needs trust to cover their younger son who is disabled. After seeing what my sister went through administering my mom’s trust this year, I figure the more we know in advance, the better.
As much as I’ve talked about wanting to live in the Northwest (Puget Sound area), I can’t really imagine living anywhere else. Our families are here (Mom’s gone, but my brother and sisters are all still in the Bay Area, plus the spouse’s folks and brother), the weather is mostly great (I can do without the excess heat recently), there’s plenty of stuff to do from museums to concerts to beaches to sports. I’ve seen elderly relatives move out of the area to places they think are “perfect”, only to see them return, or to wish they could return. That was what kept my mom in the family home until she died…and will probably keep me here as well…
CaliScribe:
Spent three years as a child in East Palo Alto, which is now becoming more and more Hispanic. IKEA has moved there, I hear, where Whiskey Gulch used to flourish.
I would sure like to move back to the Paly area, but rents are too damn high. There was a little black community farming co-op that encouraged poor blacks (and whites) still living in EPA to have backyard veggie gardens. A part of EPA used to be farmland back in the day.
It’s just that I know that area, and it has gotten quieter since the dot-com boom went bust. All there is is Stanford and real estate speculation. I keep hoping for that ‘correction,’ but it may not happen when I want.
Living now in Madison, WI and completing my book while here. I got the opportunity to get the hell out of New York City’s madness, and I am glad that I am here. But when the book is sold, I want to live on the left coast again, if I can live there any more.
that the attempts at “gentrification” in EPA are going to price some of the older families out of the market…and then where are they going to go? It’s still affordable…for now…
And EPA gets Best Buy, IKEA (actually not too bad; we furnished our apartment there), and other stores…but still can’t lure a real, live supermarket to town…
Makes me wonder, however, where all that IKEA and Best Buy tax money is going?
Did Palo Alto annex Whiskey Gulch?
Is it going to Paly? I hope not… East Paly needs it more.
I live in Tucson. I came because of a university job. I like it well enough, but I’d rather live in New England (where I’m from). I liked New Haven for the easy access to NYC, and I like western Mass. I was priced out of the Bay area long, long ago…(I got sick of the smugness of San Francisco, although I adore Oakland…). There you have it. Tucson is ok, though. It is authentically itself and has great sunsets.
Hiya hopeful, Tucson here too. Glad to see someone else from the Old Pueblo here in the frog pond. Email me sometime if you ever want to get together for some local activism (or drinks) 🙂
Currently in Hell. Map says it’s Houston. Climate’s lousy, political climate’s lousy, local government could probably be worse, it’s hot, muggy, flat, flat, and flat… and while there’s air here it’s a bad idea to breathe it.
I’d dearly love to be living on the side of a mountain or in a little town somewhere in the Andean highlands. Been there a few times and am dreaming, hoping, praying to get back on a one-way ticket…
Come to the northeast. I’ll send you a listing of houses on the hillsides of the Taconic Ridge and you can enjoy good air, good living, and add another Democratic vote to my town.
It’s a thought. I’ve a sister in the Berkshires… but really, I think south is more my thing. Figuring out how to scrape together even the little money I’d need there… that’s the problem…..
Austin might suit you better. Not too far, still warm and we’ve got hills! Not quite mountains but there are rather nice areas and it’s not as expensive as Houston or Dallas.
I’m looking to get out but you might like it.
p.s Love your Robertson Davies quote!
The Berkshires are just on the other side of the hills. I drive into Pittsfield to do shopping and sometimes down to Lenox and Stockbridge. Just a short, pretty drive. I work over along the Hudson River as the Albany-Troy-Schenectady area is not far either. It is not the most hopping place economically but there are jobs to be had and lots of politics to get involved in. Lots of cultural stuff on the Berkshire side of the hills and up in Saratoga Springs (where my sister lives). Like horse racing? It’s track season right now.
i was in Cooperstown for a week and just returned, it’s gorgeous up there! We drove 2 hours one day to Saratoga and it was lovely… and i came out of the Track 30 bucks ahead so no complaints here.
Si, pero…
It’s still in the US.
I’m not sure I want to stay. Most of the time I think I’d rather be elsewhere… if I didn’t have one specific personal obligation I might well be posting this from a NetCafe somewhere way south of here, and … who can say? I see a disaster on the horizon coming our way and I’m wondering whether it wouldn’t be smart to get out from under.
and it was the worst place i’d ever been, climate-wise. absolutely horrid, hot, & deathly muggy. i almost died walking two blocks!!
Why would anyone live anywhere but Philadelphia?
Home of:
Best Food Anywhere; where your waitress and City Council President both call everyone “hon”.
Ben Franklin; where whole rowhome neighborhoods are converted into spectacular lightshows every Christmas.
A vegetarian mayor who never curses. (Certified by FBI bugs and wiretaps!)
The best college hoops scene in America- the Big 5.
The Philadelphia Daily News; where the tabloid format paper is hard core progressive.
Pro Rasslin’; see, Viking Hall.
U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D-PA); PA Sen. Vince “of Darkness” Fumo (D-PA1); “Johny Doc” Dougherty; if only Presidential elections were settled by steel cage deathmatches.
The Friendship Arch at 10th and Arch.
Sister Mary Scullion; Pedro Rodriguez; John Dodds; Ellen Ceisler Green; let righteousness flow like a mighty river.
Fairmount Park.
The U.S.S. Olympia.
Isgros’ Cannoli
The TLA; Mom & Pop 1- Blockbuster 0. (Take that for not carrying gay porn!)
Plus my wife and kids like living here. I’ll settle for a large farm on Virginia’s Rappohanok river or Georgia’s Savannah.
Well, let’s see – After growing up there through college (LaSalle), went to grad School at U. No. Carolina in Chapel Hill, where I met my wife & got married. She was from Kansas City. Graduated in ’83 and looked for a job in the Philly area, but it was the tail end of a recession and no one was hiring, so ended up in KC where we both got jobs. Lived there 13 years, then was offered a job transfer or layoff.
Was given the options of Cincinnati or Oak Ridge, TN. The family checked out both and agreed on Cincinnati, but after a little over a year we were told “under the terms of our new contract for environmental cleanups at Oak Ridge, we have committed to creating xxxx new jobs in the area, a clause [supposedly] added by vice-president Gore. So you’re moving to Tennessee after all.” We were given only a month or so’s notice, so no one had a real opportunity to find local jobs. Ended up in Knoxville because the real estate was cheaper and property taxes lower than Oak Ridge, plus it has the benefits of being a college town. Been here 7+ years. It worked out very well for my wife, who got to achieve a dream she’s had since childhood of being a veterinarian. I got laid off, however, by that wonderful company that ran me through the gauntlet. But that’s a rant for a different day…
The weather here is nice here; we’re in a valley between the Great Smoky Mountains to the east and the Cumberland Mountains to the west (you can see both ranges on a clear day) which can, however, make for air pollution problems sometimes in the summer. Summers are not at hot as KC or Philly, and definitely not as dry as KC, although I’d like a little more winter. It’s very nice being so close to so many national and state parks, national forests, etc.
I’d move in a minute to New England or the Northwest; even Asheville, NC is politically more progressive than east TN and about 5 degrees cooler, being higher in the mountains. Canada is an option if the political situation doesn’t get straightened out – the only thing that kept us here after 2004 was my wife’s need to finish vet school. My younger son is finishing
high school in May 2007, so depending on what happens in 2006 Canada is still an option. On the other hand, my wife had a job with people she likes very much at a local vet practice, so we have to see how that plays out by 2006 too; she may decide she doesn’t want to go anywhere – but then we had that talk in 2004 and decided if the situation got bad enough, we’d go to Canada.
I’m grew up on Long Island in NY but now live in Westchester County, NY, home of Hil and Bill. My wife and I both wanted to live here, it is more rural than Long Island and the values are not quite the “keeping up with the Jones” variety found on Long Island. It is a beautiful area. The schools are good for out young son and I have a “reverse commute” to an even less populated area. I just wish that my drive was shorter. Unfortunately it is very expensive and we live in an expanded summer house from the 1930’s. It is still small even with the additions. I would love to live in Sedona, Arizona if I could. I’ve about had it with winters and love the scenery and pace of the place. I’m actually headed there shortly and will hopefully have completed some plein air paintings for my painting diaries.
Come north young man. I can get you a listing of homes here in my town in Rensselaer County and we could use a few more Democratic voters.
I’m going to Sedona on vacation the first week in Sept. Never been there before. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Off the top of my head, there’s a couple of good parks, Slide Rock State Park and another one with hiking, the name of which escapes me. Slide Rock has a natural rock water slide. The drive down through Oak Creek Canyon is spectacular, if you’re coming that way. A picturesque snaky road with cliffs above when you get to the bottom. There are overlooks for views and photo ops. There is lots of interesting shopping including galleries. (If you’re buying Hopi jewelry or pottery, go to a store called Puchteca in Flagstaff’s old downtown. Their prices are perhaps 2/3 less than Sedona, if not more. Flagstaff is about 20 miles north and has its own charms.) There is a Sedona community gallery with lots of nice art and fine crafts. Even if you’re just browsing, it’s a fun place to go. Taking a jeep tour of the red rocks is a good way to see the area if hiking is not your thing or it’s too hot to hike. For me, I just like to slow down and take in the views. There are a number of prominent red rock buttes, most of which have names. I love the place. (I had originally wanted to buy property there for future use, but when sloped 1/5 acre lots were going for $50k about 4 years ago, it became impossible.) There are a number of good places to eat at a variety of prices. Hotels are not cheap, many stay in Flagstaff and come to Sedona for the day. For nightlife, Sedona is quiet, Flagstaff offers a number of places.
Is a small artsy town called Jerome which sits on a hill. It’s an old mining town but very worth a visit!
Thanks boran and rose. I’m going to print this and take it with me. We’re just beginning to collect information about what to do while we’re there. I traded a week of timeshare so we have a place to stay – but I’ve been too busy to do much planning other than that.
Born and grew up in LaCrosse, WI and have lived in about 8 states, some have moved back to for the third time…and probably have moved at least a hundred times(no not exaggerating). And can’t say I would want to move back to any of those places-from Oregon to N.C.(where some kids thought I was a foreign exchange student from Cuba-why Cuba I don’t know as I had dark red hair but did/do have brown eyes- cause of my accent and wondered where I learned to speak English so well..ha ha I was 17 at the time).
Right now I happen to live in Taft, CA. which is about 30 miles from Bakersfield-redneck Ca. where the KKK was handing out their leaflets on street corners not that long ago or maybe still do for that matter.
If there is any real culture here after being here for the 3rd time I’ve yet to run into it barring one or two people in that time…..so ok why am I in this lousy place. Pretty simple. With my disability getting worse I had to move back here to be close to my sister who can help me out-I haven’t driven for some 20 years and she also helps out financially.(like getting me this computer and paying the monthly dial up for me)
As for where I’d like to be-couldn’t say but it would be somewhere much much more liberal and had good art museums etc and preferably close to the ocean…Few places here that happen to have art work almost invariably has lots of oil field stuff-whoop-de-do.
I grew up on the dry side of Washington, so Seattle was this big city somewhere on the other side of the mountains that we went to a couple of times when the World’s Fair was going on. Otherwise the big city, such as it was, was Spokane.
Through a long and circuitous route I ended up in Texas with my wife and family. Now Austin, Texas is a lovely city, the people were friendly, the music great, the food excellent and the atmosphere cosmopolitan . . . but frankly, the weather was killing us. We paid $300 a month to run the air conditioner in the summer. My brain shuts down when the temperature gets above about 80, and there were nights when I would come home at 3 in the morning from a graveyard shift and it would still be 80 degrees outside.
When we both lost our jobs we started casting around for a place we both could be comfortable living, and settled on Seattle, in part because my wife had family here, and in part because it afforded me an opportunity to grow in a trade I was learning — computers, specifically at the time, word processing.
Now I get up in the morning and get on the bus to work. To the west I can see the Olympic mountains over Puget Sound. As I go across Lake Washington I can see the Cascade mountains off in the distance, with Mount Rainier lording it over the landscape to the southeast on clear days. There’s water, mountains and trees everywhere you look. The temperature gets below 40 for a few days every winter, and above 85 for a few days every summer. Mark Twain called when he said the best winter he ever spent was a summer on Puget Sound.
We have lived here now for 14 years and Seattle just feels like home. Frankly I can’t imagine living anywhere else at this point in my life.
I grew up in the military. My most vivid memories have to do with cars, maps, highways, motels, suitcases, boxes. By the age of 10 I knew how pack my own things into shipping boxes, knew which things I’d need to have when we got to the “new house”, which things to save out “for the trip”. I also knew about new schools, new friends, and the understanding that letters from friends left behind would fade away after only a couple of months.
I wanted my daughter to have roots, long-term friends, continuity. She was two when her father and I separated. Knowing that we had to have physical distance between us, I looked at a map, chose 2 places near salt water that were equidistant from where we were living and flipped a coin. Seattle won.
Shortly after that my grandfather passed and left me a tiny sum of money, but one that was enough then for a down payment on a house. I’m still living in that house. My daughter is almost 35. Her community consists of friends that she made when she was in elementary school.
I still love to travel and do so at every opportunity. I cogitate on other places I might live depending on where I’ve recently been: the row house down the street from my daughter in Brooklyn; the farm on the river in east-central West Virginia; the rural fishing village on the south coast of Jamaica; my husband’s family’s village on the southwest coast of England.
But we’ll stay here. We’re 6 blocks from a lake, a couple miles from salt water. There are mountains to the east and to the west, easily accessible for impromptu getaways. Our house will be 100 years old next year, our garden is established. And most importantly, we’re part of a community and our community is here.
I like these threads, as my mind feels as if it’s going to explode any minute… unless it already did…
Grew up in Fairfield County, CT. College at UConn in Storrs, CT… back home for another 2 1/2 years… Then off on my own to Conway area of NH for a couple of years solo… Then, my wandering began, due to my now ex-husband (who is now again one of my best friends, for those of you not following along at home…) We’ve lived in Madison, WI; Rhinelander, WI; Newport, NH; now I’m still in Sullivan County, NH, in the town next door. On my own and just having purchased a condo which I was blessed by the cosmos to find at just the right time… As for where I’ll be next, who knows? I think I’m just here temporarily, but not sure for how long and where my next chapter will bring me… I’m enjoying immensely this part of my life however…
By the time I was 30, I had lived in the following places:
Lima, Peru
Longview, Texas
Portland, Oregon
Orlando, Florida
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Pasadena, California
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
I figure the only area of the country I’ve missed is the northeast. When I finished graduate school 20 years ago, I had to decide where I wanted to put down roots. Of all of the above places, I decided that I liked Minnesota the best. Yeah, laugh if you want, the weather is about as bad as it gets. But, up until a couple of years ago, this state had a sense of community that I have not experienced anywhere else. The fact that we elected a joke for a governor and now a republocrat to follow him has me discouraged. But the metro area still maintains its progressive commitment and by now – its just home.
As you can see from my name, I live in the more quiet of the “twin” cities. People say that St. Paul is not so much a city as a collection of neighborhoods. There is a lot of truth in that. My newest claim to fame is that Kid Oakland grew up here. And I learned this by reading his wonderful diary titled “White Kid” that does a wonderful job of demonstrating the neighborhood atmosphere here.
And of course, one of the best things about living here is that I will forever be proud and grateful that I got to meet and work for Paul and Sheila Wellstone!
Live in outside Boston.. trying to move into the city. But eventually I’d like to try and move elsewhere.. maybe San Fran or somewhere in California.
I live in a small valley between small mountains in the Taconic Ridge. From my desk I see across my yard, the road, the trees on the other side to the field there and on up the seemingly uninterrupted tree covered hillside until you reach the peak where either the sun rises or the moon does. During winter months it glows over the top as the mountain on the other side of mine contains a ski resort with night time skiing.
Deer run through my small acre every once in awhile. Hawks fly overhead. Canadien geese are as common as sparrows most of the year. Fox wander the neighborhood as does a flock of wild turkey’s (ever watch them try and take off? It is amazing those things can fly at all) and the occasional grouse and quail. Every once in awhile the sky is darkened as a buzzard (those things are huge) circles overhead to see if I’m dead yet. First time one of those looked at me trying to figure out if I was dinner or not it was a little unnerving. Twice since I’ve been out here I’ve seen bear wandering across the road as I drove to or from town.
I grew up in the inner city, southside of Chicago.
Any questions?
I grew up in central Illinois, in an itsy town whose most notable natives fled at an early age (see, e.g., TV exec Brian Graden). Although I stayed in the general vicinity (college in Chicago, then on to Springfield, IL, and St. Louis) until I was past 30, I never fit the midwestern mold. I could drink beer with the best of ’em, but I always got funny looks when I started talking poetry or politics.
I moved to Colorado for the wrong reason (i.e., the wrong guy), but wound up in the right place. I live in Denver, within walking distance of wonderful restaurants and shops and a short bus ride from downtown. A branch of the Tattered Cover, one of the world’s great bookstores, is five minutes away.
Give me a car and a couple of hours, and I can escape into the mountains. Several hot springs are within a day trip’s distance, and there’s nothing more relaxing on the planet than soaking in a steaming pool at the base of a mountain.
During the summer, there’s a craft fair somewhere every weekend where old Deadheads still sell tie die. There are two panaderias down the block from my house where I can fill up on Mexican pastries. The mayor is always a Democrat, and the current mayor is wildly popular (Governor Hickenlooper, perhaps?).
Yes, I know Focus on the Phallus is down the road in Colorado Springs, and there are about 2.5 SUVs per person parked in suburban driveways and clogging I-25. But I’m more myself in Colorado than I ever was in the midwest–liberal, artistic, Pagan, and unembarrassed about being an intelligent female.
Hi, I was born in Iowa and moved to Los Angeles when I was 5 years old. I grew up in Downey, California, then when I joined the Army in 1958, I spent a few months in Cleveland, Ohio and then on to El Paso, Texas. I spent the rest of my enlistment in and around Fort Bliss, Texas and Red Canyon and McGregor Range in New Mexico.
After I returned to California in 1961 I got married and bought a home in Seal Beach, California, nice place in those days. By 1976 I’d had enough of all the people, sold our house and drove off into the sunset.
Everyone I knew at the time said, “You can’t do that, what about your family and your job?”
Well, we did do it and ended up in Oregon on 10 acres about 2 miles from the beach. And, after about a year, I went back to work. We used to come here on vacation, now we’ve lived here almost 30 years and don’t ever intend to leave. It’s like being on a permanent vacation in paradise.
Duncan
When I was a kid, I always thought I’d end up in Oregon. My grandparents lived there, and we visited several times when I was growing up. Ten acres located two miles from the beach would indeed be paradise.
I lived in the midwest for about 30 years, and I’ve been in Colorado for 15. Maybe in another 15 years I’ll finally make it to Oregon.
Born in Bryn Mawr Hospital, raised in Devon out on the Main Line. My favorite things as a kid were hoagies, cheesesteaks, the Franklin Institute, Fels Planetarium, hot soft pretzels with mustard, and riding on the trains and subways in Philly.
Left home at a young age and moved to Manhattan, (the Village), then later to San Francisco, then later to lots of other places.
Currently living in So. Florida. I’d move to northern Italy tomorrow if finance and health would permit; I love the light and the texture all across the north there. (It would be better of course if the dictator Berlusconi was no longer there, but,…!)
In the meantime, I’d happily meet anyone flying in from Philly to the Ft. Lauderdale airport if they brought along a couple of hoagies I could buy from them. I’ve been all over the world and no one does a sandwich like a Philadelphia hoagie.
I was born in Bryn Mawr Hospital, too…lived in Radnor as a teenager, and am now on the western end of the Line.
Lived in Emeryville and Strawberry CA (among other places), and once flew back to CA with a PA pizza (the pizza in California is, uh, disappointing, IMO), so I know what you mean about the hoagies!
I used to spend time in Angel’s Camp because I had friends there I’d visit occassionally, and Strawberry was just along the road in the middle of the forest there. An incredibly beautiful part of the world.
One of the most difficult adjustments to make after leaving the Philly area, (and the Northeast in general), was getting used to the new food. I was in the SF bay area for probably 3 years or so before I found a good pizza. There was lot’s of great Italian food in North Beach, but not too much pizza.
Grew up as a Connecticut Yankee, in a small town, very Norman Rockwell-esque, which has now been malled and condoized almost beyond recognition. Lucky timing, though, to be in a place so small–all our parents knew one another, so there was a huge amount of freedom for kids to come and go. And I’m still friends with some of the people I started first grade with.
Iconic small towns, however, are seldom appreciated by hormone-ridden teens, so we all got outta Dodge as soon as possible. Me, to Boston and New York for some time, with a fair amount of travel to odd world corners and a bit of living in Spain.
Wound up in Western Mass during the administration of Bush the Elder, just over the Taconic range from Andrew White (hi, neighbor). Later, to Maine, in large part because I’d developed chemical sensitivities and needed to live away from bad air. Of course, the air here right now is foul with exhaust from places like New Jersey and Ohio. <sigh>
Coastal Downeast Maine is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, but I am tired of a 60-mile round trip to go to a movie. I miss live theater, dance, and ethnic food. So, come the end of summer, when all the boats get hauled and the wind moves around to the northwest and howls down off the ridge behind town, I will look seriously at living once again where there are more urban amenities and fewer than eight months of cold weather.
Where? Don’t know, but places under consideration include perhaps the Berkshires, western North Carolina, Pacific Northwest, Canada, Europe. Suggestions welcome.
I live in a town called Cluj-Napoca, which is in Transylvania (yep, that one) in Romania. “Cluj” is the Romanian name for my city, “Napoca” is the old Roman name from the time of Marcus Aurelius, “Kolosvar” is the Hungarian name and “Klausenberg” is the German name.
Oh, the word “Cluj” rhymes perfectly with “luge” (the sport). Does not sound anything like “cludge” which is how most foreigners pronounce it.
It’s a long and boring story why I moved here but I couldn’t imagine living anywhere in the world but Romania.
Just remember, Romania is a combination of two words – “Ro” plus “mania” 😉
Pax
I’ve written about it before, and don’t want to bore you with it again, so I’ll try a variation:
Trees in Our Yard
3 Dade County pines that survived Andrew;
7 bottle-brush trees;
3 bushovias. 2 are limbs from the Big Mama that also survived Andrew that we stuck in the ground. They rooted;
3 ornamental almonds, 2 are from seeds that I didn’t mow to death;
1 pink tabebulia;
1 water oak that has a catlya and phaelenopsis orchid ornamenting it;
1 mahogany;
1 pink grapefruit;
dozens of lychees;
about a dozen longans;
beaucoups (50+) tangerines and tangelos;
2 peaches developed by UF IFAS for tropical climes, and I’ve eaten their peaches — sweet but small.
And other assorted jungle.
I was born in Alburquerque NM, but moved to an indistrial “city” in upstate NY called Binghamton. I went to hippie boarding schools in Albany and Putney, VT. I spent a wonderful year in Paris during college. Then I ended up in the most god awful town in PA, Lancaster. Everyone’s social life depended on their church. There was no life outside of church related activities. It was incredibly sexist, racist and homophobic. So, I escaped to San Francisco. I quickly fell in love with the Bay Area and have been here ever since. I did get priced out of SF, but after a stint in some average suburbs, I managed to land a fabulous flat in Oakland. I live 5 minuters from work and can walk to Grand Lake Theater and Lake Merritt. It’s a lovely diverse neighborhood.
I think the only thing that would get me out of here would be a bit of acerage I could share with a few people.
You can buy this house for $85,000.
That is absolutely true. You can buy a 4 bedroom, 3 bath house on a 1/4 acre for $60,000. It is one of the top three cheapest places to own a home in the entire country. But, since it was a town that got its money from the cold war through IBM and Singer-Link, the economy died when the cold war ended. Today, unemployment is hideous and wages are pathetic at best. It also means that the home my parents worked for their whole lives is worth less in today’s money than when they bought it 30 years ago. My share of the inheritance from the home (assuming we could ever even sell the home) won’t even buy me a parking space in the Bay Area. On the other hand, it isn’t a bad place to retire…cheap land and pretty country.
There are a lot of people who want to come back to live upstate, but they don’t want to take a pay cut even if they could easily afford a home. That’s the bottom line. There are jobs here, and good jobs too, but they are more rare and you have to grab them. And, no, they don’t pay as much as they do in the big city. And no, you don’t have a Starbucks or a cute little jazz joint on every corner.
People make their choices as to what they want. It depends on what you think is a quality standard of living. I don’t think 45-minute commutes and $1.2 million homes on postage stamp yards, is a quality standard of living, and I’m surprised at how many people will tolerate that, just so they can fill up their 2-car garages with expensive stuff that comes from having “a good job.”
But then again, I don’t have a high need for nightlife either. <shrug>
Much depends on perspective, I think.
There are a lot of people who want to come back to live upstate, but they don’t want to take a pay cut even if they could easily afford a home.
People living in cities, with attendant higher living costs and locked in to high fixed costs, often cannot see that they could live very well in a smaller place for far less. It’s necessary to make the leap into the unknown to find out that such a change can be supportive. As Julia Cameron said, “Leap, and the net will appear.”
I had never heard of her when I met Ms. Cameron in Taos, back in the 90s. She describes that meeting in “Vein of Gold”. I didn’t hear of her until a friend in Vancouver, BC, read the book and told me about it.
My own experiences of leaping indicate to me that the net gets woven as you fall, if you scurry enough. Gotta choose those leaps carefully (yes, I know, oxymoronic) if you expect to survive many of them.
I read and used The Artist’s Way about 15 years ago, when I was changing directions and work environments. Found it very useful, as it seems to be aimed mostly at artistic types. Don’t know how well some of it would work in the corporate world.
And yes, I think you’ve got it right: the net gets woven as you fall, if you scurry enough
but have been living near Austin, Texas for 6 years.
We intend to move to Upstate New York in the near future to be closer to our families.
Austin is nice – diverse, fun, friendly…but it just isn’t home and I’ve never quite felt that I belonged here.
Funny…Yesterday all day I was thinking of that Joni Mitchell song “Free man in Paris” (well, those are some of the words anyway) and thinking that I was a free woman in Kyoto and other towns large and small in Japan and I was unfettered and alive indeed. Haven’t lived there but have had extensive visits three times in 20 years.
I live probably less than five miles from the hospital where I was born, in Portland, Oregon, and except for a horrible 6 months on the east coast (where I will NEVER go again) haven’t resided elsewhere. But I’ve also lived, really lived: walking across Tiananmen Square the year before the massacre, hiking from Jiri to Lukla in Nepal, biking through the Netherlands, and walking part of the devotee’s path in Kyoto and surrounds on the Saigoku Kannon pilgrimage route. If I could, I’d do the 88 temple Shikoku pilgrimage route all on foot-but it takes two months and a fat wallet.
Portland’s a pretty cool place, lots of room still for us radical anarchist Buddhist types but there are too many people from other places moving here who want it to be just like wherever it was they left. My advice: stay where you are and leave us be.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry for Long Beach, California.
Great climate. Extremely diverse population (according to the 2000 Census, Long Beach lives up to its moniker as the International City by boasting the most diverse population of any large city in the U.S.). It is a beach city and also within a couple hours drive to the mountains. At the southernmost edge of Los Angeles County, so close enough to both L.A. and all of its great attractions (museums, art studios, concert venues, Dodgers, Lakers, Kings) and close to Orange County and everything it has to offer (Disneyland, Angels, Mighty Ducks). Also has many great attractions of its own (Aquarium, Symphony, Municipal Band, minor league baseball and hockey, Queen Mary), decent public transportation (good enough that I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 29), and a great small airport serviced by JetBlue. Though the 5th most populous city in California, it still has that small town feel in a lot of neighborhoods. Our Naval Base got closed down back in the 1990s, but we still have Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas) and the Port of Long Beach as major employers.
I would be pretty happy in any of the beach cities in Southern California, as far north as San Luis Obispo and as far south as San Diego. But my wife and I would prefer to stay a little more local to the Long Beach area because our families are here, and we are planning on having kids within the next few years. The family support network will be a huge benefit when that happens.
Trivia time: Paula Jones used to live here during the later stages of the Clinton lawsuit and for a short while after, and was a customer at the pharmacy where I worked at the time. She was very nice, but not too bright (big surprise, right?). I got the feeling from her that she regretted the whole stupid thing, but publicly, she still sticks to her guns and says she did the right thing. She often said it never made her rich or famous, just infamous (she did get that new nose out of it, but her lawyers got seven-eighths of the settlement). In the end, I actually ended up feeling sorry for her because she was a pawn (IIRC, her marriage ended over the strain of the spotlight).
Our public schools won the 2004 Broad Award as the nations best urban schools.
Currently I live in the panhandle of Oklahoma. Heck, full-time faculty positions in higher ed. are pretty hard to come by (some years harder than others), so I was quite thankful to find myself here, instead of stringing together adjunct gigs. The community’s been good to me and my family – I could live w/o the barrage of Bush/Cheney stickers, but that’s tolerable. The area is semi-arid (we’re pretty much right on the edge of being desert – btw, I love deserts), flat with some small mesas and canyons thrown in for good measure. I basically like where I’m at. I wish we had a place that served a decent cup of coffee, or that there were an Irish pub. The sacrifices we make for scholarship.
My childhood was pretty nomadic, so I’ve always felt a bit like someone living in exile. Home is wherever I happen to be at the time. I’m pretty open-minded about other locations. Certainly by the time I retire I’d like to live somewhere a bit more populated – maybe head out to Albuquerque or Denver. That’s many years down the road. I’ve lived in the midwest before, and wouldn’t mind spending more time in the upper midwest. I’ve also enjoyed my visits into upstate NY and thought that could be a pleasant enough place to live. If California wasn’t so damned expensive, I wouldn’t mind living out there again.
The last few years I’ve lived in Fargo, ND. I was born and raised in a small town in rural ND, population then about 300, now 117, unless it’s winter and the “snowbirds” are in Phoenix, then 79, (the majority are senior citizens.)My home county is always BLUE by the way.
I went to NDSU in Fargo, ’66-70′ hung around Fargo ’til ’73, then Canada for a couple of years, mostly Winnipeg, a great “European” experience. My German friends weaned me from Velveta and American cheese, thank the cosmos for that!!!
I almost forgot about Denver… spent winters of ’70-71, and ’71-72 there. Boulder was fun then…
’74-’88 farmed in the home town area. Then to UND in Grand Forks for a couple of years. Then to Northern CA, Garberville, Redway, and then Arcata, until about 2000.I missed the sun greatly during the rainy overcast winters of N CA. But N CA area was “deja vue all over again” with regards to the Denver/Boulder times.:):)
My hometown in ND is 95 miles from Fargo. 55 miles from Grand Forks. As I said, 117 pop, but it has fiber optic cable/wireless system for high-speed internet connections. The last rambler sold there, was built in the early ’70s, 3 bdrms on main, has a basement, two car garage, sold for $17,000. (Yes folks, that number is no typo.)
If you’re retired, or working via internet, then cash your equity, buy a summer home here in rural ND, a condo in Phoenix for the winter, and still have plenty left over for world travel…
Oh, and Fargo is getting more like a little miniature Minneapolis these days vs. the sleepy little village it was in the late sixties.
For a very interesting night spot/overnight spot, check out the
Hotel Donaldson
Right now I live in Portland, Oregon. We just moved here from the San Francisco Bay Area basically so we could buy a house. SF is just so unbearably, ridiculously, hideously expensive we had to move away from my son’s grandparents just to afford a place to live. 🙁
The good news is we adore Portland, but I’d rather be in the Bay Area and near my folks (babysitters!).
I have moved around my entire life and since college it feels like I’ve never lived anywhere longer than six months. For me it’s wonderful to finally settle down for a bit. I told my husband, I don’t want to move for 15 years!! (yeah, right)
But I took the long way to get here.
I grew up in Montreal, Quebec. Shortly after I married my wife we moved to Vermont (first St. Albans, then Burlington). We lived in Ohio for a bit when my wife got a contract for a company there, and then we moved to Fort Drum, NY (when I was in the Army). After I got out we moved to Greenwich, CT.
Being way too expensive to buy in Greenwich, and with our rent going through the roof as well, we started looking for a house further north and we found a nice town called in north-west CT. (New Milford, a bit north of Danbury)
I like the fact that we now have a place that is our own (as long as we can pay the mortgage, lol) and our kids will have roots here. The schools are pretty decent, and the people in town are really friendly. We have the advantage of living in a nice New England town with a picture-perfect village green. The best part of it is we are only an hour and a half + or – from New York city… I like living in small town, BUT I need to be near a big city.
I would like to retire to northern Vermont, or maybe in the northern Adirondacks of NY, but I could see myself spending my retirement years right here in this town IF the devlopers don’t ruin it too much by turning every local farm into a condo village…
go back to 1644. Grew up in Concord, NH. Lived in 22 states over the years and have settled down in the small lovely town of Newport, NH. The convenience of little traffic and peaceful pace and mountains and hundreds of lakes and ponds for kayaking etc., is a bit of heaven on earth!
We bought this house cause i wanted it- we were nomada all our lives -it’s time to settle.
just to spain- nomadda- means it don’t matter-my hawaian friend keeps saying that and saying that
and I really don’t want to move anywhere else. A second home in the country might be nice, although not in the monetary cards yet.
Specifically, the San Fernando Valley — Sherman Oaks.
In other words, I live in a clothes dryer on High.
And I’m stuck here indefinitely.
I’d like to live in London.
in Santa Monica, near the college, on top of the hill.
I live where the Southern Rockies trickle down to the Great Plains, the banks of the Pecos River about 90 miles east of Santa Fe, NM. It is an oasis in the high desert, kept green by irrigation from snowmelt from the high peaks of the Sangre de Christo mountains. I’m in a tiny village ( 40-50 families) that is part of a Land Grant made by Mexico to ancestors of these villagers in 1821. All of my neighbors speak Spanish as their first language. I’ve been here close to fifteen years, and I have no desire to be anywhere else.
The downside to living in this paradise is distance. My work is 90 miles away and I pay out a lot for gas and upkeep on vehicles, as well as rent on a space for my aging Winnebago that I keep parked in town, so as not to have to commute every day. The other downside is cultural isolation; I live on a different planet, culturally and intellectually, from most of my neighbors, despite having fluent Spanish.
The ace-in-the-hole of being here is the long-term sustainability of life here. People have lived here a long time, growing their own food. We can make it here if the grid collapses, not that I especially want to have to do that. With gas approaching 3 bucks a gallon, I’m realising that I only have a limited time to make the most money I can to build up the sustainability infrastructure before costs start to prohibit the extravagance of a car-based lifestyle. So I’m going for it while I can still get the work. At age 60, I don’t have a lot of time left.
There’s room here for more folks, and I’m planning to try to attract some of them by building a few starter houses on other irrigated land here, a foothold on a sustainable lifestyle, for those so seeking. This far away, land is still reasonable in cost. But this kind of life isn’t for everyone; takes a lot of self-reliance and initiative and the ability to step out of one’s cultural cocoon. This is only just barely the US out here, almost third-world.
I’ll be here all day to answer questions, if you got any…
I gew up in Denver, went to college in Boulder, and ended up 3 miles from the Rhine. I’m still not entirely sure how that happened… 😉
Cologne is a trade-down from Colorado as far as an outdoor-oriented lifestyle goes, but a huge leap in terms of cultural variety. And man do I appreciate the good public transport! (Not to mention the beer…)
If I was 25 and could do it over, I’d probably do the same, except that today I’d choose Berlin.
We now live in the town where our forebears carried out the first (but not last) armed resistance to another insane tyrant named George, back in 1775 – Concord, Massachusetts.
You might also be familiar with other folks and events from here – like Emerson, Walden Pond, and the Concord Grape.
We’re about 20 miles west of Boston. You could walk there, just ask the British Army (they walked the rountrip in 24 hours, though they lost a few along the way back). There are also 2 train stops in Concord for the ride into/out of Boston.
We moved here in 1996 after 11 years in the adjacent town of Carlisle – it was the choice between living in the woods, or living in the village. When the kids were small, the woods were great; but as they approached their teen years, the village made more sense.
Prior to Carlisle (and kids), we lived in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. Before I married I lived just up the street from JFK’s birthplace in Brookline.
I moved to Boston in 1977 from my hometown of Nausea, New Hamster (aka Nashua, NH) – a mill city along the southern border about 35 miles from Boston.
So, I always identify myself as a Bostonian. That may be a little bit of a stretch to the purists, but I am unquestionably a New Englander.
I find the quality of life here to be very good, though the costs of living are on the high side. You cannot find a home in town for under a half million, and that’s for a tiny 2/3-bedroom on a tiny lot. Not exactly starter material anymore.
And you won’t find a decent tradeup for under a million, unless you want to pour more money into renovations.
However, you can also wait for the bubble to burst and prices to come down – but I’m betting they won’t fall by much.
There’s terrific art, culture, history, and education right here in Concord. And, despite what Spinal Tap’s manager tried to tell them after their Boston gig was cancelled, I hear that’s also a pretty decent college town as well ;^)
Finally, if any of you Boo’s find yourself in the area, please give a shout – I give great insider tours.
I had to leave the SF Bay Area in 2002 because of the traffic and mania. Other places in the United States still felt crazy. Reno, Nevada was nice in some ways, and had lots of wilderness nearby. Came to Scotland for lots of reasons, and I am happier and healthier here than I have been in a long time. I ride my bicycle to school and walk to the store. I’ve driven a car twice in the past 11 months: when I visited my parents in Utah for Xmas, and when they came here. There are lots of cool smart Europeans to hang out with and talk to. Arty town.
I really miss the wilderness of North America, though.
There’s no place I’d rather be than where I am right now, Portland, OR.
I grew up in a relatively small town in North Dakota. I graduated from hight school in the mid-70s, and my folks said I could go to college anywhere I wanted, as long as I could get in and as long as it was at least 500 miles away. Consulting the Underground Guide to Colleges (it was the 70s), I applied to Tuscon and Boulder. Then someone told me about Eugene, OR. I didn’t know anyone in Oregon or anything about it, so I decided to go there.
When I stepped off the plane for my freshman year at U of O, I knew I was home. After coming from the flat, treeless plains, the hills and trees made me slightly claustrophobic, but I soon found that my favorite place to be is an old-growth forest.
I hung out in Eugene after college for quite awhile, but the recession hit the state really hard in the 80s, and I moved to Silicon Valley for awhile. It was fun…the heady days of the young computer industry, working for Apple…but something was missing. I used to make my husband put all our gear in boxes and fly to Portland once a year to go camping. And I would dance on the lawn whenever it rained, which was seldom.
I was able to move back to Oregon, this time to Portland, in 1990, and I probably won’t ever leave. I might consider a smaller town elsewhere during retirement, but only if my friends come too!
I also spent a couple summers living in Alaska, which is a very cool place, but a little too cool in the winter. I lived in Seattle for a short time. I like Seattle too, but it’s too busy and the traffic sucks.
The only problem with Portland is all the people who want to move here. In the 70s, we had signs at the state borders asking people not to move in, but that’s unrealistic. I only hope we can manage our growth well.