I live in a fairly well known little community in coastal Connecticut. It has a good blend of culture from the salty dog shipwright to the multi-gazillionaire types. The school systems are rated some of the best in the country, and the job market is fair at best. You’ve got sailing and boating in the summer and all manner of hiking and outdoor fun stuff year round. I’d say a good place to raise a family. (no little phil’s as of yet, but they are on their way, hopefully soon )
I’d like this thread to be a little gallup poll if you will. Geographic locale, and basic niceties. I’d like to see whats happening around the country, and the world from somewhere that is not Newsweek or USA Today.
My wife and I moved back last year. Hind sight being 20/20 we should have thoughout the move a little more. And you can’t really take out the New England blood from someone born and raised here.
Sydney is Australia’s New York, in that it’s the place everybody dismisses as rude and ruthless. But I’ve actually found people are generally quite friendly - moreso than many country towns I’ve visited.
Albany is a fairly liberal town in the middle of a whole bunch of conversative suburbs. I actually really like living here - there’s a lot of theatre, art, and stuff. EVen if I don’t go to it all the time I know it’s there. Plus a lot of civic activities. And lots of ethnic restaurants.
My community was the 6th best place to live in the US last year, according to US News. If they hadn’t raised the population requirement this year it probably would still be in the top 10.
It is a very pretty, self-contained small town - no suburban sprawl here. Great schools, Saturdays spent on one sports field or another. Coming from the west, you are greeted by a high steepled white church built in the 18th century. Town Hall is made of field stones and the newest bank in town was built to match it. Nice library, nice bookstore, nice YMCA, nice, safe streets, lots of nice families and 9 minutes to that wonderful city Providence, where I work at my dream job.
For a girl who grew up in crappy apartments and even a trailer with a mouse problem with a smoke stack for a mother whose favorite expression was "What am I? Made of Money?"living here is a dream come true and I appreciate it EVERY day.
I’ve just moved to Basel. This area is known as the Three Borders, since three countries meet here. Many days I work in Germany; I do part of my shopping in France.
The town itself, which many of my coworkers insist in considering “tiny” and provincial, is very pretty and very nice. Something like 24 museums, a permanent theater. Shows in town in the last two months have included “Bollywood”, “Grease” and “The Nutcracker”, among others. Lots of fountains and, unlike it often happens in Spain, they pour water all the time. Very interesting history; lots of diversity in restaurants, bookstores (I’ve already located stores with Italian and English sections), religion (this place has more priests/equivalent per square meter than an Ecumenic Council).
The countryside is very pretty.
I’ve had some problems getting settled down but they’re mostly solved. Opening a bank account (which actually pays interest) and a Post Account (for making payments and getting payments from people) only took six weeks! And three for the phone line. But, I’m set and most people were very helpful. I’m giving my language skills a beating: my German is almost nonexistant (it’s been 15 years since I stopped going to German lessons because they weren’t going anywhere), but most people speak enough French, English or Italian that we can manage. My French isn’t very good, but definitely better than my German.
Now if I can get warmer weather, longer days and more people speaking Spanish it’ll be perfect
My Chicago burb has a variety of attractive homes - at least the ones that haven’t been torn down yet. (Too bad so many assholes live in them!) A pleasant place to walk around. That’s about it.
I’m fairly centrally-located in the Twin Cities, which you’d think would mean traffic would be a bitch, but compared to the SF Bay Area, it’s nonexistent. So, we’re equidistant from pretty much everything the Twin Cities has to offer–libraries, museums, shows, sporting events, parks, big box shopping centers… plus, the part of town I live in (Merriam Park) has a very quiet college-town feel to it, aided by the fact that we’re walking distance to two colleges and biking distance to a couple more. Reminds me a lot of Berkeley, southwest of campus a few blocks.
Small town about 50 minutes west of Ethilrist. Picturesque town, great lake, very socially supportive, involved populace. Lots of parks, lakes, trails, but yet still pretty rural.
My sister in law, who’s very well traveled, was out on the boat one sunny afternoon and remarked that if this town was in Italy it would be such a fantastic destination, absolutely perfect. But because she had grown up around here, it was just, meh.
I spent the last few years out in Bullhead City Arizona,recently moved back to Western Michigan :smack: .One thing I can say about the three towns I spend my time at in Michigan(Evart,Reed City and Big Rapids),there is no litter.BHC was a dumpster, trash and debris everywhere.Didn’t really notice until I moved back here, but the streets and sidewalks are spotless,that was one pleasant thing about coming back.
This particular area in Michigan is also a hotbed for Morel mushrooms,I am eagerly waiting for April so I can go picking.
Canberra has a lovely balance between small-town community feel and big-city jobs, education, and cultural opportunities. It feels cleaner than some US cities of the same size that I used to live in, and I really love the suburban design. I’m within walking distance from a number of shops and restaurants, the public transport is pretty good, and the food and museums here are great. There’s almost always something free and vaguely cultural/interesting going on in the city centre if you know where to look. Crime feels like it’s infrequent (although I had never been the victim of a crime until I moved here), but I don’t know enough about the crime rate to support my impression.
Decatur is the hellhole big city next door, which prides itself that it isn’t as bad as your choice of the one-horse hick towns in Central Illinois. “Hey, at least we got a 12-screen cineplex, and a mall!! Which all of y’all have to drive to! And we just got a Starbucks! And we’re getting an Olive Garden! Ha! Take that, Shelbyville!”
Today actually isn’t the best day to compare- we’re having near-record low temperatures in the Bay Area right now due to some freak weather event. Oakland’s low for the day was 30 (brrrrr…)
I love the community where I live. There are two (in theory, three) grocery stores I can walk to, including a Trader Joe’s. There are lots of shops and restaurants I can walk to, and even a BART (mass transit) station that I can walk to, so I really don’t drive much other than commuting.
My nieghborhood has a lot of neighborly people in it, and it’s well-designed to enhanced neighborliness with front porches, fairly low traffic, and close-together, identically-designed houses.
