Really? I’m surprised. I’d have thought that a state capital with 250k people was pretty small, really, compared to most places. It’s certainly not what I envisage when I hear the words ‘the big city’.
Montana certainly has that smallness factor beat though. Heck, I grew up in a *town *with over 20k people, so a capital city with only 30k takes a bit to get my head around. :eek:
I live in a small town, just where the Highlands (Scotland) are starting to get pretty, and I wouldn’t live anywhere else, not now anyway. I’m only an hour or so away from a couple of great places, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and I have a gorgeous tree-covered hill that pretty much starts in my back garden. I love watching that hill.
If I had to live in a bigger place I’d live in Edinburgh again, otherwise London, Paris or New York. If you’re going to live in a big city, might as well be a good one.
Substitute suburb of Jackson, MS for Sacramento and you’ve described my situation. I would love to move back to Jackson, but I’m here because the school system is fantastic.
Jackson, being the capital city of Mississippi, only had a population of 173,861 in July 2008. If you include the suburbs, the metro area population jumps to 628,817.
Really? I thought it was beautiful, and I loved that the different areas all had their own characters, just as they do in London.
Someone mentioned Edinburgh as well. I’ve spent a lot of time there and think I could be happy living there, too. Cold, perhaps, but happy.
I’m only here for the view, in the country, the town however has this pall cast over it that it cannot shake no matter how hard they try. It’s a little depressing to me. I could never move into town.
Not another suburb, snout houses as far as your eye can see, all with fenced in backyards serviced by sidewalks to nowhere, been dere, done dat -
I’d take on a city, in a smallish builidng, maybe on the 12 flr with a view, but no skyscrapers for me please!
Heh. But it’s good to know that there are at least a few other single folks there. It really does sound like an awesome neighborhood. I recently told my friend that when spring comes around she must let me know if she sees any “for rent” signs: could I send you a private message in a few months asking you to do the same? 
I’m an old maid (at 39), so I won’t be cabbing to Clarendon very often. 
As I mentioned, one of the reasons I want to move closer to DC is for the jazz, so that’s more my scene than bars/clubs with DJs. And I’m 95% sure that my job will be downtown by the time I’m able to move (in May).
I don’t know, exactly. I know she frequents this one coffee shop that’s walking distance from her house, but for the life of me I can’t remember its name (and can’t seem to find it among her blog posts or Del Ray Patch articles)!
I picked “Live in Burbs - would rather live in Big City” as that’s the closest that’s applicable.
I don’t really live in the suburbs, but the city I live in can hardly be described as ‘big.’
Portland, ME – and I actually live in a little enclave on the waterfront across the river in South Portland – is barely 60,000 people; and it’s the biggest city in the state. After living in San Francisco / Oakland for three years, coming back to Portland, ME might as well have been going to live in Pig’s Knuckle, Iowa.
I would love to move back to San Francisco. Or maybe to New York. Or Chicago. Hell, I’d even take 2 hours to the south and take Boston over Portland.
For the record … I’m basically here because my kids are here. One’s in college now and the other is a senior in high school. As soon as they are on the track to full independance, I’m definitely looking for a location change for myself.
Missed edit window: Wikipedia tells me that Portland’s population is right at about 60,000, but the urban population is closer to 118,000, which I suppose would include all the outlying towns, suburbs, bedroom communities, etc. They say the Metro population is about 500,000. And since the entire population of the state is about 1,000,000, they must be including everything from Kittery to Bath (about a 100 mile swath) in that total.
Either way … Portland = Podunk, any way you slice it.
I live in the Burbs and I love it but there are aspects to living in either a city or walking town that I would love. Indeed, once the kids are out of the house, I think we will do this. Maybe the best of all worlds would be a good walking town within walking distance to the train to a nice city. But again, once my kids are done with school.
St. Elmo’s. That’s the coffee shop. Not that you’re reading this thread anymore, but it was bugging me.
Grew up in the country, have lived in a village for 15 years, am moving to LA in 2011. I’m ready for a change, though I can live pretty much anywhere.
I live in a suburb of about 18.000, but only a 15 minute drive to downtown and I also walk it in an hour and a half and usually do, taking a commuter train back. In a way it is the best of both worlds. I have my garden and we have good transportation (that train line plus a bus downtown on a five minute headway most of the day and evening, shorter in rush hours). Nonetheless I would move to a downtown condo if my wife was interested.
DC isn’t really the big city, but I love it most days and (as is the right of all Washingtonians) enjoy complaining about it on the other days.