I want to move: Sell your City/Region (or Country) to me

[Jonathan_Chance]

@Cisco

Jonathan Chance - What are the names of the cities you describe? Do they have websites? What Universities do they have? The area sounds interesting.

The River Cities consist of Marietta and Belpre, OH and Williamstown and Parkersburg, WV.

The universities are

Marietta College

and

West Virginia University at Parkersburg

Both worthy schools in the ‘small school’ tradition.

Hey, did I mention housing costs here? You can get an enormous house for less than $100,000 here. That equals $750 per month in mortgage, not rent, so you get the mortgage interest deduction, too.

For smaller places you can get them for about $40K. That would be about $400/month in mortgage.

[verbenabeast]

I could probably let Verbena, Alabama go for about… say… 50 bucks?

what? you DID ask me to sell it to you…

[EnginNerd]

Would you consider my city, Colorado Springs, Colorado?

What we have:

-Decent sized city, not too big, not too small (about 400,000 people) - it’s clean and safe
-Amazingly beautiful views of Pikes Peak and surrounding mountains from pretty much anywhere in the city
-Enormous opportunity for outdoor recreation any time of year (skiing, hiking, rafting, backpacking, camping, etc., etc.)
-Has a very active and healthy outdoor culture
-Cost of living is slightly below national average, but median income is much higher
-For the most part, very friendly people
-The weather is surprisingly mild and very pleasant all year long - summer is great - warm, but with low humidity, spring and fall are absolutely beautiful, winter is much more mild that most people expect from living so close to the mountains, snow happens, but usually melts in a day or two. It’s almost always sunny!
-Ranked second best air quality among U.S. metro areas
-Denver metro area and all it has to offer is an easy hour drive away

Not a lot of great colleges here, though. We have University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and Colorado College as well as a bunch of smaller ones that are more targeted to working adults.
Some people perceive a lack of culture here, but there is ample opportunity if you’re willing to seek it out for good museums, music, theater, etc. Plus, Denver isn’t far away. It’s a quickly growing city and seems to still be developing an identity, but in the meantime seems to be a bit overloaded with national chain restaurants and stores, it seems very ‘suburban’ in some parts of the town. But if you’re like me and spend your free time exploring the wilderness rather than shopping, it’s not an issue. If you’re a night owl that likes to go ‘clubbing’ or whatever, you won’t like it here, though.

[Craneop2]

Austin, Texas.

Just ask anybody!

[Giles]

@Cisco

I probably want to major in English (but maybe biology) and I haven’t found a Uni in Australia with an English program.

Most unis in Australia have an English program – I majored in English there about 40 years ago – but it may be shown on their websites as being part of the Bachelor of Arts degree. So if you wanted to major in English, you do a BA with as many units of English as you could, possibly with other related subjects like Drama, History and Linguistics.

(Of course, I was weird when I did it, and chose mostly Mathematics for my other subjects).

[Hedda_Rosa]

Humboldt County!

• Nature, nature, and more nature
• Reasonable COL (for California anyway)
• Humboldt State University
• Good dope, if you are into that sort of thing
• A growing economy
• only 5 hours to San Francsico
• Beautiful weather; rainy and in the 40s in winter, sunny and in the 60s in summer
• Liberal
• Culture, thanks to the university and escaping Bay-Area folk
• lots of live music, theater etc.
• Great for raising kids, good schools & activites

[drachillix]

Fresno, Ca

pop 450,000

-More movie theatres than you can shake a stick at (50-60 screens).
-at least 2 full time live theatre groups, you can find a play almost any time of the week.

-CSU Fresno, Fresno Pacific University, Fresno City College.

-Pretty much the cheapest cost of living in CA I paid ($49,700 for my 1100sq ft 2br house in town 5 years ago). Nicest places in town run in the $300K-$500K.

-Probably the lightest traffic of any large city.

-Several wonderful restaraunts (Echo, Ripe Tomato, Luigi’s) and many more very respectable ones.

-Several sub districts that do street fairs and special events (Tower District, Fig Garden Village).

-Some of the best access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy products on the planet hands down.

-2.5 hours to the beach, 2.5 hours to Yosemite, 3 Indian Casions within an hour, minor leage hockey and baseball teams. (Fresno Falcons Hockey and Fresno Grizzlies Baseball). About 4 hours to skiiing.

-Hot dry summers, sometimes 100+ degrees for a week or two straight. Winters are pretty mild Rarely dropping below 30 and when it does, only for a few days.

-several beautiful large parks

-Extremely diverse population, pretty tolerant or at least not openly hateful. No protests at the Gay/Lesbian Film Festival that I am aware of.

Downs
-Not much of a party town, limited night life. Only a few happenin nightclubs and those are kinda small.

-CSUF ain’t exactly UCLA but its ok.

-Police force has been kinda notoriously triger happy over the last few years. Play nice with the cops, especially in Clovis (AKA Zero Tolerance, Ca).

-Not much nice scenery in town its kinda a utilitartian working class town in many ways. High end culture just dosen’t quite make it here.

-Alot of the work here tends to be seasonal due to the ag dominated economy.

[Sunspace]

I was going to nominate Toronto, but I thought you said you didn’t want cold? If so, all of Canada is out, except for the west coast and those banana farmers in the Okanagan.

But I agree. Montreal and Vancouver are extremely cool.

[clayton_e]

I’ll sell you a small town in northern New York.

Fifty bucks. Cash only.

[Primaflora]

Australian universities most certainly do have English programs but as giles said, they are likely to be buried in the general BA programs. I think you’re probably screwed though in terms of getting a place and supporting yourself here. While we do have a lot of foreign students, they tend to be wealthy foreign students. I don’t think there’s anything available for people unable to pay their way and support themselves while studying. Sorry

[Cisco]

@EnginNerd

Would you consider my city, Colorado Springs, Colorado?

My girlfriend would. Colorado is one of the places she keeps mentioning, along with Sacramento and Virginia.

I used to ski in Winter Park every Winter and visit family in Denver, Loveland, and Ward. The only time I’ve ever been in the summer though was to Ft. Collins and that city was kind of…depressing.

So is Colorado Springs a lot like Ft. Collins or are they very different?

[Cisco]

@Primaflora

While we do have a lot of foreign students, they tend to be wealthy foreign students. I don’t think there’s anything available for people unable to pay their way and support themselves while studying. Sorry

It’s not your fault . Thanks for the tip.

[Frank]

@Cisco

So is Colorado Springs a lot like Ft. Collins or are they very different?

Fort Collins is quite a bit smaller, ~100,000. The college influence is stronger there; it’s the home of Colorado State University (which started out as an agricultural college, which is pretty large, whereas the Springs has a strong military influence (Fort Carson, Air Force Academy). I lived there for two years, and enjoyed very much. I don’t know how important politics is to you. The cities of Denver, Boulder, and Pueblo are pretty much liberal, everywhere else is varying degrees of conservative. I think the Springs, Denver, or Ft. Collins are all nice places to live.

Denver metro is about 2 million people now, and has everything EngiNerd mentioned about the Springs. It has some excellent restaurants. Denver University has a good rep.

[DaddyTimesTwo]

Louisville, KY anyone?

Horse racing (once a year is all I hear about), college basketball, AAA baseball, arts out the wazoo (not to mention ballet, opera and a host of smaller theater groups). Here is some more info.

University of Louisville offers many diverse degree programs including graduate degrees. And at 23 you would be far from the oldest student on campus. Affordable housing, compared to most of the country at least, traffic is easy compared to most bigger cities (a long commute for me is 30 minutes).

The only drawback is the air quality and allergies. The pollution ranks pretty high in the bad range, and if you have sinus/respiratory allergies, you better have them under control before you move (I take several allergy meds).

That’s all I got right now!

[bouv]

Burlington, VT:

• Summers average in the 80’s
• Winters…well, maybe a little cold for a few days, but usually not too bad
• Everyone is super-friendly
• A few colleges (UVM, Green Mountain College, St. Michaels, and some others)
• VERY low crime rate
• VERY low umenployment rate
• Skiing in the winter
• Water-skiing, swimming, hiking in the summer
• Some of the most beautiful scenary around, especially in autumn.
• Only a couple hours from Montreal.
• Plenty of night-life of it’s own
• Not expensive to libe here, but sometimes it can be tough to find a place with all the college students trying to get them. Just look about ten miles outside the city and you’ll have plenty of options.

Downsides:

• Being that the city is small, there’s not a TON of things to do. Still plenty, but not as much as say NYC, Boston, etc…
• Winters can get fairly cold and lots of snow, but they are good about removing it.
• Summers can get pretty humid, but it’s on one of the nicest lakes in the world, so just go for a swim.

[FilmGeek]

Lawrence:

I went to film school here and had the opportunity to shoot 30+ films during my four years. Plus, there is small tightly knit film community. However, since you know the mighty and all powerful FilmGeek, I can give you contact info for the big shots around here.

The school’s webby is www.ku.edu and is one of the worst organized websites I’ve ever had the misfortune to use. The film dept is Theater and Film.

The town has a few things: www.Lawrence.com is entertainment stuff.

www.ci.lawrence.ks.us/ is the official town website.

Email me for more info if you’re so inclined.

[Scotticher]

@rjk

Vancouver is much the same, except for the cold and the emphasis in French. You could learn Cantonese or Mandarin, though, or just about any other language you like. It’s not as old as Montreal, but has history of its own. It’s also right next to the mountains; you can ski in the morning and lie on the beach in the afternoon (or so they say - neither is to my taste).

We also have two universities, and several ‘university colleges’ that grant degrees in a few fields.

Sorry, baby…we have hippies. And don’t give me any “You are in Bellingham” grief, either. We both know that Vancouver, BC and any city in NW Washington have more in common than any of these cities has in common with Seattle…which ALSO has hippies galore…so Seattle is out too.

WE have universities, we have beaufiful weather when it deigns to bless us, we have the most beautiful environment…healthy green vegetation, the bluest sky when it shows itself…

But we have hippies.

Of course, I LIKE hippies, so …

Guess I’ll stay.

[Scotticher]

PS…we are also illiterate, or I would have spelled beautiful correctly.

OTHO, I kind of like the word. Beaufiful. Sounds like a fluffy kind of pretty.

[Cisco]

@bouv

Burlington, VT:

• Winters…well, maybe a little cold for a few days, but usually not too bad

My girlfriend graduated from UVM in '02 and she says you are such a liar .
FilmGeek - Your town sounds very interesting. I will definitely look into it more. I love film.

Scotticher - I’m half joking about the hippies. A lot of them have left bad tastes in my mouth but Vancouver is beaufiful so I don’t think I can discount it based on its hippie population :).

[pervert]

@Cisco

Scotticher - I’m half joking about the hippies. A lot of them have left bad tastes in my mouth …

What ARE you doing with them?