Trying to decide on a place to 'settle down.'

The OP starteda thread in Great Debates a few days ago, about the young man whose parents went to court to have him evicted from their home; the OP has been arguing that kicking one’s children out of your house should be illegal, because parents have a lifelong responsibility to take care of their children.

In that thread, Ulfreida asked him:

His reply was:

So, moving back in with his parents would seem to be a non-starter, as well as a source of contention.

I’ve noticed that often with areas that have an ‘on paper’ low cost of living, there are “hidden costs” that partially offset that low cost of living. That’s why I took Detroit off my list, I genuinely think I’d struggle to afford to live there, between the very high property taxes, home insurance rates, and diabolical car insurance costs. It seems like The Man always finds a way to get his. Dayton Oh seems to have the lowest overall cost of living, with minimal “hidden costs.”

The cities north of Milwaukee, although smallish, have a low cost of living, very low crime rate, good quality schools, good year-round fishing, and a climate that is, umm, invogorating. Plus beer, brats, sweet corn and frozen custard, and near the border of pasties.

Do you really want to live in the northern midwest, where you can’t bike or garden for at least a third of the year (and some places half)? Most of the cities on your short list are in that category.

The good thing is, most of the world DOESN’T want to live in that climate, which means you can find larger houses with smaller mortgages there. You can get twice the house near Minneapolis than you could near San Diego.

We currently live in Rockford, IL. Property taxes are high but everything else is cheap. Crime is high in many neighborhoods, but I think that’s true in many urban rust belt areas. Somebody said there wasn’t much to do, I disagree. Plus u have close proximity to Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago.

I’m 50 and have lived in the Dayton, OH area my whole life. I love this area. I doubt I’ll ever move.

  • The cost to live here is cheap, cheap, cheap. You can easily buy a brick house on half an acre w/ two-car garage and basement in a nice neighborhood for under $100K.

  • Traffic is almost non-existent.

  • Low taxes.

  • Excellent colleges (UD and WSU).

  • Just outside Dayton there are many nice cities and villages with low crime rates where you can live. These include Oakwood, Kettering, Beavercreek, Englewood, Centerville, and Bellbrook.

  • Lots and lots of restaurants, breweries, and wineries.

  • Due to WPAFB, UD, WSU, and many, many industries & businesses, well-paying jobs are everywhere.

  • Lots of small, quaint towns within an hour drive.

  • The Air Force Museum is the best in the world.

  • With the exception of the occasional tornado, not prone to natural disasters.

  • Lots of trees, rivers/streams, and wildlife. And a number of small lakes.

  • We never have water problems. We have more underground, fresh water than we know what to do with.

  • Summers are hot, but not too hot.
    But there are some disadvantages to living here:

  • Winters kinda suck.

  • No ocean.

  • No mountains.

  • Summers are humid.

Property taxes in Rockford are outrageous. Overall taxes in the state of Illinois are outrageous. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Rockford, but it’s mainly the taxes that make me really reconsider living there

Thanks. I’ll definitely be moving Dayton higher up my list.

nm

Concord, NH has a good A&P school. Any of the towns west, north and east will have less expensive housing. No sales or income tax sure helps the savings grow. The towns around Newfound Lake and Lake Winnipesaukee have dirt cheap property taxes, too

I’ll add to what Crafterman said.

The city itself was on life support with a loss of industry but it has made a tremendous effort at revitalization. They built what I would describe as an historic river walkway representing the city’s past. In conjunction with that they replaced a brownfield area with nice minor league baseball stadium and all around it the area has revitalized with businesses and condos like flowers in spring. the factory next to the ballpark is now a massive surplus store which is heaven for the do-it-yourselfer. They recently added a wonderful music hall and they just rebuilt the main library. It has an historic bar district and you can’t swing a cat without hitting a new brewery.

There is a phenomenal bike path system based on old railroads and canal routes. We have lakes close by for sailing or skiing. We have a lot of small airports if you’re a plane owner. If you’re into motorcycles you’re 15 minutes away from everything and we have an historic barn-restaurant that routinely sees 1000 bikes on bike night. It pulls in bikes from 100 miles away. It’s also right along one of the bicycle trails so it’s a great place to stop and eat or launch a day trip. there’s a river next to that if you want to go canoeing.

Even though it’s not a large city it was once a manufacturing powerhouse. The industrial founding fathers preserved local history in a wonderful park that is a miniature of Ford’s Greenfield Village The difference is that what is in this park is all from this area. And it has a brewery. They put on a car show once a year that you really need to see if you enjoy Jay Leno’s love of cars. It’s always an eclectic mix of the most interesting cars and motorcycles around. The owners of the cars know their stuff so it’s like a day long trip through Leno’s Garage.

We have a number of open-air music venues that seat 4000 people. They’re a great place to see acts that won’t break your wallet. I’ve seen cover bands like Brit Floyd and Get the Led Out that are a phenomenally good music value.

And Crafterman wasn’t kidding about the Air Force Museum. It’s absolutely huge and takes a long time to get through. Despite it’s massive size it will never grow to hold the entire collection. They rotate exhibits so it’s nothing to walk in and see something like the Avro VZ-9 “flying Saucer” on display. It has 4 huge hangers and an Imax theater.

And to drive home the point about water availability, we’re sitting on a massive aquifer. The city pulls water out of wells for their giant river fountains instead of the river because it’s easier to keep the pumping system clean. You can see the river bikeway bridge in the picture.

Oh yeah, The South totally blows. Similarly but for very different reasons, Avoid Denver no matter what you do. Total smegpot, real estate is waaaay overpriced, freeways are cobbled together from wood and clay, rabid feral horses roam the cities at night and leprous howler monkeys swarm the parks in the day. Just don’t even bother. I’d leave, but I’m too afraid to go outside anymore! Yep, stay away from Denver if you know what’s good for you.

As stated by Magiver, Dayton has done an excellent job of revitalizing itself. I should have also mentioned in my post above that there are many nice places to live inside the Dayton city limits. Rents in some areas are quite high as a result.

And even though I have lived in this area my whole life, I am constantly discovering new things around here. I attended a UD basketball game a few months ago, and learned UD is one of the very few college stadiums that serves beer. Gotta love those Catholic Marianists. :slight_smile:

Illinois, as a whole, has had its state budget driven into the ditch, by years of kicking the can down the road by the government, until things couldn’t be kicked any further. I don’t want to derail the conversation, but even higher taxes in the future seem likely, as the state is facing an enormous shortfall in covering its pension obligation, with no good way out of it.

The city of Chicago, and Cook County, are facing very similar issues. The credit ratings of all three entities are terrible.

Illinois is such a poorly run state.

It would seem almost foolish for me to ‘settle down,’ in Rockford. Illinois, like New York and New Jersey, is one of those states where you get both high property taxes and high income taxes, which largely offset the ‘on paper’ low costs of living in places like Rockford or Buffalo.

Dayton seems to be a smaller, superior version of Detroit. Both rust belt cities, former manufacturing powerhouses, but Dayton seems to have truly revitalized itself (as opposed Detroit’s overhyped and somewhat fraudulent ‘revitalization.’) Dayton has significantly less crime, and a true low cost of living, as opposed to Detroit which has an ‘on paper’ low cost of living, but you still get screwed 6 ways from Sunday on taxes, car insurance, and God knows what else.

You had me at “rabid feral horses”.

As mentioned, taxes in the Dayton area are lower than in most other parts of the country. Perhaps not the lowest, mind you. But I doubt you would want to live in areas that have the lowest taxes around. You get a lot of bang-for-your-buck here.

Here’s what my list looks like for now

Top tier:
Kansas City, Mo
Dayton, Oh
Fort Wayne. In

Second Tier:
Indianapolis, IN
Wichita, KS
Saint Louis, MO
Cincinnati, Oah

Last Tier:
Kansas City, KS
Tulsa, OK

I’ve added St Louis, Ft Wayne, and Kansas City, Kansas, and removed Utica, Rockford, and Pittsburgh.

That’s great. I hear that everything west of the Mississippi will be covered in volcanic ash from Hawaii. You really want to avoid that.