Maybe he meant Paradise, West Virginia.
I have been to Paradise WV
Grew up and spent most of my life in DC and environs.
Live in Central Oho now, “The Cultural Center of the Midwest”. As for that, the Style section of the Washington Post is bigger than this Burg’s local paper.
How did I wind up here?
To paraphrase someone in another thread, bad luck and worse judgment.
Planck’s is uniquely good - its pizza is just kind of its own thing and a pretty good thing at that once you get past the sweet weirdness - and I like Thurman’s. German Village and Short North aren’t too bad of neighborhoods and Bexley is OK. Overall though, you’re right. Ohio sucks. The southeast has some pretty stuff and right along the shoreline of Erie there are scattered pretty places, but overall it’s really not a great place. I have commented on Columbus before to my wife and my conclusion was that Columbus is a place that you can live and neither enjoy it nor hate it. Its positives are balanced completely with its negatives. It is simply a place that exists. It has little to recommend it and little to make you despise it. The people there are neither abrasive nor charming. They are neither friendly nor rude. You can spend an entire day there without seeing a single attractive girl, nor would you see an ugly one.
On the plus side though, Nationwide Children’s is absolutely top-notch. We took our son there for a trachial reconstruction and they were on point.
I’m also in Central Ohio and I love it. My town has great local restaurants, shopping, industry, small neighborhood feel with all the amenities. I’ve made a lot of friends in the 12 or so years I’ve been here. Within a couple hours drive you’ve got pro sports of any kind, amusements parks, museums. If I had a complaint it would be the local schools. They could be better.
I lived in several small towns in Northern California till eighth grade but we moved so often, none of them was a “home town”. When I was in eighth grade we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and I lived there through high school and two years at Cal Berkeley. Then I joined the Air Force and was stationed in Northern California, Germany, and Alabama (the latter is a real armpit). After getting out of the Air Force I lived in Northern Virginia for almost four years, but the winters were just not for this California boy, and I moved back to California, this time to Southern California, where I lived for twenty years, before moving to the Sacramento area to be with my aging parents, where I still live. I lived the longest in Southern California, and would move back there if I could. I hate the Sacramento Valley summers (though they’re better than the Virginia winters), and I hate the lack of cultural events like first run plays that Los Angeles has to offer.
I grew up mostly near Baltimore, in an Anne Arundel county suburb. I went to college near Philly, then moved back home after graduation and stayed in MD for the next 5 years. I will always have a lot of affection for Baltimore and I think of it as home, but I can’t see ever living there. And I definitely have no interest in ever living in a Baltimore suburb again. The vibe up there just…isn’t me.
20 years ago, I moved to Northern Virginia. For the last 4 years I’ve rented a small single-family home about 15 minutes west of the DC line, and at the moment this is perfect for me. I’m between two major interstates, 1.5 miles from a Metro station (though that becomes less of a selling point every year), 2 miles from work, and not too far from my friends who live in western suburbs. I’m very happy here, and plan/hope to stay in this house for as long as my dog lives (she just turned 10). Then I could see maybe moving to DC or Arlington, but I’d also be OK with staying right in this area. I don’t want to move any further west, though: I’m currently just inside the beltway (I-495, aka the Capital Beltway), and that’s my boundary line. I’ve come to really love the District, and proximity to DC is important to me both professionally and personally.
Born in Hyde Park in Chicago, moved to the south suburbs at 5, moved to the far north side at 20, then to Socal at 25. Stayed there for 25 years, then moved to Florida’s West coast for seven years. Since then I’ve been in Sonoma.
You tell people that you’re from there and they get all mushy.
Chicago was cold AF in winter, muggy in summer but other wise cool.
Socal has the desert where the camping and riding are awesome. Hot, expensive though.
Florida. Yeah, no thanks. It’s not you, it’s me.
Sonoma has a stick up it’s ass. That stick has one up it’s ass.
Looking forward to the desert one day.
OK, hijacking my own thread, sorry…we’re actively looking for retirement property, and the west coast of FL is one the active places…my wife lived in Clearwater for several years after HS and really liked it, we’ve liked all of the places we’ve visited there, but, ‘visit’ is the operative word…
What did you not like about it? Would you mind me asking the area?
I can’t answer the OP, as I live in the same city I grew up in. I did spend three years away in the military, and three years working in Michigan, but this is home. I work right across the street from the hospital I was born in. My home is less than two miles from my mother, and less than a mile from my church. If I drew a three mile circle around the house I’d have most of my regular activities inside of it.
I am now living in the coastal hamlet that I spent my childhood in (1960’s). It is VERY different now, and is essentially a ‘suburb’ of a large Victorian provincial city, and because of freeways, commuting distance to Melbourne, the capital of Vic.
In winter it’s shitfully cold and windy (colder and windier than I remember from my youth). In summer it’s overrun with tourists here to visit the beaches and to holiday.
It’s STILL predominantly WASP’s living here, primarily because the cost of real-estate is pretty much on par with the capital: You are unlikely to find an ordinary house for under $600k, and that can go up to many millions if you are within walking distance of the beach. Because of the lack of multiculturalism down here, if you want to find food that isn’t ‘Aussie’, you are going to pay a hefty premium unless prepared to drive the 25km to the provincial city.
Yeah, it’s changed, and I’m not sure the changes are all positive. That being said, it’s a very pretty town, I have wonderful beaches within a 5min drive from my house, it’s not too far to get to the Big Smoke, and apart from the height of summer, the traffic is light and easy to negotiate.
I grew up in Fairfax, VA. It was a small town with growth limited and its own school system. There was a herd of white dairy cows near the center of town who occasionally escaped their pasture and wandered down Main Street. Getting lost in the woods (same ones where Mosby’s Rangers stalked their prey) was a serious concern, and we all learned orienteering early. The biggest tree was one that George Washington used as a landmark when he was out hunting. I used to jump a train into Springfield to buy candy and hotdogs. We bought our clothes in small boutiques run by the parents of our schoolmates. That sort of thing.
Now I live in Fairfax, VA*. It’s a sprawling extension of the Washington DC suburbs. Largely asphalt and office buildings and big box stores. There are still a few parks around, but green space is limited to narrow strips of land. The nearest major intersection is arguably the busiest one in the Western Hemisphere. The only train running through Fairfax City proper now is the DC subway line.
*To be strictly accurate, I don’t live in the city limits anymore, but still in Fairfax County. Everything I’ve just said is true throughout the area though.
Born and raised in the Santa Clara Valley back when it was called that.
Lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains 35 years.
Just relocated to western Massachusetts, to the outskirts of a hill town of less than 2000 people.
Emotions: loved the Santa Clara Valley, hated what was being done to it even in the 1970’s. Santa Cruz Mountains were okay. Too fucking shady and steep but all we could afford. Always hated that human beings parade around rejoicing when everything is dying of thirst around them. I’m always on the side of the victims. Last ten years of it felt trapped in my house because of the doubling of the human population and their propensity to fence, legislate, sue, cut down trees, bulldoze in roads, and build ten bedroom houses two people sleep in at night sometimes. In general I never want to be around people unless I know them. The more people around, the more I feel crazy and dead inside.
Love western MA. For the first time I am in a community of people who are reasonable, civic-minded, responsible, helpful, and real. I find the famed New England standoffishness perfectly congenial. These are definitely my people. It is also far more beautiful than California (except the Sierras), because it has water and things grow. I also so far really enjoy snow. I don’t have to commute in it.
The “humdidity” and heat combo got me. Also, coming from California, the lack of interesting geography. That being said, property is cheap, the food is ok (as long as you won’t miss good Mexican food), and there’s ample culture if you are near a big town. Crazy people, but not as many sticks up as many asses.
Where I live now is Cornwall, England, aka that sticky out bit on the bottom left of the country. It’s actually relatively similar in many ways to where I mostly grew up, which is Cumbria, England, but a very big contrast to where I’ve been for the last nearly 10 years before I moved here last year, which was Bristol, a very vibrant and diverse city of 600,000. I don’t normally like big cities, but I really enjoyed Bristol, aside from the house prices.
Where I am now, on the other hand, is pretty rural; I moved down for a course, and live in a town which has supermarkets and several schools and a rather small hospital, but most of the county is little villages, surviving on tourism. The roads are largely completely unsuitable for the amount of traffic they get in summer, so getting anywhere, especially in tourist season, can take far far longer than the size of the place would suggest. It’s full of lovely beaches and gorgeous scenery and seething hordes of people there to look at them.
Because this is basically a low-population peninsula, facilities are limited; I had to get a dentist back in my old town, as the nearest one taking on patients was around 100 miles away (well, there was one overpriced one that seems to be almost entirely cosmetic work).
There are a lot of people who have moved here to get away from it all or retire, who are largely resented by those who are multi-generation residents. The ‘new’ locals, (with, to be fair, some of the older ones) have started some real community ventures, and some of the local villages are lovely and welcoming, with regular interesting events and societies. The sort of place where people don’t lock their doors and invite passers by in for tea.
On the other hand, those who think of themselves as ‘real’ locals are often spectacularly insular and generally pretty racist. Moving from an extremely multicultural area, with a Sikh Gurdwara, Hindu temple, Buddhist retreat, synagogue, 3 mosques and a bunch of churches within walking distance, as well as restaurants of any cuisines you could think of, it’s been a bit of a system shock to move to somewhere where a festival where everyone wears blackface known as ‘Darkie Day’ is genuinely considered fine by almost all the ‘real’ locals, and just a bit of fun (they claim it has nothing to do with black people, it’s just sheer coincidence! Even when they’re… uhh… singing black and white minstrel songs!)
On the plus side (despite what the locals claim, seriously some of these guys have never been out of the county) away from the coast, housing is cheap and while it’s not easy to get full-time year round work, there is loads of summer and part time work available, if you’re prepared to do it and especially if you’re able to drive. I’ve found it far far easier to find jobs here than in Bristol or anywhere else I’ve lived, even though I have a course to work around.
Once my course finishes, I don’t expect I’ll stay down here longer than it takes to find work elsewhere. I could see retirement in some of the villages being very pleasant, but the nice areas are not cheap and the access to services could be a real issue.
Plus, y’know, I’m only in my 30s, I’m not picking out my retirement community yet.
does that fact that you don’t have to commute mean you are retired? or work from home?
I am interested in your post because for decades my first consideration was climate, to the exclusion of thinking about the people. well, if I thought of them I thought of population: lots of people? few? urban? spread out?
but since the last presidential election I’ve realized it REALLY matters who-all is around you, making up the community.
I love the idea of civic minded! what a concept. 
Let’s see…
I think there are worse places to live than central Ohio.
The job has worked out pretty well, there are OK joints to eat out at, I have a sizable garden, and pretty much every creature imaginable (some of them extinct) lives in my yard.
I live in Northern Nevada and while I loved it 40 years ago, today it is too crowded. My family moved to Nevada in the 1920s when the population of Las Vegas was 2,000 and Reno was 14,000. I grew up in a tiny town at 7,000 feet above sea level.
Now Las Vegas area has 2 million people and Reno has nearly 500,000. So many people are moving from California, that I am looking to move to more rural Nevada or possibly rural Wyoming. All these people bring high prices, crowds, crime and California politics.
Yes, my husband and I retired and moved house 3000 miles to be near our daughter who settled in Northampton MA. We won the real estate lottery by building in California in the early 1980’s – housing prices there are quite literally quadruple what they are here.
People support libraries here, in the hill towns. And they turn out for town meetings. Old farmers have university degrees, and are farming their great great grandparents’ land. It’s a different world here. Not without its own problems, and it does, you know, snow.
Well, depending upon where you actually are, you’re not more than a couple of hours from us, so, welcome to the neighborhood!
Stockbridge is great, and just down the road a bit in Great Barrington is the Guthrie Center which is really worth a visit.