Where have you lived? What did you like/dislike about each place?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Suburban Kansas City, Missouri 0-18
Likes: nice town, good schools, pretty summers
Dislikes: nothing to do for 30 miles if you’re over 18, nothing to do period if you’re under.

Lawrence, Kansas 18-23 and 24-27
Likes: liberal haven, lots of bookstores and coffee shops. Tons to do. Live music, art shows, etc. School was wonderful.
Dislikes: KANSAS. Weather. Hippies.

North Hollywood, California 23-24
Likes: beach and mountains, weather
Dislikes: expensive, unchanging weather (though the weather we did have was nice), no jobs

Portland, Oregon
starting next week. I’ll update. :slight_smile:

22

Raleigh, MS
Liked: Small town, incredibly safe, rural. Enjoyed my time at the high school there.
Disliked: Stiffling, small-minded, religious. Everyone was at least 3rd cousins to me, so I didn’t date much during my teen years.

Baltimore, MD
Liked: Uh, some of my good friends come from there?
Disliked: Pit. Utter, utter pit. Only notable claim to fame is that Edgar Allan Poe died on the street. Job market was nonexistant.

Annapolis, MD
Liked: Clean, availability of jobs much higher. Has a nice little harbor.
Dislike: Rich, white, snobby. DC-area traffic is suicide-inducing.

Sarasota, FL
Liked: Nice beaches.
Disliked: Bad hurricanes.

Hartford, CT
Liked: People were friendly. The hill in front of the capitol building is a lot of fun to roll down.
Disliked: Poor, rundown, and boring.

Istanbul, Turkey
Liked: Good food, nice people, good bus system, lots and lots of fascinating things to see and do.
Disliked: Getting tear-gassed by the police.

23

Cherry Hill, NJ:
Liked: Nothing specific to the place. My parents and friends are there, so it’s a place where I can crash rent-free if needed. Beyond that it has no redeeming qualities.

Santa Fe, NM
Liked: By far the most beautiful-but-populated place I’ve been. Fabulous art scene, and you get the friendliness of a small town without it being backwards hicksville. Jaw-dropping sunsets. Some awesome restaurants. Did I mention that it’s beyond beautiful?
Disliked: Really, really hard to get to. The steep hills can get tiring if you don’t have a car. Expensive. Also about five hours or so from the nearest big city (Denver). The juxtaposition of such wealth in Santa Fe and poverty nearby upsets my inner (hell, outer) liberal.

Cork, Ireland
Liked: Very friendly people. Kind of like Dublin but much cheaper. Close to a lot of spectacular views of the countryside and shore.
Disliked: Feels pretty small and not a lot to do beyond go out to pubs.

London (current residence)
Dislike: Ye gods, expensive. Also right now really horrid weather. Lots of toursists.
Like: Pretty much everything else.

24

I’ll do a couple of the places, I’ve lived.

Fairfax County, VA (Suburb of DC)

Liked: Very safe, quiet neighborhoods, very good school system which I appreciate now that I am older. I made a number of good friends in school and overall had a good time. Fairly prosperous area with all of the amenities that come with that.

Disliked: It was a suburb so you need a car to go anywhere. There is a lot of uniformity there both in the way the houses and neighborhoods look. The sameness of all of the stores. Nothing to do unless you drive into the City. (May have changed, although I doubt it.) Great Library system.

Arlington, VA (more urban suburb of DC)

Liked: Still very safe, quiet for the most part, Insanely close to the Metro, lots of nightlife options, coffee shops, groceries, restaurants, stores etc. Close to pretty much everything. Lots of interesting things to do. My commute was very short. Really good library system.

Disliked: The extremely high costs of renting and buying my own place. Could be a little snobby.

Washington DC
Likes: Very close to everything. Short commute for both myself and my wife. A lot to do in the area. Great variety of restaurants. Lots of cultural activities. Interesting neighborhoods. Diversity of the area.

Dislikes: Crime. Lack of street parking. Prices for real estate are still high. Voting rights. Poorly run library system with poor hours. Higher taxes then Virginia with almost nothing to show for it in the way of services by the city. Giant pain to deal with the DMV and to get a permit.

25

Littleton, CO
All my life (0-18)

Likes: In retrospect, it was a damn good place to grow up; good schools, safe, great weather, awesome snowboarding an hour and a half away, snow, kind of cold in winter but not really.

Dislikes: Thoroughly white, upper-middle class. Not much diversity AT ALL. I could count the black kids at my high school of 2000+ on my fingers. Pretty insulated from the outside, “real” world, I think.
Next Up: Colorado Springs, to college!

26

East Liverpool, Ohio
Likes: Quiet little river town where I was born and grew up. Safe streets, friendly people, good schools.
Dislikes: Provincialism/racism by some (not all). Pollution from steel mills and potteries. Economic decay. Often seems that its best days are behind it.

Oberlin, Ohio
Likes: My alma mater. An excellent college and conservatory. Great concerts, college art museum, funky little shops and architecture.
Dislikes: Nothing but cows and corn ten steps out of town in any direction. Insular (not surprisingly). Among the student body, political correctness run amok.

London, England
Likes: Spent a semester there. Met my wife, who was on the same semester abroad (she’s from Vermont). Great arts scene. Glorious British history around every corner. Churches, museums, palaces, parks, lots of familar names from Sherlock Holmes adventures.
Dislikes: Pollution. Dinginess. Not enough sunshine. Underlying fear of crime. Most people emotionally distant.

Cleveland, Ohio
Likes: Friendly people, beautiful Lake Erie, terrific arts and museum scene on East Side (Severance Hall, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cinematheque, Cedar-Lee Theatre, Museum of Natural History, Garden Center, etc.). Shopping or wandering on Coventry. Our church in Cleveland Heights. Lots and lots of trees.
Dislikes: Too much rain and snow in the winter, then an extremely brief springtime (this year was the exception that proves the rule), followed by scorchinlgy hot, muggy summers. De facto residential and social segregation. Crappy public schools in the city itself (much better in the 'burbs).

27

Seattle: We arrived in the late 60’s, when housing was still affordable and traffic wasn’t bad. We watched it boom and then we left.

We liked everything about it, but I think we got out just in time (1990). I’ve been back several times. My mom’s formerly safe neighborhood isn’t safe anymore, and the traffic is horrendous.

Small town Iowa: I like being able to see the stars at night and not having to lock my doors. I don’t like the insularity and closemindedness, and the depressed economy.

28

Starting where I have some useful impressions of being there…
**
Canberra, Australia** Middle/High School years

  • Safe, clean, no poverty (I came from Malaysia). Nice weather for inland Australia.
  • People claim it is the most boring city on earth, and it retrospect it may be, but I was a kid, we made our own fun.

Northernn Virginia High School

  • My family is still there, and I really like it. Schools are great (Although I went to the worst on in Fairfax County), the population is incredibly diverse, the Metro can take you into downtown DC for a couple of bucks.
  • Traffic

Madison, Wisconsin College

  • Great town. College town, state Capital. Tons of things to do for a young person, even without a car. Summers are great. Memorial Union terrace.
  • Winter. Damn.

Greeley, CO Mid 20’s

  • Hmmmm. Well, let’s see. There’s…no. This town sucks.
  • Flat, hot, people are very suspicious of you unless you go to their church. Smells bad most of the time due to cattle feed lots in the area.

Ft. Collins, CO Mid 20’s

  • Love it. Money magazine’s best place to live 2006, and deserved. Moved here to get out of Greeley.
  • Just a bit too far from Denver

Boulder, CO 1990 - present

  • It is true that it is liberal, health nut town, but it is more Whole Foods Market than dirty co-op. Beautiful place. Skiing is an hour away. It seems that half the town was in the olympics at one point in their lives. Highly educated population. The town is full of churches, but the religious right has no presence. Can be in Denver in 45 minutes for concerts, arts, all four major professional sports.
  • The police department has a bit of a problem solving crimes. Trust Fund Babies. Coming from a middle-middle class upbringing, I was really surprised to find out how many young people are set for life. When you’re talking with your co-workers on a Monday morning about what you did on the weekend, you expect to hear about golf, hiking, movies, etc., not “I decided to buy a condo in Vail”. True story.
29

Griffith, Indiana - the formative years.
Likes - it’s home sweet home. Close to the lake and close to Chicago.
Dislikes - “The Region” mindset. And the racism.

Wash DC - On and off from 98 til current.
Likes - You can pretty much find everything you could possible want there.
Dislikes - the superficiality. A friend of mine calls it “Hollywood for the ugly.” Oh and the weather - ye gads I hate summer there!

London - 99-2001
Likes - the culture, the history, the people, pretty much everything.
Dislikes - As NinjaChick said - it’s hideously expensive.

Tirana, Albania 2001-2003
Likes - thinking…Hmmm…Nope…can’t think of a single thing.
Dislikes - you name it. The place is built on a Hellmouth.

Pristina, Kosovo 2003 -2005
Likes - Loved my work there - very rewarding. There was a sense of making history. The country is beautiful if only the people could wrap their heads around the concept that if you dump your trash on the side of the road, it’s still going to be there the next day. We called plastic grocery bags the national flower because they were hanging off every other bush.
Dislikes - the deeply ingrained ethnic hatred. I still don’t understand it. Oh, and the mistreatment of dogs. The UN forces used to go around and shoot strays (until they accidentally shot a bystander.) I found my current dog on the street there when he was only 4 weeks old after his mother had been shot. :frowning:

Hamburg, Germany - 2005 to current
Likes - it’s an absolutely beautiful city with lots of greenery and water but still urban and cosmopolitan.
Dislikes - the people can be really grumpy. And always minding your business. It’s nothing for a stranger to stop you on the street and tell you exactly what you may be doing wrong, no matter how minor. And my God, the rules! There’s actually a law that says how long your dog can bark per day. And there’s absolutely no noise whatsoever allowed between 1pm and 3pm. I’m not making that up.

30

Chattanooga, TN
It’s where I grew up, and even when I’ve been away, it’s still comfortable. I don’t call it home, because it’s not - I don’t want to live there again, but I do like visiting there.
Like: the way it’s grown, the changes
Dislike: it’s one of those places where it seems like everyone knows my parents or siblings. The constant interstate construction - one major project has had stages going on since my senior year in HS, and that was 15 years ago.
Waterville, ME
For college - a great place for four years of college. Very distinct seasons, beautiful campus.
Like: Lovely area, has a distinct arts scene very influenced by a liberal arts college
Dislike: It’s just too small for me to make a life there

Murfreesboro, TN
Like: (when I was there) small enough for me to be comfortable, big enough and close enough to a major city that it’s not claustrophobic
Dislike: Proximity to Nashville

Nashville, TN
Dislikes: Nashville, to me, makes itself much more important than it is. It puts on airs and so do the people, at least the ones I knew. I hated living there and I wouldn’t move back.

Jackson, MS
Like: Decent size, but close enough to other cities, particularly Memphis and New Orleans so that you can go there for entertainment as well. I also liked living close to the Natchez Trace Parkway - I could head out and take a drive on it of a weekend and check out all the historical stuff as I worked my way north or south for a while.
Dislike: It still seemed to me to be a very segregated city, at least socially. But I also wasn’t there that often - that was the period that I felt I lived in hotels and visited my apartment on weekends, as my job had me on the road 5 days a week.

Atlanta, GA
Like: convenience, ability to get a good variety of ethnic food
Dislike: traffic, a lot of the people, the stress I was under when I lived there. It would take a lot of money to get me to move back, and even then I’d have to think about it really hard.

Knoxville, TN
Like: it’s a mid-sized southern city - it’s got a decent arts scene, mostly good people, and I loved my apartment there!
Dislike: the ever growing sprawl, the constant road construction

Youngstown, OH
Like: Great people, some good food, proximity to Pittsburgh and Cleveland
Dislike: winters, how difficult it is to develop new friends here - people grow up here and the ones that don’t leave seem to keep their same friends for the rest of their life, without feeling the need to add to their groups. I’ve said this: if I didn’t really like my job and the people I work with, I’d be miserable here. But those two things are what keeps me from misery.

31

Tulsa, OK
Liked: The people were very friendly. The city was wide open and lots of growth. there was always something new being built and people from all over the world moving there.
Disliked: The weather. 100+ temps with even higher heat index in the summer and freezing rain and fierce winds in the winter. The city was wide open and lots of growth. The downtown area was desserted and pockets of suburbs were contantly growing. The job market was limited.

Baltimore, MD
Liked: Um…um…I’m thinking…um…got nothin’ here.
Disliked: The people were rude, impatient and downright hostile. Worse three years of my life.

Harrisburg, PA
Like: The history of the city. There are buildings that are older than the city of Tulsa. The city sits on the Susquehanna River and the surrounding are green for the better part of the year. Usually the weather is nice (although I’m not sure what’s with this heat!), even in the winter, it’s bearable. Geographically speaking, it’s perfect. 90 minutes to Philadelphia, 3 hours to the shore, mountains are right up the road, Baltimore is 90 minutes and Pittsburg is on the other side of the mountains. Althought I live in the city, my rent is very affordable and my house is amazing. There isn’t a house like this in the entire state of Oklahoma.
Dislike: Too many people who are completely ignorant and amazing inconsiderate. These are the people who were born, raised and will die in Harrisburg, who think a 20 minute drive to Hershey is the other end of the earth. They are nearly incompacitated by their ignorance. The schools suck, especially the city schools (which I’m sure accounts for most of the ignorance). Those behind the wheels of their cars make up the driving laws as they go along. These people will also think nothing of playing the music in their cars louder than a KISS concert.

32

Ravenna, OH (1-4,6-18)
+: Nice, typical small town America in the 50s and 60s. Quite attractive.
-: School, and all the assholes in it

Meadville, PA(18-24)
+: Another nice small town, but hillier than Ravenna (can be good or bad, depending); college was a fairly good time considering I was nuts; the T&R Bar (now gone); beatiful cemetary (good for walks).
-:Rained too much. Horrible food.

Cincinnati, OH(24-27)
+: Good music scene. Arnold’s bar was cool. Cincinnati chili is great.
-: UC sucks, half my professors sucked, half the students sucked.

Denver, CO (28, a few months)
+: Nice mountains
-: The most boring place I’ve ever been.

Austin, TX(28, a fe months)
+: Great music scene, though the Austin sound gets old. Fairly attractive in the older parts. Good food. Friendly people.
-: Too many annoying hippies. A pain to get around, because of 100,001 dead ends. One can get too much of the smell of cedar.

Houston, TX(28-36, 41 on)
+: Has just about everything. Not hard to get around the central city. Great bars. Good restaurants. Pretty good music scene (was once a lot better). Pretty friendly (was once better in that regard, too)
-: Flat. A lot of it is really ugly. Too much sprawl. Flood-prone. Fundies.

Ann Arbor, MI(36-39)
+: A good deli.
+: Smug assholes.

Cumberland, RI(39, a few months)
+: I had a friendly barber
-: I don’t know where to begin.

Sharon, MA(39, a few months)
+: Absolutely nothing.
-: I’ll begin wherever Cumberland left off

Park Ridge, IL (39-41)
+: Has small-town feel in spite of being a Chicago suburb; a few good restaurants; proximity to Chicago (could also be a bad thing)
-: Proximity to O’Hare. Really difficult to get to know people.

33

Sounds like El Cajon (and the rest of East County), where I go to school. I’d never met such a group of backstabbers in my life.

Interesting. I would think Cubans in particular would feel nasty about Spain, although those things tend to dissipate. (See: American baseball fans turning into England soccer fans during the World Cup.) I’ve never got much impression that many Latinos here (Mexican by vast majority, although there are some from Argentina and other South American countries as well) really care one way or the other about Spain. After all, their nations have had other people to worry about for a long time, between the USA and their own leaders.

OK, looks like I was thinking of population within the city limits. Atlanta, Miami, and St. Louis are all smaller within the city limits, but it looks like you’re right WRT metro areas.

Have you tried Tel Aviv? It’s beautiful and it doesn’t shut down on Saturday, I think (I spent a Shabbos in Jerusalem–I liked it a lot even though I never keep it at home, but then again I’m Jewish by birth), and fewer insane people of all stripes from what I saw of it (admittedly little).

Ugh! You’re not kidding.

Some people have really had quite some lives, and lived in a lot of interesting places around the world. I’m green with envy.

34

A pick of random places

Bath UK

  • Fantastic compact city with some awesome mountainbiking
  • Badgerline bus service who royally did over my bank balance for going up a hill.

Buenos Aires Argentina

  • Awesome place, wine, cow, people, weather and plenty of opportunity to engage in rubbernecking as one walks along the street.
  • Driving, just bad, buracracy is just astounding and the random potholes and dog crap make rubbernecking a dangerous pastime.

Aberdeen

  • Great place for being outdoors, once more awesome mountain biking
  • 7/10 of the year teh sky is grey, the sea is grey and the buildings are grey (with a litle sparkle of mica) its a winder more planes don’t crash at Dyce.

Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

  • Just simply awesome amazing and just , well pretty darn good mountain biking. Go there, take a bike and 6L camelback. Super friendly and laid back populace.
    -Mosquitoes who are Off junkies, best not be in too much of a hurry to get things done, rethink your concept of time and the taxi drivers are possibly the lowest form of life on earth, particularly when it rains (everyday between 3 and 5) and you need to go somewhere.

Houston

  • probably mentioned a few in other threads - despite thinking it a concrete hell hole actualy really enjoyed it, some wonderful parts to the town and jolly friendly bunch
    -Mosquitoes, humidity, TS Alison, concrete and awful awful radiostations. Marvin Zindler for Eeeeeeeyeeeewitness news.

Baku Azerbaijan

  • People are just exceptionally nice. Vodka + tonic is cheap, Xirdalan beer is good.
  • corruption, pollution and dear god it is a wonder the entire populace has not died in car accidents.

Random places in the Home Counties UK

  • It’s close to a major airport to exit the place
  • too many to list,
35

Juneau, AK:
Likes: Born there, had good childhood memories of the place
Dislikes: Ronny Baxter, who picked on me

Anchorage, AK:
Likes: grew up here, small town atmosphere, great fishing, hiking, hunting, etc.
Dislikes: none, really, until I moved back eight years ago; politics now suck, entertainment of other than the nature kind is very limited, few good restaurants

Vietnam, Republic of:
Likes: ummmmmm…
Dislikes: well………

Adak, AK:
Likes: met my first wife there
Dislikes: ditto

Lemoore, CA:
Likes: driving distance to SFO, LA, and the coast
Dislikes: heat, bugs, pollution

Moscow, ID:
Likes: pleasant college town and farming community. Rented a great farm house for $150 a month. Two of my kids were born there. Had the best dog I ever owned there.
Dislikes: Had to bury the dog before leaving

Port Hueneme, CA:
Likes: pleasant weather
Dislikes: southern California

Whidbey Island, WA:
Likes: What’s not to like? Great climate, small town, trees, ocean, blackberries, clams.
Dislikes: Can’t really think of many. Lack of restaurants and entertainment, I guess.

Washington, DC environs:
Likes: museums, restaurants, theater, music events, Wolf Trap, Concerts on The Canal, monuments, history, Blue Ridge Mountains
Dislikes: crime, traffic, government

Frankfurt, Germany:
Likes: my job was to travel to nearly all major European cities and perform work at embassies. What a racket! Food! Hooray, Beer! Old world architecture and art. Loved it.
Dislikes: having to leave

Brussels, Belgium:
Likes: see Frankfurt, Germany but add pommes frites and mussels
Dislikes: see Frankfurt, Germany, but add ‘my employer’

Lisbon, Portugal
Likes: the people and the music, local architecture, the wine, cheese and bread
Dislikes: the place was somewhat backward at times, but not too bad. Traffic was awful.

Bamako, Mali
Likes: the people and the music
Dislikes: the heat and poverty, open sewage ditches, lack of decent restaurants

Kampala, Uganda
Likes: proximity to game parks, climate, greenery, flowers, birdlife; best fucking fantastic Indian food on the planet short of living in India
Dislikes: insects, the drunkenness and crime

I spent time in many other places: several months in St. Thomas, VI, which I loved; several months in Guatemala City, which I also loved; several months in Cairo, the best part of which was being shacked up with a young Canadian lady who liked nothing more than screwing me silly (oh yeah, the pyramids were okay, too), but most of my time in other countries was spent living in a hotel and working.

36

Westminster, CA
0-2
Don’t remember it.

Haiyama, Japan
3-4
First place I saw snow.
Learned Japanese enough to translate for my parents and enjoy Tetsu-jin
My fondest memory is the ‘Ishiyakimo Man’. He pedaled a cart with a coal fire in the box selling roasted sweet potatoes and crying, ‘Oishi yaki imoooooooo!’

San Diego, CA
4.5 to 15
Sailing with the San Diego Navy Sailing Club.
Generally, ‘The Halcyon Days of Youth’.

Lancaster, CA
15-26
Riding my Enduro nearly every day.
Making films with my friends.
Most of all, learning to fly.

Los Angeles, CA
26 to a three years ago
Big city living.
Hated the Big City Living eventually. And the heat. And the crowds and traffic.

Birch Bay, WA
Two and a half years
Owning my own house.
Taking the kayak the 400 or so feet to the beach for a paddle.
Fishing for dungeness crabs and eating them.
Nice cool weather.
Everything’s green.
Having the house to spread out in.
Proximity to Vancouver, BC.
Still my legal residence.

Torrance, CA
Two months
I have a job. That’s about the only thing to like here. (Only I do have Doper friends and a new girlfriend, so that counts to the good.)
I’ll only stay here until I move back to my northern home. Not becoming a CA resident.

37

Well, the blackberries are ‘kudzu of the north’. Can’t get rid of the bloody things! (But they’re okay in the wild, and the other things you mentioned are good. Especially the weather. But ask me about that last in February.)

38

Compactness, busses, sure–but what about the cyanide-laced tea? :eek:

You seem to have made a couple of typos. Let me fix those for you:

My friend grew up there. I always assumed it was spelled “L’Amour”. :smack: Anyway, she says there was absolutely nothing to do ever, and that it was more boring than Bakersfield and Fresno put together. Your thoughts?

Too weird! Are you everyone I know rolled into one?

39

I’ve lived in the Boise, Idaho area all my life, so that’s all I have to go on:

Likes: Enough of an urban feel without being too big and too crowded. The air is clean most of the time. The crime rate is low. Recreational opportunties are close by as are scenic places in the nearby mountains. The people here respect the city’s environment and strive hard to keep it clean. Most people are friendly to one another.

Dislikes: Too damn hot in the summer, not enough snow in the winter, also prone to inversions in the wintertime that leads to air pollution. The political and social climate is too conservative, influenced largely by a significant Mormon population. Traffic is a bitch at times as the rate of growth has surpassed the infrastructure’s ability to accommodate it.

40

Pigeon, MI

I grew up in this tiny village in The Thumb- small farming communities.

Liked: Snow days (I miss them), the beach 7 miles away, the Village Pizzeria
Disliked: Everyone knows everyone and there’s no getting away with anything, very little cultural diversity, not much to do, out in the sticks.

Rock Hill, SC
Liked: Proximity to Charlotte, NC- we worked and shopped there, small-town feel, if I think of anymore I’ll let you know.

Disliked: Humidity, flat land several hours from a beach or a mountain, crime, poverty, hickness, in-laws.

Asheville, NC
My dad’s family is from here, so I’d always visited and even lived there off and on as a child, and I lived there as an adult for a couple of years.

Liked: Smack dab in the mountains, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, stunningly gorgeous scenery. My dad’s family lived on a country road that winds itself up to the Parkway, with creeks and horses and apple and cherry trees, grapevines, and woods- not a bad place to play and explore as a kid! As an adult, I loved Asheville as a city- it’s similiar to Tucson with it’s laid-back, new-age, artsy-fartsy hippy vibe. Good music, friendly people, good freeways. Love Asheville!

Disliked: Winters can be harsh, and not fun to drive there on ice.
Tucson, AZ
Likes: That laid-back, new-age hippy vibe. We’re so casual we even have our own dress code, Tucson Casual. Women don’t wear pantyhose here. Ever! Excellent, genuine Mexican cuisine within a mile in every direction from my house, or any location I happen to be at in the city. Other good restaurants, too. Fairly good music here. Very culturally diverse, with a large Hispanic population, along with rich people, military people, U of A people, poor people, homeless people, and the most artists per capita of anywhere in America. I don’t like to drive on the freeway, so to me it’s a good thing we don’t have a cross-town one. An hour from Mexico and cheap prescriptions, cigarettes, Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco). Winters are lovely. Monsoons are awesome displays of the power of Mother Nature, as long as I’m not driving in it.

Dislikes: Lots of old people, drivers who think they are oh-so-important, the hot burning sun.