Posted on 11/10/2007 4:58:04 PM PST by shrinkermd
Triple-digit monthly parking fees, $12 movie tickets, clogged intersections and weekly grocery bills that rival some mortgage payments. Welcome to life in the Big Apple. And Los Angeles. And Chicago.
But, it's possible to enjoy such amenities without the hassles. Step one? Look for more affordable spots that offer a similar or better quality of life, and where the dollar goes far.
The Cities are:
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
My father was from there. I never lived there, but visited a lot growing up. My take on the place - not a bad place to be from, if you were from there 50+ years ago. I miss Red Wells.
A serious union town since dirt, now with a strong sprinkling of full-on extremist moonbat Lefties.
Duluth GA isn’t bad from a crime standpoint. Still a good thing to have a CCW.
No, thank you. It’s the truth.
Gee, that must be why the Dallas area and particularly Collin County to the North is the fastest growing county in the whole U. S. Also the 7th, 13th, and 21st fastest growing cities in the U. S. are in Collin County.
But, you’re right. Nobody wants to live here.
Eska, you obviously do not live in the Mat-Su Borough. Our PolitBorough extracts over $400/month from me for taxes. Of course I do have to pay them unless I want to turn over the fruit of my labor the the local sheriff. But then you probably don't consider Wasilla to be rural and by Alaska standards you would be right. I thought I had researched the tax burden of living in Alaska before moving here six years ago. I had no idea the property taxes would be so onerous. Still I would do it over again. Alaska is as far from the Hillary White House one can be and still be on the mainland.
That job would give me 4 hours to eat, sleep and shower between shifts.
I’ll pay more to live 20 minutes from work, thanks. Your sister has my sympathies.
Which would put Dallas and Houston somewhere in the crotch area ... and I can't really disagree with that having lived in Houston for a couple of decades, with regular stays in Dallas/Arlington/Ft. Worth area.
Actually, the national coverage here was pretty minimal. BOR covered it a little on FNC (this was before he was out of control with the big head). Otherwise, almost no coverage in the national media, and a lot of that was slanted against the police. The reason it was so well covered here, was postings from local sources, including FReepers listening to police scanners and posting what they heard in real time. Here’s a good link, with a meta-links post just a few down:
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ad646ad6811.htm
Atlanta is very similar to Cincy, on the metro area vs. city thing. The City of Atlanta proper is around 10% of the metro area population, and even that has gentrified substantially. There are still some pretty bad areas to be found, though, as you’d expect. The current mayor down there, while far from a conservative, is so much better than the previous two decades’ mayors, that it’s pretty amazing. She is really trying to make things work and get better.
Things they never seem to consider for the lists that I consider important:
An major hub airport fairly nearby. It’s great to be $70 to NYC if I like - or for family to visit ME.
Don’t forget incidental costs. I live in FL - the housing is low, but my homeowner’s insurance is more than twice my house taxes.
Traffic
I DO enjoy the wildlife in florida. Miss the tulips and lilacs, though.
Gun laws. Homeschooling laws. There is a huge difference to living in a “nanny state” state vs. one that understands individual rights.
I guess if you want to live in a major parasite nest (aka “city”) then you may as well pick one that’s “affordable”. For me, as far as “affordability” is concerned, price is no object - - to live anywhere BUT in one of those places.
I remember a scene from National Lampoon’s Vacation where they are driving through St. Louis and terrified.
I had a lot of good times in Knox Vegas. My best friend from high school went to UT, so K-Town was my preferred road trip destination.
To your list of amenities, add a really cool cave just across the river. I was led there, so I don't recall an exact location, but getting there involves walking a railroad bridge about 80 feet above the Tennessee River. We had a "Stand By Me" moment when we saw a train coming in the distance, and had to hustle to get across the ditch and hide in the bushes. There was a walkway, so we weren't going to get run over, but we were all brought up to believe that every train had a guy in the caboose with a shotgun full of rock salt to chase off kids trespassing on railroad property.
The cave itself had graffiti from generations of UT students, some dating back to the 19th century and scratched into the rock with a penknife. I'm told there's some good spelunking further down, but I wasn't in the mood to put on a harness and hook up the ropes that night -- instead, while the more adventurous souls went into the depths, we stayed in the part of he cave tall enough to stand up, sat around the flashlight and opened another cold one.
This was in the late '80s and early '90s, when Fort Sanders was a run-down "student ghetto." Last time I was in K-Town, I was stunned to discover that apparently gentrification and historic preservation had found the neighborhood. It looks pretty nice now. Unfortunately, my favorite diner on the Strip was gone . If I'd known Sam and Andy's was going to shut down, I would have driven up to steal the signs -- my best friend's name is Sam, and mine is Andy.
One more irrelevant anecdote, because I'm on a roll. One Friday evening when I drove up with a couple of friends from Emory, there was a party in progress at Sam's house when we arrived. There were a fair number of hippies and goth kids coming and going. The frat boys across the street were also having a party, and were being obnoxious as hell, blaring their music at a deafening level and shouting taunts at the freaks, throwing cans and plastic cups. We shouted back some, but mostly tried to ignore them.
Saturday morning, somewhat the worse for wear, I went out onto the front porch for a smoke. Sam was already sitting on a bench. When I came out, he said, "Hey, watch this." He reached into a 5-gallon bucket and pulled out a worn-out tennis ball, which he lobbed across the street. It hit the BMW parked in front of the frat boys' house, setting off the car alarm. One of the frat boys staggered out the front door, leaning on the door frame for support and clearly feeling far worse than I did, pointed the remote and shut off the alarm. Then he staggered back inside and, presumably, to bed.
Sam smiled and checked his watch. About ten minutes later -- just enough time to fall back asleep -- he reached into the bucket, produced another tennis ball, and did it again. Same result. A few minutes later, he handed me a ball, and I threw a strike. I think we did that three or four more times before we got bored with it and went inside to cook breakfast.
Payback is a bitch.
Hmmm. I’d strike some of these off the list. In Minneapolis you’ll have to pay extra to heat your home. In St. Louis you’ll have to buy several guns, bulletproof vest, and lots of ammo. Houston and Atlanta you’ll spend extra for aircon.
Actually, I’ve only posted once on this thread. May be getting old, but I can still count. You might want to reconsider our relative IQs.
However, the comment you incorrectly assigned to me isn’t far wrong. The reason housing. etc are cheaper in some places than others is supply and demand. A few of the places (Dallas) can be cheaper to live in because there is land around to expand into. But St Louis, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Houston and some of the others are there because of crime, cold, or traffic jams making them undesirable for most folks looking to relocate.
I live near Tucson. I MAY retire in north Utah or Idaho. It would be cheaper to live there, but I don’t know if I want to live 4-6 months in snow. A lot of others feel the same way, which is why housing costs more in Tucson than in Logan.
Of course, I shouldn’t argue with a smart person like yourself. You might misquote me again.
Yeah, we did the same thing - went to the Old Spaghetti Factory and when leaving we got stuck going the wrong way over the bridge. Between one-way streets and very scary parts, it was pretty tough finding our way back to the right part of town. Thank goodness it wasn't dark.
I’ve traveled quite a bit over the years, and I’ve always thought the Twin Cities was the best “big city” (metro area of 2 million or more) in the U.S. Yeah, it’s cold — and it can be humid in the summer . . . but most cities have some nature-related flaw of that sort.
Aw come on, you've got Davis-Besse and Lake Erie in your area, what more could you want? On the plus side, you do have Tony Packo's hot dogs there!
This roundworm (nematode), commonly called the red worm, is abundant in yellow perch of Lake Huron and western Lake Erie, but is also found in other localities. As high as 86% of fish examined from areas of Lake Huron have been found infested with as many as 78 worms per fish, although it is usually found in lesser abundance.
Isn’t Houston very humid?
Landlocked or too hot or both.
Worthless at any price, far as I’m concerned.
And much too big.
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