121–130 of 181 posts
There is a dedicated bicycle road connecting Cumberland with the National Mall in D.C. and which promises no cars, no pedestrians. Ten hours of pedaling mostly downhill.
> Average summer temperature 72.6 degrees Fahrenheit Must be different, out there. I lived in MD for over ten years, and the average was ... slightly higher ... It is real purdy, out there, though.
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At some point, many people start thinking about things like access to good healthcare, various types of trades, ability to travel without it being a huge hassle, etc. Doesn't mean you need to live right around a big city but I doubt I would want every task or appointment to be a big undertaking.
Healthcare is huge. It's amazing how terrible access to good care is in many rural areas. It's something people often overlook but it's just so important.
Historical population
peak was
1940 39,483
2020 19,076
It is still dropping
The racial makeup of the city was 89.4% White, 6.4% African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.3% from other races, and 2.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 1.2% of the population.
I wish them luck but I don't want to live there.
WTH marketing much? Read the fn offer: They will give you $10,000 cash, plus another $10,000 toward a renovation to a house you buy, or to a down-payment on a house you are required to buy, with a value of >$150K that you are required to live in for 5 years. And you have to apply, and be approved, and undergo a casual interview by the city council. And you have to be ready to move in within 6 months of approval. And…
This could be attractive to people like my brother and his girlfriend. His job is remote and she's going to school for an art degree, mostly into ceramics and wood turning. They love the outdoors and this would be a good spot for them.
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70% of households in the county have internet speeds >25 Mbps. Is that metric meaningful to you? What would ideally mean "good internet access?" I'm working on a project[0] where I sourced this from the FCC Broadband data and am curious about what people are looking for in that respect. [0] https://www.exoroad.com/us/Maryland/Allegany-County/housing
First, if you aren't already, look into what the FCC is doing with BEAD funding, and consequently what all the states are doing with mapping broadband provision to try and capture some of that money. Tennesee for example. More generally, there is a little funkiness with the exoroad site. I guess this project is still in the assembly stage? - When I search for a US county, say Culpeper or Fairfax in Virginia, I get th…
Images have quality problems, like you described, as I haven't got accuracy figured out across the 3k+ counties.
Crime stat is awkward because everything else 9/10 (schools / snow) sounds like good or a lot. But with crime, it's a feature that people want less of. Since there's so many features I went with 10/10 is consistently good, but I do keep getting feedback about this that maybe I should change it.
Out of 10 is a percentile: 10/10 = top 10%, 9/10 = top 20%, 1/10 = bottom 10%. I'm trying to figure out the right granularity between showing the most important info for quickly figuring out the stat, vs. showing all the details about it, because there's 50 features, with another potential 50, and many have multiple ways of thinking about it. So it can quickly become a deluge of info without the right UI to surface deep.
I really appreciate the feedback and my email is eric@exoroad.com in case this is off topic.
Extrinsic monetary incentives are among the worst ways to stimulate growth. Anyone who would uproot their life for $10k is likely not the right personality to restore prosperity. Other strategies have worked to gentrify depressed neighborhoods, like attracting bohemians or entrepreneurs with lower rents and tax relief, based on a strict qualification process.
It's not just the 10K, it's an advertisement for low-cost homes, e.g. https://www.zillow.com/cumberland-md/?searchQueryState=%7B%2...
But on the inside, brittle plaster walls (hard to hang anything), lead paint covered by about 1/4 inch of repeated repainting, finicky radiant heating, sparse electrical outlets usually ungrounded, 100 year old plumbing, literally zero central air or proper ventilation anywhere (= upper levels are a sauna… look for a single HVAC grate anywhere), legacy window and door hardware that can’t be replaced… the list goes on. Every improvement project risks disrupting decades of toxic building materials and carefully grandfathered code violations.
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If there was an economy worth building for, the geography wouldn't be a blocker. Look at Seattle, Oakland, or the Hollywood hills. They're all built on rugged, mountainous terrain just as difficult as the Appalachians, but they don't suffer the same issues attracting wealth because their economic situation is so different. In fact, each of them has the opposite problem of demand to build vastly outstripping permissio…
>Look at Seattle, Oakland, or the Hollywood hills. They're all built on rugged, mountainous terrain just as difficult as the Appalachians, but they don't suffer the same issues attracting wealth because their economic situation is so different. Wrong. Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles are mostly built on much flatter parts of those areas. California entire geography is about "Hey, check out these massive valleys or co…
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Sausalit...
[2] https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/9...
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Healthcare is huge. It's amazing how terrible access to good care is in many rural areas. It's something people often overlook but it's just so important.
All the doctors want to live in LA and NY. This problem only gets worse as medical school, etc becomes more competitive and costly.
Hospital chains and healthcare systems have been consolidating like crazy for decades and it's still going strong - 80 or so hospitals merge every year. PE has also been snapping up private practices like crazy, too.
https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/ten-things-to-k...
