371–380 of 582 posts
Let me give you the scoop on the Carolina's. I'm a developer living in the upstate of SC. I am an agnostic liberal which makes me a rarity but I was born here so I can go under the radar thanks to my deep melodious southern accent. Pros - Great climate 10 out of 12 months - Friendly people - Lots of outdoor activities - Beautiful beaches (Fripp Island and Kiawah especially) - Low cost housing (altho going up rapidly)…
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Judging from all the traffic inside cities and my experiences, most people do idle for awhile in traffic just to go a few miles. The bikes are the minority vs cars sitting in the roads and all the full streets / lots, but the bike riders are generally the worst offenders on the street. Most city public transportation is sub-par quality and safety wise. I don't mind public transportation in some countries to an extent…
Your input isn't really helpful because, e.g. "getting groceries for 2 weeks" is not something that somebody who doesn't drive can do. Your experience of your small town (which I'm sure is pretty great with a car), isn't applicable for somebody who doesn't drive.
That was one example where it would be less practical than a car, cat litter or anything heavy is not practical for a bike either. Rain or other bad weather, etc.
Either way none of this has anything to do with the small town / city comparison, either can be navigated by bikes.
Towns may even be easier to navigate by bike because there's generally one main road, a bunch of residential, and many less cars.
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Most places close enough for "take the train for a night out in London" will (practically by definition) be "you can commute into London for work from here" places, though, with correspondingly high house prices. Certainly Cambridge is not cheap for housing!
My wife and I just spent a month in the UK to see how we’d like it and if we’d want to move there. If you are willing to commute 40 mins (by train) there are plenty of towns with 2 bed apartments for £400k.
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Private bounty hunter businesses are harmful to society.
If they are, then they should be illegal. If they are illegal, and this qualifies, then this guy should be punished. None of this negates anything I said previously.
I feel for this guy. He is getting screwed by a high-violence region. But his approach to solving this problem makes the world worse, not better.
Olympia WA. Home to The Evergreen State College, Washington State Capitol, and Sea-Tac International is just under an hour away. Winters are mild, but very wet. Violent crime (20.4) is under the national average, while property crime is nearly twice the national average at 61.2. I grew up in the Thurston County area in the 80s, and went to school at TESC, a hippie liberal arts college I remember the downtown as being…
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I'm from Lancaster and I don't really consider the city a college town. State College PA is a college town. Lancaster is just a nice small city with a few colleges in it.
Lancaster would be a different place without F&M. I've always thought college town meant the college supported most if not all of the local population, something like West Chester, the town would still exist without WCU but it would be just like Downingtown then, nothing super special. I think lancaster would be in a very similar spot.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster,_Pennsylvania#Econom...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_College,_Pennsylvania#Ec...
College towns I found have been great for this - things to do, access to airports and good schools, top-notch hospitals usually in the middle of "nowhere". Look into Charlottesville, Virginia - went to UVA and loved the town. Have also heard good things about Ithaca NY, Champaign IL, and Ann Arbor MI.
One note on small towns: most of the people there aren't transplants, so you get their culture with them. American cities have a reasonably standardized culture, courtesy of hundreds of daily direct flights to each other. Small towns are still highly regional. Not saying there's no difference between Seattle and Miami. But most people on HN could find a social group in both. Not so for Muleshoe, Texas. If you're from…
One note on small towns: most of the people there aren't transplants, so you get their culture with them. American cities have a reasonably standardized culture, courtesy of hundreds of daily direct flights to each other. Small towns are still highly regional. Not saying there's no difference between Seattle and Miami. But most people on HN could find a social group in both. Not so for Muleshoe, Texas. > But be prepa…
Dress and Appearance - follows suit. The west coast has very little sense of "dressing for the occasion." Things like neck tattoos and large earrings are more common. I've been to things like polo matches and crew races on the east coast. Showing those pictures to friends in the west sometimes prompts outright laughter. They can't be _serious_, can they?
Conversation - east coasters name drop constantly. Especially rich ones, who feel they have lots of names to drop. But all of them, really. West coasters are more inclined to discuss land and the environment at length. (Politically, sure. But mostly just... experientially.) Lots of outdoor hobbies, yes. But more than that, too. My wife has a running joke that every time she encounters my family in a new place, at least one conversation ensues about which way is North, and how we know. She can't really play, doesn't see a reason to figure it out, and presumes that naturally all civilized places have their roads on a grid anyway. (Chicago native.)
This is, of course, an exercise in stereotyping. There are exceptions everywhere. But culture is also real and self-reinforcing, so the exceptions are just that—exceptions, not fully-baked countercultures, especially in small towns. There's a sliver of New York in San Francisco. But there isn't a sliver of New York in Bakersfield, just a few random guys wondering why they can't, for the life of them, get a decent bagel.
I have a feeling that many towns in Rhode Island might fit your criteria here. The state's culture is generally about things being close to each other as any driving more than 30 min will get you out of the state anyway. Having BOS airport an hour drive away is a blessing too. It's cold in winter though. But I'd say you kinda get used to it.
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> Nonsense. The difference can easily be 10% of gross income. The use of "easily" is maybe a bit spun, that's at the outer edge of the distribution (e.g. moving from NY to TN, Seattle to Cleveland might net you quite a bit less). But sure, that's about right. A 10% change in income is really worth an unqualified "avoid these states" recommendation to you? That seems unjustified to me. (Especially since employers alre…
> A 10% change in income is really worth an unqualified "avoid these states" recommendation 10% of a Tech company Eng Mgr salary could be 20-30k gross or more. All other factors being equal, this could be a deciding factor. Its one thing to look into, but I'm not the one looking so if I were, I would do more research than my anecdotal data and things I know currently. The other end of this is to find out from their e…
What you said upthread was "Avoid high tax states like NY and CA", which is quite different advice, and I think pretty questionable.