posted on July 22, 2001 03:02:10 PM new
I live in a small town 1 hour 15 min out of Pittsburgh. Beautiful city , wonderful people , cheap housing , no jobs
We do have plentiful electricity, though, and our area has just sent people to California to entice some of the high tech industry to come here
Hey Meg - eBay would be welcome here - with MAJOR TAX PERKS!
With a new road currently under construction, the commute to Pittsburgh will be under one hour
Ah ... and rumor has it that a MAJOR amusement park chain may open near here.
posted on July 22, 2001 04:02:12 PM new
We live a few miles up a winding mountain road in North Carolina. The town that's part of our address is about 10,000 folks -- but we live about 15 miles from the edge of town-proper. We're a short 45 miles or so from Asheville (and spend time in Hendersonville shopping, etc most weeks). For us -- the quiet, calm of our small town very-rural-life is wonderful (we love that while working at our computers, we hear cows mooing in the background) and we're only 40 minutes or so from a large town with museums, movies, restaurants, theatres, etc.
Best of all, in our area folks are more liberal than not (or, at any rate, there are enough of us liberal loons) so we don't stick our like a sore thumb.
posted on July 22, 2001 04:46:31 PM new
Nothing beats what my Dad did for years.
Two houses - One in Ohio and one in Florida.
Spend Summer up North and Winter in the South. I hope I can retire like that.
posted on July 23, 2001 11:58:19 AM new
saabsister:
I grew up in suburban Maryland but now live in a small town in southwest Virginia, so I think I understand your dilemma. Especially the traffic situation!
My advice to you is to think very carefully about a move to a rural area. ZiLvY gave you very good advice about visiting, staying and talking with the natives, etc. Living in a small town can be delightful, but it has to be the right small town.
My assistant found our town by driving through Virginia with her sister on a scouting expedition. They stopped at small towns here and there and she walked around, looked at the neighborhoods, etc. When she got to my town she knew she had found the place she wanted to be.
My small town is a hybrid. We have a year-round population of about 9,000, which swells by 2,500 when the students at our two colleges are here. Because of the colleges, mine is not a "typical" small town. We have a lot of cultural events and a lot of famous people have spoken at one or the other college. I've heard almost every president speak by walking three blocks from my home to one of the colleges.
Insofar as churches are concerned, we have a lot of them and they are an important part of the lives of the people who go to them, but there's no pressure to go to church. I don't. There's very little Bible-thumping here.
My town encompasses the best of both worlds; because of the colleges it has a certain level of sophistication, but we're surrounded by beautiful countryside - mountains, rivers, rolling hills. Shopping here is the pits; I go to Charlottesville if I'm in need of clothes, and it's an hour away. I also return to D.C. relatively often because nothing beats those art galleries and museums!
My town has a certain amount of southern tradition since it's an historically important place, as long as the Civil War is your thing. But we no longer have a population that is obsessed with bloodlines and the romance of the Civil War, thanks to a lot of new blood. People have moved here from all over the United States and have breathed new life into what was once a very Jackson-Lee obsessed community. The pace here is slow and it's an adjustment to get used to it; when home repair work is needed, tomorrow turns into next week, then into next month. Half the time I can't even get repairmen to return my calls.
The only drawback to my town is that housing can be fairly expensive. A lot of people have driven through my town as tourists, fallen in love with it and its big old Victorian houses, and have relocated here after selling homes "up north" for a lot of money. They've driven up the property values, which is great if you're selling but not so great if you're buying.
The house next door to mine was purchased in the mid-1970s for $32,000; it's now appraised at over $300,000. My house has increased in value by $120,000 in the six years since I bought it - I refer to it now as my retirement fund, or my sister's inheritance! The house across the street from me sold two years ago to a vacationing couple from New Jersey who spotted it while walking through the neighborhood, went to the front door, and offered the owners $500,000 for it on the spot. Not being fools, they took it! But there are more modest homes available.
posted on July 23, 2001 02:28:06 PM new
Awwww come on Becky, you rascal, we know you live in a really great place but under $10,000?? What with a little fix up it will be a real shack?
I bet you lost one of your zeroes!!
posted on July 23, 2001 03:10:00 PM new
xifene, Asheville is on my husband's list of cities to visit. We made a trip to Roanoke a month ago - gorgeous mountain views. He likes the mountains and I like water.
We've also thought about Duck,NC but the traffic would be bad in the summer and I don't know if there's a large enough winter population to keep most restaurants and shops open. Maybe we'll end up doing what gravid suggested - two houses. (I've stayed in my house long enough that I have a teeny second mortgage and that's it - one of the reasons it's hard to leave.)
posted on July 23, 2001 04:46:57 PM new"Borillar if you wouldn't mind sharing, what area of the Cascades did you live? I love it there, but I like the Olympics too, you have the best of both worlds in the Olympics, ocean and wilderness. " -NearTheSea-
Sorry I didn't see your message sooner. I lived up around Mount Hood. Having been stationed at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in the Peuget sound, I really think of Washington as my home and the Seattle area as my most favorite place in the world. The Olympic Mountain range is just my kinda place, except I don't want to get shot by the ex-Viet-nam vets hiding out there.
Portland, Oregon is an industrial water port. It is the biggest inland Sea Port on the west coast. It has that look and feel of industry that only places like Detroit can give you. Portland is inside a tight valley, really a river bed where the Willamette river has cut through the rock over the millions of years. The river was created when plate prersures built up and the eastern part slipped underneath the western half, a slip-strike fault it's called, and it creates a gentle slope on the east side and a sheer slope on the west side. of course, downtown Portland was built on the west side with little room.
Portland straddles either side of the river and there are but a small handful of bridges for everyone to get across each day. The mighty Columbia river just to the north that seperates the states of Oregon and Washington is butted up against by the north side of Portland, heaivly industrial mixed with the worst of poverty in the area and dreary to look at. Yumm.
posted on July 26, 2001 12:51:59 AM new
The perfect place is here in Anchorage, Alaska. I love it here and can't imagine living anywhere else. As a teenager I visited every state in the country except Hawaii. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. Lived near Salt Lake City for awhile and then moved up here. This is by far the best place I've seen so far.
Wildlife and scenic wonders abound here. The city of 230,000 people has every convienence yet not the congestion that some large cities have. You are literally minutes away from the middle of nowhere. Moose walk down the street in the winter. An occasional bear will visit our mountain hillside homes.
On the one side we have Cook Inlet( inlet off the pacific ocean) and on the other side we have very beautiful majestic mountains. There are two roads to choose from to drive out of town.
I try to fly out twice a year to battle the feeling of isolation. Our summers are mild and sunny. Our winters are mild compared to places like Chicago and Minneapolis.
I could go on and on but you get the picture. Cheers!
, wonderful people 
