Yeah, I’m sensing a pattern.
Ask the Pack:OT: Best Place to Live
- Thread starter IBleedMaroonDawg
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FWIW, Colorado Springs is a little sketchier than you may think. It's not Greenville, MS, but it's not a utopia. I got a couple of friends ready to move from there.
Utupia, no... But it's average at worst. Still better than most comparable sized cities in the US... OP was acting like it was Compton.
Here are 5 comparably sized cities:
Only Boise is better with crime. Greensboro is exactly the same and the other 2 are considerably worse.
Only Boise is better with crime. Greensboro is exactly the same and the other 2 are considerably worse.
Must have missed that area. Was there for a week a couple of months ago and I didn't even see a cop car the entire time I was there.
I've not been there but when a place is described in Wikipedia as heavy into arts and entertainment, then of course it's going to be more liberal than, say, Noxapater...
...but there's still a heavy business/corporate influence.
With all that said, I wouldn't want to live there.
The Teton County native residents are extremely conservative. The folks that have moved there from California, not so much. Teton County is the only county in the state that typically votes blue. Overall, Wyoming is an extremely conservative state. I know quite a few people out there and they are some of the nicest people I have ever met.
SixPack Remember Nominee? A great reference thread also shows how diverse this crowd is.
*Please, no politics
*Please, no politics
Colorado Springs has the biggest public defender office in the state. Yes, bigger than Denver. There’s a reason for that.
Agreed. I live in a blueish mountain town in a red state. State policy overwhelming rules the day on 90% of our lives. Biggest "socialist" thing I have seen is that we overspent on the library remodel in my opinion.
Bigger cities like Bend, Bozeman, and Missoula have more influence on day to day lives in regards to the local political flavor. Small towns like mine, Jackson, or Whitefish are all basically the same... We don't fight about red and blue much, we just bìtch about the 17ing tourists.... Just send us a check and stay home please.***
Totally agree. Our first trips to Jackson Hole were right around 1980. I should have moved there then while prices were still sane. We try to avoid going during peak Summer tourist season. Just toooo dang many people. Once the kids go back to school after Labor Day it’s a whole different world. September and October are the best 2 months to visit. Tourist are not everywhere, the animals are on the move, the elk are just screaming, and the trout are still biting. Most days, the weather is magnificent. How could you ask for more? The kids just got home last night. Upper 40’s at night and upper 70’s in the afternoons. Ride horses all afternoon and then eat a steak on the bank of the Snake River. Are you kidding me? If you can’t have fun there, then you just hate living. And don’t let me get started on elk hunting 20 miles back in the Teton Wilderness. Grizzlies visiting the camp every night. Laying your eyes on places that most people can’t even imagine. Riding those big Draft mountain horses up above the Timberline. That’s LIVING.
Unfortunately, Salida has gotten too hot. We almost bought a place in 2014, but we had other expenses that we had to devote that ate up our down payment. By 2017, we were priced out. But, there are other great Colorado mountain towns, as well as part of the San Luis Valley. The older I've gotten, the more I love the desert. Check out Antonito, Del Norte, and Crestone (the Baca) if you can handle the desert and the extremes of human personality from both sides. It's heart-achingly beautiful, and there's the sparks of economic development around because it's the last affordable part of the state.
Also, here's a hot tip- Montrose, Colorado is a Mississippi country boy's dream. It's a blue-collar town with tons of great hunting and fishing, the politics are very conservative/libertarian (which balance out to medium conservative for MS), and it's the service town for Telluride, so it has a better economy than a lot of the west slope. It's close to some of the most beautiful parts of America (Black Canyon, Ouray, Telluride, Moab) and it's got water. Check it out.
Colorado Springs is a dump. It's 80's Biloxi in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Very typical military-based community and all that goes with that. Predatory car dealers, tattoo spots, uncontrolled urban sprawl, check-cashing joints. Headquarters of the DOC is one of the major employers. Add a huge dose of prosperity-gospel megachurches and all the BS that brings. Also, the crime and homelessness is higher than average for a town with its layout. It's far too expensive relative to other CO spots to have to deal with all of its crap.
Having said that, there are some of the great Colorado spots very close by. Manitou and Colorado City are both cute tourist spots.
Buena vista is fantastic. We just spent 4 days there and really would love to live there. Small , pretty town, everyone is happy there, and the locals claim they dont get as much snow as other places in Co.
If your wanting to stay around your are, Longview has turned in to a bad a$$ place. I live in Marshall and Longview is so nice right now. Lots of construction going on
But it wouldnt, which is why I didnt mention it. I mentioned 2 CA areas not because of politics, but because of weather, activities, and natural surroundings.
I have 0 desire to live in Berkeley or any of the inner Bay Area towns.
When I was in college my parents lived on the coast over the mountains from there- Half Moon Bay. Exploring the state on visits was enough for me to know I dont want to live in Berkeley.
Got a joke for the other area I mentioned, or does that not fit into your open mic routine?
Bentonvile, Arkansas if you like biking, hiking, architecture, the arts, etc
I agree about OB. Been here 5 years and love it sept thru march
Then tourist season makes me reconsider
Looks like somebody was triggered by an obscure, 2-month old hot take on Colorado Springs.
Unless you're truly a loner, and by choice, this is good advice. You'll enjoy life more.
I heard that. 25 years in the Austin metro, and I'm freaking done. Too many Calis. We passed the tipping point.
Dripping Springs, where I've lived for 13 years, transitioned from sparsely populated ranch land to endless rooftop high-density housing, some of the worst ISD taxes in the metro, and traffic so bad it can take 20 minutes to drive 2 miles across town.
Not sure where I want to go, but Starkville after this long appeals to me. Housing's too expensive there for what it is. My job is technically in Huntsville, but that's crowding up, too. Calis ruin everything.
Why is Columbus so much cheaper than Starkville? I grew up in Starkville. Is Columbus just an uninhabitable gangland now?
There's still nice houses in those hilly subdivisions.
This year was much worse than usual because we got August peak temps starting in mid-June. At least it rained through May. Hell, it's 100 today.
It was 104+ for about 9 weeks straight.
You absolutely nailed it. Texas went jump-the-shark hyperinflationary with cost of living in 2021 when idiot Calis bid above asking price online against each other FROM CALIFORNIA and doubled prices. My Zestimate jumped from $612k in January '21 to $1.2m in January '22. After the Fed spiked rates, it's settled somewhere around $950k, but who knows.
There's no Prop 13 here, Calis. No brakes on our broken property tax system. And the more of them that stream in here, the more ranches sell off and more high-density subdivisions go up--which drives the whining about how the schools are overcrowded.
But that's not all. Those Calis also come in here like equity carpetbaggers and spend way too much on driveway guys, septic guys, fence guys, pool guys, plumbers, electricians. . . . I dare you to find any service person willing to diagnose and repair a home HVAC that's 9 years old. They're happy to quote you an outrageous price on a new system, of course. If you try to haggle, they'll laugh and walk off to answer 50+ voicemails of Calis waving cash at them.
Apparently Texas and California now share the dubious distinction of being the two least affordable insurance markets in the USA.
It's over. Event horizon passed. The ONLY people I know bragging about Texas at this point just moved here within the past couple of years and have no idea what they're missing.
Could find any place in Mississippi that I could afford. Changes in our lives have made it where I can't get the kind of place we used to have there. I am looking at Northeast Texas up around Longview and Taylor. I found a lot of great properties. Good prices for land up there and there's actually some still available... not like here. I have heard a lot of nice things about the area. We have some work to do to get things together before we move any place but it is in our plans after the recent influx here in Austin.
When we first moved here, I lived over near the lake, and it was l a lot of fun and you could always find something to do. I told someone once it was like being in a small town next to a big town. Now, it's like being in a big town next to an extra big town that is getting bigger add more expensive every day. I'm not joking around when I said we moved out here close to Leander and I thought we were moving away from the city but the goddamn city found us and moved out here too. I spoke with someone recently from Leander who said the area population had increased by 50,000.
I'll stay in touch with you and let you know what I find.
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I bought a condo in OB almost 10 years ago. A good time to buy price wise but as you said....things have changed. Summer time traffic, insurance cost and of course the hurricane factor is always a concern. So won't ever live there full time and will probably try to sell over the next couple of years. I live in east central MS and although it's not a place most people would move to it's ok for me. Doubt I will ever relocate.
First, I'll say, there are a significant number of remarkable place to live. Find your scenery, hobbies, events, people, activities and you're good in places all over the US.
We live on 30A (save the jokes) and moved from P'cola/Gulf Breeze 3 years ago, after being there 27 years. Both of those areas are great and 30A has been really nice location for the family. The Panhandle in April/May, and Oct/Nov is the best time of year.... can't beat it.
But the goal is to live here part of the year here, and NW Montana for the rest. We've been vacationing there for 25 years in the Whitefish/Kalispell/Big Fork/Flathead Valley area. This summer we decided to have an adventure so we rented a house there for 3 1/2 months, very fortunate since we can all work remote. Damn cold in the winter but in addition to the winter sports, the summers have fishing, hiking, climbing, golf, sightseeing, boating, white water rafting, you name it. It's an Outstanding part of our country.
Wouldn't let me edit, so I'm responding to myself. I bought my house for $309k in 2010. This is not normal inflation or demonstration of value.
Rising home values only hurt unless you sell. Higher taxes and higher insurance costs = regularly increasing mortgage payment every year. When rates were low, I refinanced regularly just to claw back savings.
TLDR:
Calis like no state taxes too so ultimately it’s Texas’s fault for being too successful.
Details:
My stepfather - native Californian - told me recently about how two of his granddaughters (I guess they’d be my step-nieces) got substantial take home pay increases when their California-based jobs transferred them to the Austin area.
I somewhat disagree. Certainly friends and family are important, but there is a time to cut bait from a ****** location. Know several people that have stuck it out in ****** places mainly to stick close to parents. But eventually your parents are gone and now they’re torn between wanting their kids to stick close but also not wanting them to be in the same ****** position later on.
And I will say it’s incredibly nice to have something nearby that you really enjoy. Golf, snow skiing, water skiing, hiking, scuba, surfing, fishing, whatever it is that floats your boat, it’s worth a lot for it to be nearby. Some of those itches are pretty easy to scratch. Some aren’t. But i have friends with great lives and great incomes that also spend all year looking forward to doing things that other, much less well off friends get to do all the time, just because of location.
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