I really don't like living in Boston (Cambridge, Brockton: 2009, neighborhoods)

[LeavingMA]

Originally Posted by mhz123

Shocking! I've been to DC for a few trips and did the tours and seen the scenes... and it's the total *opposite* of where I would want to live in. Great tourism for sure, but the biggest impression I came away from it is beauracratic disgust and ineptitude. You can't think what's been happening during our past 2 presidencies, recent economic ****-hole we're in, and how the dollar is slipping and becoming more and more worthless has anything to do with happens behind closed doors in DC? ()

I'm not going to be staying in Boston for much longer, I'm either going back to NYC or giving San Fran a shot... but DC wouldn't even be close to my list of places to live.

I agree D.C. is about politics and just talking with people there politics comes up, the same as the red sox come up with conversations of people in Boston. I also agree there is a beauracratic mess in D.C., but Boston and MA has its own government mess to deal with. I'd like to add there is more to DC if you get out of the tourist stops, the same with any city. Ask the locals where to go for a nice cafe, etc. They know the places that don't revolve around all the tourists.

Ogre...you made some excellent points and i agree with most of what you said. I especially agree with the education thing and just because an area or people say its educated doesn't mean it is alwasy intellectual.

The thing about the Red Sox is the obsession with them. I've read and heard about the 67' season and know a lot about the red sox past failures, etc., etc. Although I haven't lived as long as many other red sox fans i find many of the annoying red sox fans to be around my age, or either slightly older or younger...those who haven't been around for as long as others. I think sports are great and it gives a city and area excitment, but like someone else mentioned with all the anit-yankee apparel and such is a little much. I don't think people need to come across some bitter all because of a sport. It is like what manny said, "if we lose it isn't the end of the world".

Oregonrain...I agree also with if you don't fit into a place you can try it and move. Boston isn't for everyone, no place is for everyone. I know people who moved there and love it and others that hated it. That is what is great about this country, so many different landscapes, people, and places that someone can find an area they can call home and may fit into better. Every city and place offers something different and I don't think one city is overall better than any others.

[Bluefly]

Originally Posted by Debi1957

Well, being a ready-to-move-to-MA-floridian and having done some travel, I don't understand the virtues of DC at all! .

I've never known a city like DC, in which the people who live there (actually in the city or directly adjacent to it - not the suburbs) have a higher opinion of it and the people who have visited or never been have a lower opinion of it.

It's really a city you have to experience from the inside to get what I'm talking about. Everybody thinks it's this bland bureaucratic nightmare - especially tourists who never get up into the neighborhoods.

[LeavingMA]

I have a friend who lives in DC and if you experience with someone who lives there it is a great city. The Georgetown area is fantastic and also many great places just over the border in Virginia are lots of fun. I've never had a bad time there at all. It is a very exciting city.

It is also one of the best places for young professionals. I would rank D.C. and Austin, TX has two of the best and most exciting places if you are a young professional.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by Bluefly

Ogre - you make some really great points. Maybe that's why I've been let down. I came here thinking this was the epicenter of ideas that I had always imagined it to be, but maybe those are somewhat more limited aspects than I had initially thought.

The points about DC are incredibly valid as well. I'm not looking at the debacle that is our current administration or those who are just drawn to power, but rather the thousands of people moving beneath the limelight that are so interesting. For example, I was there a few months ago in this little jazzy club in the hood where all the great jazz singers used play 'til dawn after they played for the white audiences. I was talking to this woman who had just returned from Israel working for an organization to help children in wartorn countries. She was shot at, bombed, and forced to leave the country by the Israeli government because she had seen too much of what they do. That same weekend, I had breakfast with another woman who stages mock terrorist attacks for the Pentagon to teach them how terrorists think, what motivates them, etc... Just interesting people.

But yes - you're obviously correct.

I think when it comes to being let down when Boston doesn't seem to be "the epicenter of ideas" (I like this phrase--good turn of words here) you expected, the key is that it's not the sort of thing that's going to engulf you in one exciting moment like seeing half a million people gathered for a demonstration on the National Mall. That doesn't mean there aren't exciting things happening here in the world of ideas, though. And I'm sure people vary as to whether the more subtle, gradually-developing excitement of the intellectual setting works for them. Maybe by the time you're done with your studies, you'll feel it. Or maybe you just need a different kind of vibe, in which case, as several people have pointed out here, it's good that you'll have other places where you can look for what works for you. Good luck with all this, and take care.

[ogre]

Bluefly, I know if you're like most students money is tight, but when you have the time, and a little cash to spare, in addition to spending more time in various parts of Boston, and seeing the greater variety of people you'll see in general outside the student and Irish blue-collar areas where you live and work, try dropping in occasionally at one of the big hotels. Have a drink in the lounge. It's not guaranteed to happen any given time, but if you spend enough time around these places, you'll encounter people from all over the world.

[ogre]

Ogre...you made some excellent points and i agree with most of what you said. I especially agree with the education thing and just because an area or people say its educated doesn't mean it is alwasy intellectual.

The thing about the Red Sox is the obsession with them. I've read and heard about the 67' season and know a lot about the red sox past failures, etc., etc. Although I haven't lived as long as many other red sox fans i find many of the annoying red sox fans to be around my age, or either slightly older or younger...those who haven't been around for as long as others. I think sports are great and it gives a city and area excitment, but like someone else mentioned with all the anit-yankee apparel and such is a little much. I don't think people need to come across some bitter all because of a sport. It is like what manny said, "if we lose it isn't the end of the world".[quote, LeavingMA]

Who can explain the passion of sports fans in general? If you were in the right field for this, you could probably make it your life's work to study the reasons people enjoy following sports. Interesting the age range you note as being the ones who go in especially frequently for the "Yankees suck" stuff. Maybe that explains why this whole rivalry seems to have gotten uglier in recent years, ever since the late '90's when it started being basically a competition between those two teams within their division. Back in the '80's and early '90's there was a stretch of fifteen years or so when the Yankees were never serious contenders, and the whole thing cooled off a lot during that time.

Still, I think one reason for the strong feelings toward the Yankees in particular--given that there are a lot of passionate fans in Boston, whatever the reason--is that NY fans seem to take special delight in putting down Boston, taking potshots at Boston fans, and truly enjoying the longtime disappointments of Sox fans. Understanding this facet of New Yorkers would probably take some real study in itself, but whatever the cause, it's real, and it's ugly, and it's not a lot of fun to be on the receiving end of it. That seems to have gotten out of control as well, as, for example, throughout the current decade, we've still been subjected to seemingly endless boasting about how great the Yankees supposedly are, when their record proves that they have not been the invincible monster for some years now.

[LeavingMA]

Ogre...agreed. Although I get the feeling Red Sox fans show more "hate" towards the Yankees than vice versa. I think ESPN and the media hasn't helped the issue with the Yankees/Red Sox games. They seem to make it bigger than life itself and broadcast everything. In many ways, they have also done the same to the North Carolina/Duke college basketball game. You don't really have the rivalries with other New England/New York teams, at least not to the extent of the Yankees and Red Sox.

[gamsauer]

Originally Posted by LeavingMA

Ogre...agreed. Although I get the feeling Red Sox fans show more "hate" towards the Yankees than vice versa. I think ESPN and the media hasn't helped the issue with the Yankees/Red Sox games. They seem to make it bigger than life itself and broadcast everything. In many ways, they have also done the same to the North Carolina/Duke college basketball game. You don't really have the rivalries with other New England/New York teams, at least not to the extent of the Yankees and Red Sox.

I think the "hate" towards Yankees fans is more intense because of exactly what Ogre said. "is that NY fans seem to take special delight in putting down Boston, taking potshots at Boston fans, and truly enjoying the longtime disappointments of Sox fans." How could you not have an intense hatred towards a set of fans that keep putting you down year after year after year after year? Maybe the recent success of the Sox will humble some of those bonehead fans. Hmm, probably not.

[houguy1087]

Originally Posted by HowGoesIt

Bluefly-
If you take a walk down Mass Ave in Cambridge, you will hear people speaking dozens of different languages. There are also plenty of Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Japanese restaurants scattered throughout the city.

I don't understand why anyone would hate Boston either, but that's Cambridge, not Boston proper.

[charolastra00]

This is kind of a weird question- but who do you hang out with? The more you get out and find social groups and hangouts, the more you really see the city. I may be a college student (a school a bit outside of Boston) but over the summer I participated in a lot of political groups, books clubs, etc and that's how I really got to know the city well. Also, coming from Atlanta, I am almost overwhelmed by the intellectual character of the city. Many a time I've struck up a conversation with a completely random person in JFK park, the T, Mount Auburn Cemetery, or the Common about politics or about whatever the other one is reading. That's not strange to me, whereas in Atlanta or even DC, that just would not have ever happened.