[Arm&Hammer]

Im very young and have no desire of leaving the northeast because nothing in the south really get my interests.

[Beeker2211]

Originally Posted by basehead617

I really think this element is exaggerated. The % of the land area of the state that is urbanized or even significantly populated at all is very small. People concentrate way too much on the shoreline and a couple cities when making generalizations - which aren't even that urbanized anyway. And definitely not very sprawly. Hell even a high % of shoreline towns have fairly low population and population density.

I like that though. We have a great juxtaposition of highly dense, low foot-print metros and 10 minutes out we have forests. Driving around the eastern seaboard it amazes me how much is just bland sprawl.

[MikefromCT]

I'm not entirely surprised by this. First off, the economy sucks. Who wants to move during hard times, especially if they already have a job and there's no need to move? Those who did transplant here came from places where it's even more expensive than here, yet they feel their qualityof life has since improved. They either accept a longer commute to NYC, or have settled in one of our cities and started over, enjoying what is for them a lower cost of living (for now, anyway).

Another reason growth is so slow here is we're not exactly a business-friendly state. This is a small state geographically - unlike metro areas such as Charlotte or Atlanta, we have limited space. When our cities expand, we expand upward - theirs expand outward. They can do this - they have more space. This is why Connecticut and the northeast in general is more densely populated. We're now the 4th most crowded state in the country. I'm not sure a large influx of transplants is really the best thing. It's not worth compromising large amounts of beautiful open space just to build office parks, otherwise we'll end up looking like LA County. So we should find a way to entice business without becoming a faceless, shiftless, sprawling center like some towns in the state already have.

I know the midwest and south may be cheaper but they have their own drawbacks. Currently I have friends from school who've lived in Florida for about 7 years now and like it, but even the school districts considered good by that state's standards are really subpar. So they're moving back, looking to settle in Granby or Simsbury.

I disagree that only Stamford and New Haven are the only cities that are main hubs for jobs. All our cities supply jobs, real question is can we keep them there and can we make them appealing places to live. People today view city life differently - not just so they can be in walking distance of a Starbucks, but so they can appreciate certain amenities lacking in most suburbs. Suburban life may have been ideal in the 1960s or 70s, but now it seems more people are looking to cities. I'm hoping we can do more to attract and keep young people in them. There's a handful of towns/cities that are enjoyable for young professionals - Stamford, SoNo, Milford, New Haven, Middletown, West Hartford, Manchester, and the capitol city. But any town/city with its own Main Street area can do more to make it appealing to newcomers and transplants without creating a rowdy, Jersey Shore-type crowd. Personally, I don't think many towns are interested in making themselves welcoming to outsiders since they fear it will create that mentality, when really, alot of these newcomers are just looking to meet people.

We also have the option of taking our old, decaying factory cities and cleaing them up - a long, costly process, but a beneficial one. Lots of towns have taken old, abandoned brownfields and empty warehouses and done something constructive with them. This could create a tax base and prompt businesses to consider looking here instead of wilderness areas.

Lastly, for people who like this state but are unhappy about the high cost of living and recent tax hikes, stop saying you're going to leave. True lovers of this state should be vying to stay to fix it, and to help oust the rodeo clown in the state capitol who jacked up our cost of living in the first place. This may be a strongly Democratic state, but I haven't yet lost faith in people to make their displeasure known in the voting booth. If you're unhappy, stop bicthing and start a revolution.

[nep321]

Originally Posted by MikefromCT

I'm not entirely surprised by this. First off, the economy sucks. Who wants to move during hard times, especially if they already have a job and there's no need to move? Those who did transplant here came from places where it's even more expensive than here, yet they feel their qualityof life has since improved. They either accept a longer commute to NYC, or have settled in one of our cities and started over, enjoying what is for them a lower cost of living (for now, anyway).

Another reason growth is so slow here is we're not exactly a business-friendly state. This is a small state geographically - unlike metro areas such as Charlotte or Atlanta, we have limited space. When our cities expand, we expand upward - theirs expand outward. They can do this - they have more space. This is why Connecticut and the northeast in general is more densely populated. We're now the 4th most crowded state in the country. I'm not sure a large influx of transplants is really the best thing. It's not worth compromising large amounts of beautiful open space just to build office parks, otherwise we'll end up looking like LA County. So we should find a way to entice business without becoming a faceless, shiftless, sprawling center like some towns in the state already have.

I know the midwest and south may be cheaper but they have their own drawbacks. Currently I have friends from school who've lived in Florida for about 7 years now and like it, but even the school districts considered good by that state's standards are really subpar. So they're moving back, looking to settle in Granby or Simsbury.

I disagree that only Stamford and New Haven are the only cities that are main hubs for jobs. All our cities supply jobs, real question is can we keep them there and can we make them appealing places to live. People today view city life differently - not just so they can be in walking distance of a Starbucks, but so they can appreciate certain amenities lacking in most suburbs. Suburban life may have been ideal in the 1960s or 70s, but now it seems more people are looking to cities. I'm hoping we can do more to attract and keep young people in them. There's a handful of towns/cities that are enjoyable for young professionals - Stamford, SoNo, Milford, New Haven, Middletown, West Hartford, Manchester, and the capitol city. But any town/city with its own Main Street area can do more to make it appealing to newcomers and transplants without creating a rowdy, Jersey Shore-type crowd. Personally, I don't think many towns are interested in making themselves welcoming to outsiders since they fear it will create that mentality, when really, alot of these newcomers are just looking to meet people.

We also have the option of taking our old, decaying factory cities and cleaing them up - a long, costly process, but a beneficial one. Lots of towns have taken old, abandoned brownfields and empty warehouses and done something constructive with them. This could create a tax base and prompt businesses to consider looking here instead of wilderness areas.

Lastly, for people who like this state but are unhappy about the high cost of living and recent tax hikes, stop saying you're going to leave. True lovers of this state should be vying to stay to fix it, and to help oust the rodeo clown in the state capitol who jacked up our cost of living in the first place. This may be a strongly Democratic state, but I haven't yet lost faith in people to make their displeasure known in the voting booth. If you're unhappy, stop bicthing and start a revolution.

Wall of text lol.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by nep321

Negatives about CT, from my personal perspective:

• Winters are too cold and too long
• Cost of living is too high
• Too fast paced and stressful
• Too much overpriced, old construction
• People could be friendlier
• People care about money way too much
• Severely aged transportation and utility infrastructure
• Not enough people in their 20's
• Too urbanized and overpopulated

Positives about CT, from my personal perspective:

• Job market is not too bad
• Jobs pay significantly better than other states
• Gay friendly and tolerant of diversity
• People don't push their religion on others
• Plentiful shopping, activities and amenities
• Beautiful natural landscape
• Family is within driving distance
• Large population of educated people

Your second points kind of cancel each other out. It is more expensive here, but generally the pay here is higher. You also say that the state is too urbanized and has too much old construction but then note we have beautiful natural landscape. If we allowed sprawl like they do in other states we would have lost all of our natural beauty. If you thinkn through some of these contradictions, they do cancel one another out. Jay

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by MikefromCT

I disagree that only Stamford and New Haven are the only cities that are main hubs for jobs. All our cities supply jobs, real question is can we keep them there and can we make them appealing places to live.

Actually Hartford is by far the major jobs hub in the state. I think we take Hartford for granted because it is a quiet city that does not flaut what it has. We have had several new young people move to Hartford to live and they really like it there. For a small city it has a lot going on. Jay

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Your second points kind of cancel each other out. It is more expensive here, but generally the pay here is higher.

As long as I keep hearing this, I'm going to keep disagreeing and pointing out why. It is a known fact that CT has many HQs here, which houses lots of highly skilled jobs, which means we have a highly skilled workforce, leading to a higher income. It does not mean an average job pays more here than in Oklahoma. Last time we discussed this, I randomly chose a bunch of cities about the size of Hartford and compared the salary of a Police Officer. Police Officers in even the wealthiest towns in CT don't make much more than a few thousand over towns in places like Oklahoma, Missouri, Georgia, etc, where cost of living is significantly less.

Sure, maybe a few here and there may have gotten higher pay when transferred here, but a lot of that isn't because of the cost of living difference, it's because they wanted you to transfer.

So really, when someone says "people get paid more here", that's technically true if you're talking averages or even median because high paying jobs skew that. However if you were to compare the salary of an Assistant Manager at Target, you won't see much difference.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Actually Hartford is by far the major jobs hub in the state. I think we take Hartford for granted because it is a quiet city that does not flaut what it has. We have had several new young people move to Hartford to live and they really like it there. For a small city it has a lot going on. Jay

Really? The job market in Stamford/Norwalk seems more vibrant to me than Hartford. Especially for higher paying jobs.

Maybe it's just because my entire industry is barely represented in Hartford.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by Stylo

Really? The job market in Stamford/Norwalk seems more vibrant to me than Hartford. Especially for higher paying jobs.

Maybe it's just because my entire industry is barely represented in Hartford.

New Haven has young people primarily because it's a college town. Lately Milford has gotten popular with the 25-30 crowd buying their first homes because so many of them work in Stamford or Norwalk, and a HUGE percentage of young people working in Stamford live in Manhattan. Hartford really needs to do more to attract young people.

I was actually shocked to hear of the amount of people who work at firms in FFC that commute up.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

I was actually shocked to hear of the amount of people who work at firms in FFC that commute up.

When my wife was a customer service manager at a company in Norwalk in the mid-2000s she had employees commute as far as Waterbury, Bristol, in one case even New Britain! Another extreme was one who commuted from southern Dutchess County, NY! It's all about the crazy housing prices.....