Best areas for FRIENDLY, CONSIDERATE people who don't smoke?

[James Bond 007]

[Flovis]

Utah has the lowest and some nice people.
Central California has nice people as well and most don't smoke(ten dollar packs will make the remaining few quit soon!)
Happy hunting.

[NCN]

I had spent many days in Florida before I realized public places there has no smoking. I am allergic to smoke so I loved that. North Carolina has a lot of smoke in the air from fire places in early Fall. Smoke is smoke and it doesn't matter where it comes from.

[Treasurevalley92]

Originally Posted by Vanderbiltgrad

You seem more like a libertarian so you might like Nevada, Colorado or Arizona, it is a live and let live vibe out west. Not many places like that in the East except for Asheville NC.

Naw, this dude is way too uptight for a place with real libertarians out west. In Nevada, the smokers would bother him, Arizona, despite being pretty pretty laid back would probably be too religious or something. Some people just can't be happy.

[RDM66]

Originally Posted by Flovis

Central California has nice people as well and most don't smoke(ten dollar packs will make the remaining few quit soon!)
Happy hunting.

They don't need to smoke in California. They just need to breathe the outdoor air when they need carbon monoxide. It's like free Marlboros!

[RomaniGypsy]

Originally Posted by citylove101

I don't think that this is a question of geography as much as a question of socioeconomic class. After all, there are bad drivers and inconsiderate smokers anywhere you go.

I think this goes in degrees, though. I have been all over the country and certain stories do stick in my mind. Once about 16 years ago, I was dating a girl from Oregon. I flew out there and she drove me to her place from the airport. At one point she stopped dead in the middle of the 50-mph minor highway for what I initially believed was no good reason. I asked why she did that and she said "you see that guy up there?"... there was a dude a good 200 feet in front of the car at the side of the road, not in a crosswalk, who wanted to cross the road... everyone just stopped like that! It wasn't state law... it was just how they operated. And then I recall driving through North Dakota in a 75 mph zone on the interstate... I was going about 67 because I had nowhere to be in a hurry... and I was only very rarely getting passed! When someone did pass, it was slowly. Nobody was speeding. Now, where I live currently, people regularly do 10 - 15 over the speed limit. Sometimes you can be going 15 over, in the left lane, passing people in the right lane, and still get tailgated by some idiot who wants to go 20 over. It's insane.

Originally Posted by citylove101

But crass public behavior about almost anything tends to diminish the further up the socio-economic scale you go, and that's true in every state.

*sigh* Yeah, that's true, but I figure that I can't be the only relatively poor guy who doesn't engage in inconsiderate public behavior.

Originally Posted by citylove101

So I'd tell you to find the area of the country you like (for its job or school opportunities, weather, proximity to family, public school quality, and preferred suburban or city or rural character) and just look for housing in the most upscale neighborhood you can afford.

I prefer property in a rural area outside of town / city limits without building codes or zoning laws.

Originally Posted by citylove101

But you need to bend a little too IMO. Smoking in many public places IS allowed and when it is you can't freak out because somebody is actually obeying the law.

Just because something is legal per the letter of the law doesn't mean that it is a considerate thing to do. Your right to swing your arms stops a millimeter in front of the tip of my nose whether you have the right to swing your arms or not.

Originally Posted by citylove101

Nor should you get bent out of shape if someone tells you "Have a blessed day" or invites you to their church. There are ways to politely handle such things and if you don't know what they are it's time to learn.

I can handle Bible thumpers better than smokers. Bible thumpers can be silenced with logic. Anytime someone does that and it's not a situation where I have to worry about losing income because of what I say, I engage them in conversation and can always get them to the point of saying "I don't know". I know more about the Christian bible and Christianity than nearly all Christians do... and they find this agnostic a really tough nut to crack once they try to crack him with their proselytizing. So I can handle it... but I'd really rather not.

Originally Posted by citylove101

As to the bad drivers, I think that's just a universal American complaint no matter where people live because they'll always notice the bad ones more than the good ones.

It's like when the "check engine" light comes on, on your car. You won't notice the other stuff that's still working properly. Bad drivers endanger people's lives, and there should be none. That's why they're much more widely noticed than good drivers.

Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92

Naw, this dude is way too uptight for a place with real libertarians out west. In Nevada, the smokers would bother him, Arizona, despite being pretty pretty laid back would probably be too religious or something. Some people just can't be happy.

You, my ignorant friend, do not know me well enough to affix the label "uptight" to me. A libertarian is typically someone who believes in freedom, and would fight for people to have as many individual freedoms as possible. I am enough of a libertarian to believe that people should have the freedom of choice to breathe clean air, because it has been scientifically and medically proven that air is necessary to maintain your physiological life-supporting functions... and anything other than "clean" air is hazardous to your health. So, since I think people should have the freedom to breathe clean air, that means that nobody should pollute that air with their smoke. I believe that they should have the freedom to smoke...... far away from anyone else who doesn't want to smell it.

[sunrayjack12]

As a born and Raised Georgian who has had the opportunity to live in many parts of the country and go around the World in the Navy, I would agree with all he said.
At the same time I have run into these people everywhere, good luck trying to get away from trashy ,inconsiderate people, it seems the country has had an explosion of scummy people in the last twenty or so years.
I came here tonight because I am tired of being around trashy people of all colors and most of them seem to weigh as much as my freezer but they are not as tall!
I ask the question "Why are there so many trashy people around today", I just wanted to know.
Maybe I'm just old and see more , but I don't think so because I have found a lot of people who also see it.
I was raised mostly in house trailers, my dad was an industrial electrician and we went were the work was.
We went to church most Sundays when we were living back in Augusta, so I have a a religious up bringing to a point, not what I would call Bible thumping.
As I get older I go to a quite peaceful church with a good band and people who can sing, I sit back and rest from the crazy world outside the doors.
I am 60 and I am traveling in the opposite direction of most people today, I love vintage stereos especially tube amps.
I have no cable TV ,I heat my modern large house with two wood stoves and rarely leave if I can help it.
I am raising two teenage grand kids, no TV, no video games, very limited computer time and I home school them, we have a very calm quite life.
I too would like to find a new area to run and hide away from the crazyness.
People say my kids a weird and some say they have old souls, I take that as a compliment.
They are happy, they read everything they can get their hands on , I always buy used books so the library is getting larger, just a bunch of cheap bookcase but they work.
I am teaching them electronics, building amps and gismos.
Our new venture is going to be learning to play cigar box guitars, check out Justin Johnson on You Tube.
My wife smoked for our entire 33 year marriage and went to the grave saying it was not the smoking that gave her cancer.
I miss her but am free now and will never choke on smoke again, I promise you that one!
Although I have never spent time in Asheville I think that would be a good place to go, I have enough conservative in me that I might think the pendulum was swinging too far in the opposite direction.
Augusta you are tuning into a city over run with trashy inconsiderate people and too many that look like my mothers pin cushion, Yuccccckkkkkk!
Take heart Augusta, you are not alone, so is most of America and I am sure the World, Europe has always been ahead of America in the ruddiness department.
I have no answers, so I will just sit tight and get these kids grown and always worry for them in the world we have today.
They will stand out like sore thumbs, they read books , they think and talk like they are 60 year old conservatives are considerate, know the value of work and are always learning new things.
They are not only book worms they wired my shop completely from the panel to the receptacles, 110 and 220, they cut wood and split it along with me.
They know how too run my heavy equipment and grow their own food also, they will survive no matter what and they know how to handle a gun , just in case.
Good luck in your search, I wish you luck, Augusta use to be a good place to live and then it turned into every other growing modern city.
Don't let the Bible thumping shut you down, just like people there is all kinds of churches out there and not all will be on top of you to dunk your head, some like the Sanctuary in Evans are a great respite from the rigors of daily life with some good music thrown in on top of a good story.