Has your area improved, declined, or stayed the same since 2000? (neighbourhoods, tax)
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Definitely depends on where you ask. The downtown area has improved and is continually improving, but the majority of neighborhoods have declined way way way far down. And actually, some people are sort of resentful that only the downtown area is improving and not the whole city. But that's reality.
The Boston/E. MA area is not what it used to be. The insane cost of living has pushed away the middle class (especially the young), and being replaced by layabouts from elsewhere (as well as annoying yuppies). I'm increasingly thinking about bailing to NH or ME.
Be aware that southern NH now has brutal property taxes. Look further north in rural Belknap and Carroll counties. Most of the employment is in the southern and southeastern 1/3 of the state, though.
I'd say the Charleston area has improved a lot since 2000. Our economy has become a lot more diverse, with Boeing providing thousands of jobs, our tourism industry expanding with Southwest Airlines starting last year, and this city has expanded so much. Restaurants have stayed the same (great).
We've gained 160,000 people or so since 2000, and this area has expanded for the better. Summerville, which used to be a bedroom community that you pretty much had to go to North Charleston for anything except Walmart, groceries and the basics, now is a city of its own which has almost the same shopping as that area.
The metro area boundaries have probably expanded 10-15 miles, with all the new subdivisions in Mt. Pleasant, Goose Creek, Summerville and that Cane Bay area.
Traffic has gotten worse though. You have our new bridge, but traffic in the suburbs has gotten much worse. One accident on our main interstate (I-26) in the morning or afternoon paralyzes commutes for thousands of people.
The things I liked about Syracuse went away. The things I hate seem to be here to stay!
That's what my area is going the way of. (Although we did recently get a sushi place, that's about the only good thing that came in instead of left, were also getting more crime.)
Its the same or improved from 2000. More people lived here in 2000 then now but urban renewal has picked up, vibrancy in neighbourhoods has gone up, revialization of many buildings has gone up, overall our city has become more "tourist friendly". Plus we are starting to see a surplus of people living in the city and its might result in st.louis gaining people in the 2020 census
DC has become a boom town because of the expansion of the federal government. Back in 2000, swaths of DC were still impoverished, fairly violent, ghettoized no-go zones where you would be hard-pressed to spot a White person strolling down the street. No more. Wealthy White people have taken back the Chocolate city. DC may easily be the fastest gentrifying big city in America. DC has very recently eclipsed Silicon Valley as being the richest metro area in the country.
However, many will rationally argue that the rise of DC to become the richest big city in America represents a net loss for the country, as a whole, seeing as DC's tremendous wealth is based wholly on the mass confiscation of tax dollars from the private sector. Since the federal government produces nothing that creates true wealth and doesn't have a budget or a cost-benefit ratio in terms of keeping employees, federal government workers are paid roughly double the average salary of private sector workers to do next to nothing! Federal workers are also nearly impossible to fire once permanent. Government workers are statistically more likely to drop dead than be fired once permanent regardless of job performance. Many federal workers have been busted for looking at porn for 8 hours a day or having sex in federal buildings during work hours and still can't be fired! The District of Columbia and the super affluent surrounding suburbs in Northern Virginia and Maryland make up the largest welfare state in the country. Six out of the top ten of the richest counties in America are located within an hour commuting distance of DC. One out of 12 people in DC is a lawyer. That speaks volumes. These people in the government are not public servants as their main service to us is snootily living an immodest, luxurious, decadent lifestyle at the expense of our hard-earned tax dollars. Rather, these people in DC are a class of pimps who live lavishly while we stand on the corner in the cold wearing fishnets hopping in cars with various johns getting dollars for daddy (the gubmint). Where is our outrage?
Last edited by goldenchild08; 07-09-2012 at 10:50 AM..
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). I'm increasingly thinking about bailing to NH or ME.
