What DON'T you like about Huntsville/Decater areas? (Madison, Valley: upper-class, apartments)

[jlshls]

1. Ticks - Overall Amount of Bugs - Too Many
2. Post Offices - WAY over crowded
3. Rate of Growth - BRAC should spread it's wealth
4. Lack of Health Food Stores - Give us a Trader Joes or Whole Foods.. PLEASE

[rnc76]

Originally Posted by jlshls

1. Ticks - Overall Amount of Bugs - Too Many
2. Post Offices - WAY over crowded
3. Rate of Growth - BRAC should spread it's wealth
4. Lack of Health Food Stores - Give us a Trader Joes or Whole Foods.. PLEASE

I definitely agree with the need for a Trader Joes. That would be great. Fresh Market is basically the same as Whole Foods IMO. Check out Garden Cove too, it is locally owned, all organic produce, lots of health food items that are difficult to find elsewhere.

[acrossthepond]

RELO said:

Looking more for info on weather, bugs, traffic, housing, taxes, recommendations on cities/towns to live and why (housing price range $200,000-$260,000 around Huntsville/Decater...etc

Info on weather can be found on the web.
Huntsville has hot summers. (Have lived all over the south and really no different from other areas, i.e. San Antonio, Atlanta, Memphis, Texarkana).
Nice mild winters with very little snow or ice if any. You will depend on Air Conditioning in the summer. Living through a drought this year. With approx 20 inches of rain but 20 inches below normal.

Home price range $200-260 can be found in all areas of the city but not all neighborhoods. The farther from the city center the lower the price.

Bugs: What kind you want and how many. Not so sure what you are referring to, but any humid environment has bugs. Then again, too hot right now to go outside and join them. Do not find bugs a problem but that is relative to you. You have lawn services that will take care of most of the bugs outside your home at the same time they take care of your lawn (for an extra fee). Termites and fire ants are a given. You just have to take care of business. Termite contracts on your house are a necessity.

Taxes are not overwhelming but there are plenty of them.
Alabama State Income Tax
State Sales Taxes
City Sales Taxes
Property Taxes
Usually one weekend in Aug is tax free for back to school clothes and items

Traffic may be the one biggest problem here. Again relative. If traffic is a problem where you live, you may not see this as a problem. Traffic is growing in the Huntsville area. We have one east/west interstate that goes from the East side of town to I65 near Athens/Decatur which is a north/south interstate. Other major arteries are Hwy 72 which runs from TN near Chattanooga to Memphis and Memorial Parkway runs north/south through the city.

One traffic problem for the city is Redstone Arsenal which is limited access. Most people do not have access through the arsenal. The city has grown up around the arsenal. If you live on the South side of the city near the Tennessee River, you have to drive north of the arsenal to go west. There is no crossing road.

To end this thesis. Lots of planning for future roads.
Hwy 72 to become an interstate some year.
Patriot Parkway will be built someday down the road to give access through the Arsenal.
Extra exits to be built on both Interstate 565 and 65 to make travel a little easier. May be years down the road but the planning is there.
BRAC will happen and thousands are coming.

[heading2hville]

Of course if I had to say something bad about the Huntsville area...I would say the growing pains are having some negative effects...positive effects too no doubt....but the negatives are... schools becoming overcrowded with a lack of efficient funding for proper building for growth......inadequate roads in many areas ......heavier traffic.....and rising price of homes. For locals.....this may be annoying....but depending where you come here from it may seem like no big deal. I have no doubt it will be trying for a while but all be worked out eventually. It is the price you pay for an area in GREAT economic growth.....businesses we love coming in left and right....and a wonderful area of diversity and city living but still maintaining the charm of the south.

[blondandfun]

I don't like all of these high tech people building weapons of mass destruction in Huntsville and being proud about it. I think its wasteful for someone with an engineering degree to spend their lives making weapons. I'm fine with NASA and its efforts, but if I were at NASA I'd be furious about the whole thing. A lot of people don't realize that there are literally ten to twenty times more engineers employed with the military than with NASA. Also, I am very proud that I am completely in the private work force. No government contracts or any of that nonsense. I have to follow the market, and its ups and downs, and I don't have to have a war in order to survive and pay my bills like all of these war mongers in Huntsville, holding their heads up high while they use their brilliant heads to mastermind weapons of war. I know everyone is going to bash me and say they are helping to defend this country against any possible attack. An attack is only possible because you all are making us more of a threat. Makes me sick to hear how people say BRAC is going to be so great to Huntsville. I understand you are only supporting your family with a nice salary, but grow up, and ask the important bigger choices that aren't just about you and your comfy lives.

[VMH2507]

Well, I'm not exactly sure how to respond. How are we to blame the military for trying to defend us from radicals who have stated that it is their sworn duty to wipe us off the face of the earth? 9/11 was definitely not the first time that this country has been attacked and I am personnally glad that our military is making efforts to keep us safe. And I worked for NASA for over 30 years!

[rnc76]

Originally Posted by blondandfun

I don't like all of these high tech people building weapons of mass destruction in Huntsville and being proud about it. I think its wasteful for someone with an engineering degree to spend their lives making weapons. I'm fine with NASA and its efforts, but if I were at NASA I'd be furious about the whole thing. A lot of people don't realize that there are literally ten to twenty times more engineers employed with the military than with NASA. Also, I am very proud that I am completely in the private work force. No government contracts or any of that nonsense. I have to follow the market, and its ups and downs, and I don't have to have a war in order to survive and pay my bills like all of these war mongers in Huntsville, holding their heads up high while they use their brilliant heads to mastermind weapons of war. I know everyone is going to bash me and say they are helping to defend this country against any possible attack. An attack is only possible because you all are making us more of a threat. Makes me sick to hear how people say BRAC is going to be so great to Huntsville. I understand you are only supporting your family with a nice salary, but grow up, and ask the important bigger choices that aren't just about you and your comfy lives.

"An attack is only possible because you all are making us more of a threat."

This has to be the most naive thing I've ever heard. We will always be a target because we are the most powerful economic, political, social AND military force in the world. The guy on top is always the biggest target.

Do you feel that enlisted military are "war mongers" as well? Or do you save that spite only for civilians?

I feel the military-industrial complex that we have in this country is extremely wasteful. I agree with that. I also wish that NASA had more funding. I've done work on a mixture of NASA, NSF, DoD and private contracts. The NASA and NSF stuff is the work that I find most intriguing but it is very difficult to live on that money. The simple fact is that the DoD money is everywhere right now. It is very difficult for an American engineer graduating (especially with an advanced degree) to say "I will never do military related work". Such a large percentage of the jobs in the high tech sector have direct and indirect ties to military use. It is almost impossible to guarantee that you'll never work on military related contract.

A lot of good technologies come from the government work here in Huntsville. A lot of the technologies would never be developed if not for government money and all of that "nonsense" because it is simply too expensive and risky for a private company to undertake. These technologies find their way into the private market but nobody ever knows that the technology originally was developed by Army Research Labs, DARPA, Air Force Research Labs...

[HSVmom]

Roads are my only complaint. In Madison, Wall-Triana should have been 4-laned long ago, the recent work on Hughes was too little & too late, and 72 is a nightmare during rush hour and at most times from early November until after New Year's. I still get lost on Memorial and try to avoid it as much as possible. Based on what I've read about road improvement plans, it may be 8 - 10 yrs. before there's much relief. However, in comparison to Hwys. 31, 150 & 280 in B'ham, the traffic really isn't that awful.

Bugs have become an issue for us this summer for the first time. I've been told it's because of the drought, that they're looking for water inside. Fire ants aren't as bad as in central AL, but I do inspect the yard for them at least once a month.

BRAC presents both positives and negatives for us. Our current house should command a good price next year. However, our new grads will have to pay a premium for their first homes. Dh & I are already looking for land to buy for our eventual retirement home. We don't want to delay too long.
My CPE child is looking forward to a military related career and is very happy about making Huntsville her new permanent home. As the daughter of a WW II vet & former POW, I am very proud of her choice, as was he.

[knightofeffect]

blondeandfun - Are you serious? Weapons of mass destruction? Although I wouldn't know as much as people actively working on the Arsenal (I hope they chime in), most of my family/friends do/have and what they do is the exact opposite.
One of the largest projects on the Arsenal was the patriot missile. A missile designed with the sole purpose of preventing destruction by shooting down other missles. Another that my friend right out of college is working on is IED ( Improvised explosive device ) detection to help save solider's lives.
Huntsville recieves defense and space contracts. Just becuase a contract is for the military it doesn't translate into "Oooooo!!! That must kill people on a massive scale". Everyday my friends and family work hard to ensure that our military and ourselves are safer, all-the-while having the greatest regard for all of human life and real respect for peace.

Sorry for the rant, but some peoples arrogance and ignorance really gets me going. Now on to Huntsville's issues.

1) Road Construction / Funding
Huntsville has been building road steadily since the 60s; however, over 40 years later they have found themselves needing to revisit many roads built with the population of decades ago in mind IE Governers. It is not just the need to expand roads, but maintain older ones and build new ones; and frankly, the state just isn't intrested in giving us the funding we need (there was a great article in the paper about it)

2) Extreme Segregation
I was originally going to make several topics, but just lumped it all into this one. Schools, crime, collapsing communities; these are all huge issues that are faced on the NW and SW sides of Huntsville. There is no easy solution and no real hope in sight, but it is a continued strain on the already lagging school system. Schools in themselves are like night and day when it comes to their desirability, with the better becoming better and the worse becomming worse.

3) Lagging College
This one is most based on my own opinion. Huntsville current University is, I guess adaquate. But it has the potential right in front of it for so much more. One on side it approaches the ever-expanding and very ambitious Huntsville Hospital, on the other one of the biggest research parks in America. Yet, somehow UAH is merely adaquate.
Perhaps it is all in the marketing to outsiders, perhaps it is because it is a tech school in Alabama ( most people outside Huntsville would swear this was an oxymoron), and perhaps still it is because the ties between it and its big brothers UA and UAB are too large. All I know is that no college is in a better posistion to offer opportunities to thier students, and to attact large amounts of funding and out-of-state attendance.
They say we are the MIT of the south or mini-Georgia Tech, but all I see is a University not trying to impress anyone. They are content just getting a little national recognition or being able to say "Well, the people that really know something in the industry knows about UAH". I think it is about time that UAH strives for national importance as an extremely progressive tech school, much like Huntsville is an extremely progressive city.

[zenjenn]

A missile designed with the sole purpose of preventing destruction by shooting down other missles.

This is exactly the kind of project my husband has managed, and he has actually still had occasion for a liberal California engineer to up and refuse to work because he was so vehemently opposed to the Bush administration. Apparently to some people, being vehemently opposed to the Bush administration also means being vehemently opposed to working on any and all things military, no matter how much it is *purely defensive*.

That is a very interesting insight about UAH. My husband plans to continue his graduate work there, and he had heard nothing but praises about the school from the professional engineering organizations of which he is a member. Though we noted, outside of these engineering circles, we had not heard anything about the school, ever. But at least it offers PhDs in engineering - most state universities do not.