Madison, MS

[quagmier]

Originally Posted by GrandviewGloria

Madison is basically Mississippi's Last Chance. The movers/shakers/job-makers....people who have the smarts/gumption/earning-power to live anywhere, move to Madison. They move to Madison, in lieu of moving to Boulder, Portland, Missoula, Vermont, New Hampshire... So, for many, it's Mississippi's last chance to provide a world-class way of life for people who have what it takes to live anywhere in the world.

It's amazingly crime-free. You can actually put your kids in a public school, and expect that they will get as good an education as they would in a (Southern) private school. And they won't be bullied for being smart or well-behaved.

CAVEAT: people who raised rotten eggs get a rude awakening, real fast. I can rattle off a list of Fashionable Northeast Jackson socialites who should have gone to the abortion clinic instead of River Oaks Maternity Suites, to have their little bundles of 'joy' delivered. These people moved to Madison, and their brats got arrested. By the second arrest, the parents of these lovely individuals are booking a moving van, and headed back to Eastover, where they belong. Boom Car drivers get arrested and drug-searched. A loud muffler will get you pulled over. If you cannot behave, Madison is not a good place to be. There are a lot of problem people who will not even drive THROUGH Madison. They've been arrested/ticketed, too many times. Bad drivers slow down, even on the Interstate running through the town. Madison residents take down tag numbers, take pictures of VIN numbers through the windshield... Lots of retired law enforcement in town, and just pulling into the WalMart parking lot has been a big mistake for a number of people driving stolen cars/people with outstanding warrants... I've seen little old ladies sniffing at cracked windows, seeing if they can detect 420. Sometimes they do; et puis l'ordure frappe le ventilateur! Then, there's an impromptu Festival of the Blue Lights.

One elderly resident had some creature try to reach into her car (his first time in town, driving through, at a big-box development, out by the interstate...), and try to grab her purse or the keys... She bit him. And knowing Madison seniors, I'd bet she'd be capable of killing him. As I said: lots of retired cops/military/government-ops.

Society matrons are up at three in the morning, monitoring properties where there are suspicious goings-on. Drug rings get busted, mortgage fraud gets exposed.... People in Madison have had it: they've been driven from one community or another, aren't gonna take it, anymore...and are gonna go down fighting. People seem prepared to die for their town.

Madison County's founding families were The Genuine Article: real, Roman/Viking/Druid/Hebrew-descended aristocrats (as opposed to just rich Crackers). In contrast, Jackson's 'old families' are descended from the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags who murdered and dispossessed the 'real' families of Hinds County. The rest of the state has, since Reconstruction, regarded Jackson as a backwater. Rich Delta girls drove to Memphis, or Atlanta, or Dallas to shop: never to Jackson. So, when the farm economy plotzed, and people from the rest of the state moved to the Jackson area to find work (dipthong-laden Southern accents made one unemployable in Dallas and Atlanta, by the '70s, so many were trapped in Mississippi)...so, when the better families from the rest of the state moved to the Jackson area, they settled in Madison County, to get away from Jackson's insecure/repressed/moralistic/religion-obsessed/backward social scene.

The (Episcopalian) Chapel of the Cross became the social hub for these displaced aristos. With a sound social nucleus in place, other superior types started moving in. For a while, the county was for independent thinkers, sitting on their country estates....artists with rural studios.... My decorator said, in maybe 2000... "Hollywood's a movie, and everybody's a star. But in Madison, everybody's writing, and living in, their own private screenplays." And it really was like that: so different from the extreme paranoid conformity that made Jackson such a miserable place to be, back then.

Today, Madison is filling up with the remnants of 'Fashionable Northeast Jackson', and their small-minded ways were making my Husband and kids antsy. We're brand-new, up-from-a-tarpaper-shack, nouveaux-riches, and the newly-arrived Second-generation, Colonial-Home-worshiping, new money out of Jackson was trying to high-hat us (second and third generation new rich trying to intimidate first-generation...plus ca change...). DH & kids were begging me to move. When a redneck lynch mob forced developers to deface a really gorgeous building, because its Roman-style urns looked "like minarets", I'd had enough. Made a good bit of change, selling our dream home (yeah! In the middle of the Depression!)....low-balled an 'architecturally important' estate home here in Portland, got it at my price....got the (h-word-place) out of Dodge.

But if you're ambitious, high-IQ, and have to live in Central Mississippi: Madison is the only place to live.

Wow! Thank you for all of that information! It sounds like I would LOVE Madison.

[quagmier]

I loved my trip to Madison. It's a beautiful area, loved the pine trees. The people were friendly and the food was fantastic!

I highly recommend the place. Thumbs up Mississippi.

[quagmier]

It appears that I'll be moving to Madison soon. I received an offer!

[Mississippi Alabama Line]

Originally Posted by quagmier

It appears that I'll be moving to Madison soon. I received an offer!

Nice, I don't think you'll regret it.

[quagmier]

Originally Posted by Mississippi Alabama Line

Nice, I don't think you'll regret it.

I'm absolutely sure that I'll love it. I love the deep South. For one, it's beautiful. But most importantly, it is the people. Plus, the added benefit of some of the best food anywhere, the history, and charm. I'm essentially starting a new life, and I don't know of a better place to begin.

[quagmier]

I plan on visiting the great state of Alabama as well. I'm going to enjoy myself, I know it.

[brickpatio2018]

I saw a comment recently by the Madison city planner that the city of Madison is actively working on the design of its new downtown. I have seen no articles about this since a rendering of a proposed town square was published in the newspaper several years ago. Does anyone know the status (what it will look like, who is building it, when will construction begin)? The only recent comments I've seen by the mayor were that she wanted it to look like an authentic downtown and in no way like a mall of any kind. Mississippi has some great examples to emulate such as Oxford, Natchez, and Ocean Springs, not to mention Fondren and some other interesting places like Greenwood, Corinth, and Brookhaven.

On another note, I did read that one of the architects based in Fondren has teamed up with the mayor of Brandon to begin a redevelopment of downtown Brandon. He opened a restaurant and bakery on the main street in Brandon and what he accomplished (architecturally) with a previously nondescript building is amazing. Brandon these days seems to be giving Madison a run for its money.

[viverlibre]

Originally Posted by brickpatio2018

Brandon these days seems to be giving Madison a run for its money.

A long-term (and very hard headed) mayor who has refused to sell out is why Madison is the nicest city in central MS and one of the top places to live in the state. She has successfully stood up to developers and kept out apartments, additionally, the number of lower-end homes in Madison is much less than in most cities in the 'Sip.

[Mississippi Alabama Line]

Originally Posted by viverlibre

A long-term (and very hard headed) mayor who has refused to sell out is why Madison is the nicest city in central MS and one of the top places to live in the state. She has successfully stood up to developers and kept out apartments, additionally, the number of lower-end homes in Madison is much less than in most cities in the 'Sip.

Brandon P&Z has pretty much cut out most of that too. Unfortunately some of the developments had already slipped in in the past, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Brandon certainly is not on the level of Madison yet (as an overall place to live), but it's downtown is going to be much cooler. Over time, I guess it could rival it.

[brickpatio2018]

The new restaurant in downtown Brandon is called Genna Benna. The building now has a second floor balcony and could be, along with the next-door bakery, straight off the square in Oxford. When I saw the photo, I almost wanted to hug the architect who renovated the building...("civilization at last!").

I read that the original downtown Brandon burned down over a hundred years ago, which explains why it appears to have had a square at one point, which is now bisected by highway 80. The teamwork between the Brandon mayor and this architect (Mr. Weir, I believe) bodes extremely well for Brandon. First, the beautiful amphitheater and now the beginnings of an authentic and beautiful downtown. I hope this Brandon mayor runs for governor, sooner rather than later.