Salina Kansas, possibly moving to, what can you tell me about it? (Wichita: crime, houses)

[ColdAilment]

Currently living in Meridian Mississippi, in a few short months there is a possibility that I will relocate to Salina Kansas, not definite, but there is a chance. For someone who has never heard of Salina, and never even been to Kansas before, what can you tell me?

I'll start off with what I already know about Salina. It's similar to Meridian in size. Salina is around 47k and Meridian is 41k. Salina lies on I-70 and Meridian lies on I-20. Salina seems pretty isolated from the rest of the state, far from Topeka, Witchita, and Kansas City.

My main questions I guess are:

-How's cost of living?
-How's the weather? (I'm from northern Indiana originally, used to lots of snow and cold winters)
-How are the locals? I know Kansas has a reputation for being a pretty conservative state, as does my current state of residence, Mississippi.
-Does Salina itself offer enough in the way of shopping and living? OR do you have to travel to other cities to get what you're looking for often?
- Anything else you think I should know.

[Mattks]

Cost of Living: Pretty low, of course depends on what job you have
Weather: imo, terrible, I'm a Kansas native and I hate our weather. Long cold winters and long hot summers, short, but very nice weather in the spring and fall
Locals: well, I'm a local I suppose, spent a bit of time in Salina, mostly friendly, conservative small town type of people
Shopping: It's the the largest city in about 1.5 hour drive in any direction. Most of anything you could ever need will be in Salina, you may occasionally have to drive to Wichita. The downtown while not vibrant is not dead either, last time I was there (5 years ago) there were many little stores. It's a small town, so nothing to do really after 8 p.m.

I've never been to the south or Indiana so I can't compare to those places. I could never live in Salina, unless I worked everyday I would get bored out of my mind...

[grs1]

its a factory based, working class town. the industries based their go through boom bust cycles, a lot are seasonal in nature. people do make good money there, but its not reliable enough to fuel suburban sprawl. since there was never an overbuilding of housing, residential is not as cheap as other areas that massively overbuilt or have had an outright economic collapse or never really had an economy to begin with. but, its still kansas and affordable, its just not as cheap as wichita is.
there's obviously no lake effect, winters would be considered mild to a northern indianan. its also in a different, drier climate zone than even southern kansas, or especially mississppi. the whole low humidity thing doesn't really help during the summers but it does make the spring and fall more pleasant.
its definitely red state territory but its just not the same as the south or indiana or segregated chicago, if you lived in mississppi and could deal you'll prolly feel like your at woodstock lol.
as for shopping, and living, they have what appears to be a nice downtown area from their website salinadowntown.org i went their once to visit a college friend but that was 15 years ago and i basically didn't go anywhere besides her house, so i don't personally know. i hope that is helpful i want to move to salina after looking at their website lol.

[ColdAilment]

Thank you for the helpful replies. I took a short google maps tour of downtown, and it doesn't look bustling, but it does look like there are a lot of stores and mom and pop businesses. Also took a venture on Zillow at some of the houses in the area. Wasn't that impressed with the housing stock. There were a few, and some of the early 20th century homes were charming, but probably too old for me to seriously consider.

Are there any subdivisions or more modern laid out neighborhoods in and around the city? I'll be honest, I didn't look that hard.

Also, what is the accent like in Kansas? Is it typical midwestern? Or is there a bit of a drawl? I ask because:
1. I've never been there
2. It is close to some areas that are known for their accents. I.E. Oklahoma and Missouri.

[ColdAilment]

Also...are there any forests in and around Salina? Taking a Google Maps tour it looks pretty devoid of trees. Most of them look like they were planted there, don't think I saw a single forest.

[grs1]

no cold ailment, that area of the country, is what's known as prairie, which is basically like a natural grass pastureland. google landinstitute.org their based out of salina, their an interesting group. thats what all the blue state individuals in that area will be interested in.

as for accents, in kansas you can find everything from germanic derived accents like in minnesota or wisconsin to southern drawl to kind of what i would call pop culture inspired california speech. just depends where you are and who you are.

[AnywhereElse]

Well, originally from SW MI about 40 miles north of South Bend, IN, I am told that I have a "northern" accent. What is that? I have no idea. When originally coming here I was told that I spoke slowly and I found that the natives spoke more quickly and slurred compared to what I was used to. I haven't lived in Salina since the 1980's but had planned to retire there although nearly retirement age, we have changed our minds about staying in KS. Salina is my favorite city in KS. It is the home of Tony's Pizza, one of the largest employers. If you haven't seen the C-D page: http://www.city-data.com/city/Salina-Kansas.html It isn't a bad drive to Wichita, just straight down the highway. The winter will be much milder than northern IN most of the time but the weather anymore is unpredictable everywhere. I talk to my brother who still lives in MI every week so I get a constant feed. I actually really like the south having lived in MS, AL and NC. You will find that KS has a lot of older people. Check the crime stats of an area before moving there as I loved those older homes downtown, saw the price drop only to find that crime in the downtown area was an issue that I would not want to deal with. I think maybe the area you are now in is probably growing but Salina, as most cities out of the metro, remain pretty much the same decade after decade which some appreciate and others don't. You'll have to identify what services, recreation, etc. that you find important and then individually research those out. It can be frustrating to find certain products and variety but with the internet, it has become much easier to have choices. So, how badly do you want to leave MS or do you and if so, what are hoping to gain by a move to Salina? That would go a long way in answering your questions.

[thriftylefty]

I think Salina is a city that is the most representative of what it's like to live in Kansas;wheat,
religion, immigrants, and prairie. It may be conservative but they have lots of cultural opportunities. Their Arts Council staff were city employees which is extremely rare.

They have good athletic opportunities with state and regional games played there. They used to have a YMCA and a YWCA. There are lot of colleges. The Hispanic population has deep historical roots going back at least 100 years which is common for this part of the the state where there is railroad and Sante Fe trail history. It is called a crossroads because two major highways cross there and the mall was named The Mid-Continent mall so it may still be a regional commercial center. Its been a while since I lived there but I could live there again with out reservation. It would be nice to get away to Colorado and New Mexico if I lived out that way. You will notice driving around in many neighborhoods the amount of uniformity that I think is due to the fact that it once had a military base.

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by thriftylefty

I think Salina is a city that is the most representative of what it's like to live in Kansas;wheat,
religion, immigrants, and prairie. It may be conservative but they have lots of cultural opportunities. Their Arts Council staff were city employees which is extremely rare. They have good athletic opportunities with state and regional games played there. They used to have a YMCA and a YWCA. There are lot of colleges. The Hispanic population has deep historical roots going back at least 100 years which is common for this part of the the state where there is railroad and Sante Fe trail history. It is called a crossroads because two major highways cross there and the mall was named The Mid-Continent mall so it may still be a regional commercial center. Its been a while since I lived there but I could live there again with out reservation. It would be nice to get away to Colorado and New Mexico if I lived out that way.

So they are gone now?

Is there much in the way of state parks or geographic landmarks nearby? I get the uneasy feeling that Salina is in the middle of Wheat Country with nothing but miles of farms surrounding the city. Not completely unused to that. Northern Indiana is mostly farmland too, though they do have more trees, but it's also rather flat.

[thriftylefty]

Originally Posted by ColdAilment

So they are gone now?

Is there much in the way of state parks or geographic landmarks nearby? I get the uneasy feeling that Salina is in the middle of Wheat Country with nothing but miles of farms surrounding the city. Not completely unused to that. Northern Indiana is mostly farmland too, though they do have more trees, but it's also rather flat.

I think they should still be there It's been too long since I checked, there are the smoky hills and one of the early explorers stopped there so there is some site marking it .
If I remember right they don't have chiggers out there because it's do dry.