Bangor, Portland or Burlington (VT)? (Belfast: employment, college, taxes)

[MikeSL]

Currently I am residing on Mount Desert Island and I love it. Beautiful place to live, however, the employment options are too limited so I've decided (and been urged) to move on.
Considering Bangor and Portland, Maine and also Burlington, Vermont but I am having trouble weighing out all the pluses and minuses.

Anyone live in all three places by chance?

[Acadianlion]

I have lived and owned a business centered in the Portland area. You and I both live in "the greater Bangor area". I have never lived in Burlington, but can make a generalized statement that it is a northern New England city, which means relatively small with comparatively little economic development or industrial growth as there is New England is really not an industrial or economic growth center.

The United States is an urban culture. If you are looking for an opportunity to advance yourself, financially, socially, and intellectually, you need to research those areas that have large populations and have grown and developed the most in the past three or four decades.

Unless you have specific skills, education and training that can be utilized in the local economy, OR have a nice trust fund left over from Grandma, ANYWHERE in northern New England is pretty much a dead end.

I assume that you are a young person, perhaps in your early twenties. If I am correct, then let me pass along to you the advice that I gave to both of my children when they were in college: Go far, far away from Maine. Go as many places and work and live in as many different environments as you can. Once you have done that for a while, if the lure of living in Maine still sings a song that you can't ignore, you will be able to come back knowing a lot about a lot of different places and people, and you will be coming to a place with your eyes open from experience.

Start your search by looking at the population demographics of the area. Go where there are more people below the age of fifty than above it, and go where there IS population density that is much more than is in northern New England.

Good luck! You have a great adventure ahead of you, and with your experience on Mt Desert Island, you have something really good to compare other places with. Who knows? After a while you may decide to come back to MDI, limitations and liabilities be damned!

[reloop]

Originally Posted by MikeSL

Currently I am residing on Mount Desert Island and I love it. Beautiful place to live, however, the employment options are too limited so I've decided (and been urged) to move on.
Considering Bangor and Portland, Maine and also Burlington, Vermont but I am having trouble weighing out all the pluses and minuses.

Anyone live in all three places by chance?

What exactly are you looking for in terms of work?

[JC3]

Burlington is a nice area. Depending on what you are looking for though. It is a college area and is right there on Lake Champlain. Nice scenery around and all the amenities. It will be a "little" drive to the ocean though. Then again Champlain can quickly turn ocean-like in a minute.

[HI to ME]

Originally Posted by Acadianlion

I assume that you are a young person, perhaps in your early twenties. If I am correct, then let me pass along to you the advice that I gave to both of my children when they were in college: Go far, far away from Maine. Go as many places and work and live in as many different environments as you can. Once you have done that for a while, if the lure of living in Maine still sings a song that you can't ignore, you will be able to come back knowing a lot about a lot of different places and people, and you will be coming to a place with your eyes open from experience.

Good advice Acadianlion! This is what I did when I was young....moved to various parts of California and now Hawaii....and now 20 years later I am moving back to Maine with probably a greater appreciation than I have ever had before! I agree that, if you are young, you probably want to go explore your options, even if that included leaving Maine for a while. However, I have friends and family who never left Maine and they could never imagine doing so either. When my sister needed a change, she moved to Portland but now lives in Belfast. If you are trying to decide between these 3 towns, then I would say Portland.....it might have more opportunities for you!

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Burlington has more freedom and lower taxes if that is important to you; and you can hunt on Sunday!

The down side is that Burlington has a very high density of yuppies. Vermont probably has the highest per capita rate of Volvo ownership in the entire country. They even have country alternative Volvo repair shops.