Why I left Maryland (Baltimore, Bethesda: foreclosure, renters, car insurance)

[Judge Terror]

Originally Posted by lscalder

Ok people we are talking about pg county and how much improvement the county is going through right now. I love the direction pg count is going in right now.

Elaborate more on this please?

[Judge Terror]

Originally Posted by Highpointer

Maryland is classified as a Southern state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Therefore, if you are living in Maryland you are already living in the American South.

For your information while Maryland is technically a Southern state, it is not culturally or politically Southern. According to Wikipedia. President Bush won all the Southern States in both elections of 2000 and 2004 except for Maryland if you consider it "Southern" according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Maryland controlled by big government parasites from Washington D.C.

Another thing, Maryland is an anti-gun state, and is definitely not NASCAR Country as well.

I could go on with more examples but I think I've explained enough right here.

[kevin21403]

I was on Kent Island today with my Dad for father's day. That is definitely Nascar country. The Ram's Head Tavern in Stevensville has a 10' x 10' screen with the Nascar race on. The Orioles game was on the smaller TV's. I agree that Maryland is not the south as I lived in Charleston, SC about 7 years ago. We don't have sweet tea or boiled p-nuts. We are the Mid Atlantic, a hybrid of the north and the south.

[Judge Terror]

Originally Posted by kevin21403

We are the Mid Atlantic, a hybrid of the north and the south.

That's the better way to put it. I guess it really depends on what part of Maryland you are in. If you are in Montgomery County, it is certainly Northern. If you are in St. Mary's County, then it's just like being in the South.

The main population blocs in Maryland are in Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore. They are not Southern at all.

[MDguySC]

I'm concerned when reading some of the posts of the people in this forum because I have experience with living in the South, and in fact, in South Carolina. What I'm going to say has some positive and negative things about Maryland, and it has positive and negative things about South Carolina too.

First, I am a native Marylander. I am from Montgomery County and have also resided in Frederick County. I attend school in Baltimore and love living where I do, but could see myself in Baltimore or other parts of the beautiful state too.

For four years, I lived in Charleston, SC to attend college. I moved there with the best of intentions, being totally and completely open to the atmosphere, the people, and not trying to force my views (or what I thought were my views) on the people there... after all, it's their home, right? I also spent a LOT of time in Lancaster County (below Charlotte) and in Horry County (Myrtle Beach) and I have a lot of experience and dealings with the people in South Carolina. My girlfriend's Dad owns a traveling food service business so I traveled to most of the counties in the state assisting him on our weekend ventures, so I have a perspective on the state.

I consider myself to be a friendly person who looks out for others, and I found this type of people to exist in Montgomery County, MD, but also in Charleston County, SC as well. While some people think that people there are friendlier, there is also something sacred about being able to go to a grocery store on a Sunday morning in your sweatpants and your hair messed up from sleeping on the right side on the pillow all night and not having to see someone that you know... who will just so happen to comment without fail (and I mean, without fail) about your hair and to inquire as to why you're not in Church. Well, I'm not in Church because I had a study group last night that went until 1 AM, but what I'm perplexed about is why you're not at Church but you're still grilling me about why I'm not there. This happened to me in MD, but it happend MUCH MORE in Charleston... and it happend to me MUCH MORE in the small towns of Lancaster County than it did in Charleston... nice people, but annoying when you need to get in and get out, which doesn't happen that often...

The culture there is very concerned with religion, and if you're an athiest, it's not the place for you. I consider myself to be a Christian and I have strong beliefs, but I found it rather distressting, distasteful and rude for people to constantly ask me if I was "saved" and if my "yankee-ness" made me a Christian or not. While not every person has this "backwards, limited and blinded" thinking, my experience (and the experience of my girlfriend, who is from there and now lives with me here - THANK GOD :P, reports) is that people just consider you to be a Christian without realizing that there are other important and influential religions that people follow... like Judiasm. I went looking for a Catholic Church one day and there were TWO within the vicinity of where I was living, and I didn't live "far out". If you're going to live here, you're going to have to accept that the Bible is used as the "moral compass" for the residents and political and economic decesions there... that's just the way it is. While it's not always right, and it's been used before to make African Americans less of a person, it is still being used to further someone's politcal agenda... for better or for worse.

Guns are rampant in South Carolina. I found that many parts of the state where crime was so bad, most of the people who are REPUBLICANS are tired of all the shooting and being afraid to walk out to get their mail or newspaper at night, so they don't want as many guns on the streets. So, many people there are anti-guns and many people in Maryland are pro-guns. I think the problem is only 50% guns, the other 50% is the people that misuse them! The solution should not be no control, but the solution should not be full control either! My Dad and his friends and most of my family gather during NASCAR season and watch the races in Montgomery County, Maryland... and dare I say that some of them are in Bethesda?

In terms of the traffic, I lived in the north area of Charleston and worked downtown and it took me 40 minutes to commute the 20 miles each morning and it was worse in the evenings, not to mention when it rained (which it did pretty much everyday from March until October), then the commute could easily turn into 60 minutes... and don't get me started on the I-526 and I-26 merge... Traffic in Maryland is bad, but we've got seven lanes coming up I-270 and they've got three (or in some places, two) lanes going up and down I-26... the population in the county is around 350,000 now, so we can say that the # of lanes in terms of the population is about the same. Local roads are just as bad, and on many of them you find the speed limit to be 25 MPH but you're only going 15, which may sound "relaxed" and "nice" until you find yourself with a kidney stone on a windy road where the pickup truck in front of you with no bumper or hood (no joke) and the confederate flag bumper sticker proclaiming "If I had known this, I would have picked my own cotton" driving 10 under in front of you, it becomes a problem. It was actually really annoying because then at the stoplight 5 miles down the road, he has the nerve to tell me "we don't drive like that around here"... well Mr., I've got a da** kidney stone and I needed you to move out of my way! I guess being in pain made me a Yankee... whatever. The roads in Maryland are WAY better than those in many (but not all) parts of South Carolina. Then again, those taxes some people mentioned... sometimes if you don't want potholes and crappy roads, you have to PAY FOR THEM. God doesn't drop asphalt out of the sky, you know! Perhaps the reason why we have better (and smoother) roads here in MD is because people don't ***** and compain about paying for them... and even then, there was a $50 fee on my girlfriend's vehicle property taxes last year for road work... and they're still horrible! At least our liberal government collects the taxes and fixes the roads... there they collected the fees but still had terrible roads! Go figure!

Then there's the good 'ol Southern boys, who, as long as you're white, you would be welcomed around... but don't mention your friend Treyvonne, and then you're all of a sudden out of the country club... because at that point you're no longer white and your African American friend all of a sudden becomes the "N word" and you're just another Yankee invading their territory. I kid you not, but I had several of my white friends (whom I never noticed were white until they pointed out the following) approach me when I was talking to my African American friends and whisper in my ear "you know they're black, right"? No, I didn't, but thanks for alerting me to that... and now that I know, I still feel the same way about them. I'm not saying that they're all racist, because they're not... my girlfriend is TOTALLY not that way, but I think it's more common there. Places in New England are pretty bad in terms of being "racist", and those people aren't any differnt than those in the South. There will be people like that no matter where you go. Some people think that in the North it's move covert, but I also see a lot more inter-racial dating going on and more inter-racial play on the streetcorners here and in the parks. Neighborhoods are also more integrated here and it just seems that there's more of a comingled spirit here as compared to there. I found many of my neighbors in Charleston to be concerned that the "neighborhood was getting darker" as also being unfriendly grouchy people that don't like change and didn't like Yankees either. I found it more difficult to make friends there and to get to know my neighbors than I ever had here... and I was trying, harder at times than others, but I definatley didn't go by day to day without looking up, smiling, holding the door for others, and being friendly in general. Again, as with everything, not all people are opposed to change and I found several people who were ready and willing to move out of the area because they wanted to see some things change after living there their whole lives, so there ARE people moving both directions! I do think that it's slowly changing, perhaps not as fast as it should be, but I do see changes being made... there's just a long way to go (as evidenced in the bumper sticker - no matter what you think about the confederate flag - you have to realzie that people use it in that manner and regardless of the flag, the statement itself is ABSURD, RICICULOUS and PETTY).

As for the taxes, since Maryland has more income tax brackets (which makes the system FAIRER, which I know a lot of people dislike because they're in the upper brackets...), my income taxes are less here than they were in South Carolina. Also, the sales tax is 5% across the state here, whereas the state BASE sales tax there is 6% (was 5% until recently) and counties can add as much as 2% additional on to that (like Dorchester County, where the sales tax is now 8%). Property taxes are more here, but homes are also worth more here, so the difference can be accounted for. Car insurance, home or renters insurance is MUCH less here (both - even in Montgomery County with MORE coverage - are less, and I'm under 25, single and a white male), and flood insurance is actually affordable here. And no thanks to South Carolina Electric and Gas, our power rates are .01 less here, and that was after the "70% hike"! EEK! I've also enjoyed not having to write a $400 check for a 1999 Ford sedan in property taxes each year, not to mention the fact that there are NO inspections to ensure the safety of vehicles on the roads! South Carolina has the HIGHEST fatality rate on the interstates in the nation, and about 35% of the people in the state don't wear seatbelts! It's no wonder why so many people die each year, because they're thrown out of their cars instead of being inside them to survive (most of) the crash(es). And the natives don't drive cautiously, either...

Cost of living is something that people talk about a lot. Sure our cost of living is 40% higher than the national average, but our incomes are also close to 40% higher than the national average too. Our finances here are BETTER with ONE LESS PERSON WORKING, and we live in the heart of the most expensive county to live in Maryland... go figure. When we left Charleston, our rent was close to $800 per month for this little dinky apartment in the middle of the ghetto where people got shot up on the block one a week and sometimes more than that, and now we pay $300 more a month in a MUCH safer ara and in a county where the homicide rate (VIOLENT CRIME here) is less than 12 people per year. In places like Little Rock, Shreveport, Nashville, etc..., those rates would be A GIFT if it were for a QUARTER of a year! Even people talk about Prince George's county, and theirs is still WAY lower than the VIOLENT crime rates in South Carolina!

And if South Carolina's economy is so great, then why is the states unemployment rate nearing 10% with the state closing in on being in the top 5 of the states with the most foreclosures? Where my girlfriend is from, they just laid off 150,000 people from the plant and the popuation in the local areas is struggling to make it on nothing. Interestingly enough, one of those companies was moving people to the Baltimore region with a "partner" company so that they could lead better lives... and these are native, die-hard South Carolinians who have been laid off and are going elsewhere so that they can survive. Not everyone lives near a huge condo or hotel on the Ocean or by the BMW factory. From those views, it looks like the economy is doing well... but there's a lot more state than that and the picture is grim.

And speaking of beaches, I must say that South Carolina has some of the world's FINEST beaches! From Horry all the way down through Beaufort county, the beaches are PRISTINE! I would reccomend a beach in SC over a beach in NC or GA ANY DAY, and that's from a person who really could care less if he ever LIVED in South Carolina again... that's how nice the beaches are. And I have to say... most people visit SC for that very reason. Myrtle Beach is also a tourist trap. For those of you who like your taxes "low" (which they really aren't... and tax-regressive, I might add), you should thank the MILLIONS of visitors each year that come into SC (many from the DC and Baltimore region) and bring BILLIONS of tax dollars. If they stopped coming, that state would be in financial ruins and shambles and they would NOT know what to do with themselves! My personal favorite is Sullivans Island and Folly Beach, but they are all good!

So, while I may sound like I hate the state, it just wasn't a good experience for four years... although I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I learned a lot about myself and other people and I realized that not all people live the same way that I do... for better or for worse... but I decided that I was better suited for living here because it was REALLY uncomfortable to have Asian, African American and Hispanic friends and be ridiculed for it... we're all people, we all smile in the same language, and we're all out for the same thing... we all want a better lives for our next generations... and here I can be myself without being called a Yankee all the time or being asked why I don't have an accent... I just don't. My girlfriend LOVES it here and nobody makes fun of her accent (which she thought they would)... instead, they love it and they love her. We have friends from all races, cultures, religions, walks of life, and we love it here... she doesn't want to return because of the lack of good, sustainable, well-paying and descent jobs, but also because of the climate for change and diversity... and this coming from a white Republican who saw that those ways weren't necessarily the best ways to go about fixing a long-overdue problem... but I guess if that doesn't matter to you than you might be able to stand it... but for people who want us all to be people on the inside, we're good here.

[Georgia]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

I also read the posts in the WV forum, it is much, much different. People in WV love living there. Why? Because if you are a native of WV and hate it, you just move out. Those that chose to stay find real warmth and comfort in their native environment. Those that choose to relocate to WV do so because they want to live there. It isn't for jobs, it isn't for money, or culture, or progressiveness. It is because they want to be part of the lifestyle and communties. There

Would like to add the following about West Virginia since I am a native and spent 26 years of my life in Berkeley County.
I moved out of Berkeley because I did not hate it, actually I loved my town where 5 generations of my family lived.
The issue is what WV has turned into and for all the Marylanders feeling they will move there to find Utopia, all I have to say is make sure you check out the FULL lay of the land before doing so.

The Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, Martinsburg in particular has been overran in recent years by out of control development and Marylanders from the DC metro area looking for a bargain. This is where they will find themselves saying what the heck did we do. Always remember, you get what you pay for.

Scenary: This is easy. One can always travel I-81 from Hagerstown, MD to Winchester, VA and will automatically know when they cross both state lines, even without a welcome sign. One will almost feel they left the US entered a third world nation for 26 miles then back to America. The roads go from smooth paved to bumpity, bumpity, bump, to no services off just about any exit with the exception of 16, 13, and 5, which none will prove to satisfy.
Don't be surprised when you see fields with abandoned cars, tire dumps, and satellite dishes (state flower) bigger than those used to track the Space Shuttle.

Now I will say if you take 340/15 South from Frederick into Harpers Ferry you will find one of the most beautiful sites of the town and river in the country, but then again Jefferson County seems to have it's act together.

Lifestyle: If you live in Berkeley or Jefferson County, you will either be one of three folks. Commuters using the town as a bedroom community to sleep, Old money blueblood, or retired folk watching their pensions get taxed all over again. Why?

Cost of Living: The average home (with no zoning, etc., due to WV not having any) will cost 300+k and the average salary is, if your lucky, a dollar over minimum. Not to mention with no planning, zoning, or buyers rights you will spend even more cash once your home starts shifting due to the underground cavern settlement.

Taxes: All in all only slightly less than Maryland. WV income tax is 6.5%, there are lower property taxes but they are gaining ground due to the lack of infrastructure to handle the DC hordes. You will find car tax and personal property taxes each year costing extra dollars. Sales tax on everything at 6% and your dog is taxed, your trees are taxed, and yes for the senior folks, your pensions are even taxed again. WV ranks number 13 nationwide in overall taxation but 49 in overall standard of living. Only Mississippi ranked lower.

Bubba and the Boys: All one needs to do is go to downtown Martinsburg and see what close minded, clique's, and down right stubborn headed thinking can do for a town. When I was a kid you had Norman Rockwell, an active downtown area, heck it even ranked at one time in the 70's as an All American City. Today, the crime rate is almost double the national average, the town is full of old decaying buildings, the only new item is the Police Station complete with a porn shop across the street.

If your a native your used to the term "Martinsburg Shift" Nothing commercial really happens, the commerce justs shifts about every 10 years. One decade the north side is growing, then the south side grows, not in new business they just close everything down on the north side (Berkeley Plaza for example) and just move 5 miles down the road.
They have been a little stable off King Street for awhile, but that is about all, even the Outlets went out of business, during the Martinsburg shift of the 90's when north went central The reasoning here is again the old WV good ole' boy politics. Having a business in the state is very difficult due to the tax structure.

So if your from Maryland looking to get out but stay close to home, focus on Virginia or Pennsylvania. You wont be sorry.

[smash731]

MDGuySC, I loved your description of life in SC vs MoCo. I grew up in Howard County and now am in school in Florida and I understood all of it so well! I'm also Catholic, but the Southern Baptists are constantly knocking on my door to try and save me. It's quite entertaining.

I realize there are plenty of NASCAR fans in MD too...probably higher % of fans in the south though. It just seems like everytime I see someone rev up, then run a red light, or pass me across a double yellow solid line going uphill, or do something incredibly stupid like that....they've got a Jeff Gordon decal or something. Maybe it's a sweeping generalization...but it scares the **** out of me!

[RoadTripGurl]

To westsideboy

I moved to a part of maryland that i actually love and enjoy going home to. But too bad its' far away from the jobs in my field (intelligence) that I have a monster commute...

[westsideboy]

The Eastern Panhandle of WV seems more like rural NOVA to me. The only reason it was included in WV is that the valley was occupied by Union troops in 1863 and the population had no choice in the matter. All of the other Shenandoha Valley counties are still part of VA. I don't really think you get that real WV feel until you hit Paw Paw in far western Morgan County. Even Berkeley Springs feels more like rural VA. History aside, Jefferson and Berkeley Counties are part of the DC metro region and have more in common with NOVA and Suburban MD than they do with the rest of WV.

[1973 Forced Busing]

I love me some Maryland. Even on a hot humid day like this. It makes the spring and fall seem that much better!