What's Missoula like? (Ronan, Thompson Falls, Reserve: transplants, low crime, credit)

[tc60068]

Can anyone tell me about living in Missoula?

[montanahogrider]

Missoula is a medium sized city, but very large for Montana standards. It has a great downtown core of quaint shops and coffee houses and places where the students of the great University of Montana hang out. It is a growing city planted in the center of the beautiful Bitterroot Valley. Its a trucking transportation hub for Montana and as such has many trucking companies calling it home. Skiing, hiking, snowmobiling, fishing, flying, backpacking, swimming, hot springs, hunting, boating, rafting, rock climbing, grizzly bear and nature watching are all just minutes away. Plentiful jobs for the professional and blue collar workers abound. Missoula has a fairly low crime rate for cities its size but still has some serious offenses happen. Land values are high in the Bitterroot but bargains can still be had. Montanans have a fierce pride in our state and we like or politics local. Visit here first and be prepared for the friendliness that most other states find peculiar.

[JoeJoeMan]

Well you just got the overly rosey picture of Missoula from the previous post so let me try and bring it back a bit closer to reallity..

It has a great downtown core of quaint shops and coffee houses and places where the students of the great University of Montana hang out.

I'm not sure I'd use the word 'quaint',......'trendy', 'pretentious', would be more approbriate, but aside from that "the great Univerisity of Montana" - I think that might be a slight exageration - great as in great to party, I seriously doubt an acedemic scholar would even begin to think of it in those terms. Not a bad school though, albeit a bit full of itself.

Land values are high in the Bitterroot but bargains can still be had

WHERE ? I'll take 2

Visit here first and be prepared for the friendliness that most other states find peculiar.

If people in missoula are extra friendly you couldn't really credit montana with that, as most be in missoula aren't even from missoula.

Plentiful jobs for the professional and blue collar workers abound.

With all due respect to the poster, this statement flies in the face of what virtually everyone on this board says about - finding decent and good pay jobs in montana including missoula.


Missoula is a very liberal town, steeped in gay rights, multiculturalism, and yoga, just to mention a few things to get you thinking in the right direction. It is not a 'family' type town, I'd bet if you looked at its demographics it would prove out that point. No in Missoula people don't have children - they have dogs, dogs and more dogs. Litterally more dogs than people, just take a walk and start counting what you see.
Missoula is a liberal college town, it is the last place in the world you'd want to move to if you are concerned with making a decent living. Most people that move here are college type kids or people with money, by money I mean everything form trust-cases, to I got a million in my accident settlement, or inheritance or I sold my Calif house for 900k, or just the plain old wealthy.
As I like to say it ain't Mayberry.
You have to come here to see it, lots of old hippies with bald heads and pony tails, tatooed ladies ranging in age from 8 to 80, homes types drifting about downtown. Lots of rostafarian hair dues, if that's what you call them.....more coffee shops than should be allowed by law....and to top off the whole carnival atmosphere - we have our very own carousel, the pride of the community, which in an odd way seems very fitting....round and round on the carousel..............
It's a town full of recent transplants desperately in search of "quality of life" and longing to build a "community" that only exists in their mind. Meanwhile what's actually left of the once quiant town is saying "Stop the bus I WANNA GET OFF"
But hey......I'm not say that that is all such a bad thing, and it appears to be just exactly what alot of people want, evident by the fact that they just keep flocking in here. Although I think the realestate prices on the foo-foo side of the market are even beginning to hit those trust-funders pretty hard.

[jimj]

JoeJoe, you forgot piercings in places you wouldn't let your mother see. I've got to say seeing the big ear ones that look like a one inch piece of pipe are hilarious. Thank you for answering the post, I didn't have the heart....

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by montanahogrider

Missoula is a medium sized city, but very large for Montana standards.

Is Calgary the only major city in that part of the country?

[Interpol76]

I loved living in Missoula. It smelled horrible there during the winter though.

[NYMTman]

Calgary is the closest large city, yes. It's about 2-3 hours north of the border.

Unless you consider Spokane and/or Boise to be a large city, at least. Otherwise, Salt Lake is the second closest, followed by Edmonton, Seattle, and Portland.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by NYMTman

Calgary is the closest large city, yes. It's about 2-3 hours north of the border.

Unless you consider Spokane and/or Boise to be a large city, at least. Otherwise, Salt Lake is the second closest, followed by Edmonton, Seattle, and Portland.

I've noticed that the major cities in the Oregon Territory are along the coast and virtually none inland unlike the Mexican Cession where there's Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tuscon, and Salt Lake City inland along with the two California cities.

Montana doesn't have a focus; it's very spread out amongst 5 or 6 cities. Weather reports seem to pick at random the city to be featured in Montana. It's in the Minneapolis Region of the Federal Reserve Bank system, which is far away from Montana.

[Huckleberry3911948]

Originally Posted by tc60068

Can anyone tell me about living in Missoula?

quiet cold lots of california retirees and ex cops building like crazy.
if you got horsies they will be in the barn 6 months straight.
stephen s
san diego ca

[montanahogrider]

Well JoJoMan, sounds like you are not to happy with your lot in life. Maybe if your income is stretched a little thin, you could go to the University and upgrade your smarts a little and then demand a bit higher pay. As I stated before, Missoula is a nice town for its size. Maybe Thompson Falls or Ronan are more to your liking. I'm sure the property values would suit your income better. Besides, if you don't want anyone moving to Montana, maybe you and some of your friends can buy up all the remaining property's and lock the gates! That way you would be sure to control the whole state for yourselves or hey! How bout running for office? Then you could pass a moratorium on any new residents.