Best small town in Nevada? (under 25,000 people)

[Dean Trails]

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

Minden or Gardnerville. Or maybe Spring Creek.

There are a lot of small towns and innercity areas throughout the US that would KILL for an H-1B physician.

if I may ask....What is a H-1B physician?
And, i would hve to agree that Minden is a delightful place to be.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by Dean Trails

if I may ask....What is a H-1B physician?
And, i would hve to agree that Minden is a delightful place to be.

H-1B refers to a visa that is granted to non-citizens that allow them to work in the United States to fill positions that would otherwise go unfilled. Generally, these positions are skilled, professional positions and due to physician and nursing shortages, there are many US-trained foreign nationals practicing medicine, many in small towns and inner-city areas.

Having worked in small rural hospitals in the South, it is very difficult to find physicians to staff hospitals in rural areas or to open practices in such. One hospital spent nine months looking for a pediatrician when the only one in the tri-county area decided to relocate to Arlington, VA.

A couple previous posts were deleted which got into the controversy.

To get back to the topic, Minden and Gardnerville are close enough to get to Reno in case there is an emergency.

I have to admit that Elko is off my list of "places to retire" as I need to have better access to cardiac care than driving to Salt Lake City or Reno.

[ghghx]

Originally Posted by Den Mathias

Ok then........How about under 10,000 residents and "Andy of Mayberry" cute. Friendly people, self-contained (as in adequate shopping), recreation,good health care, excellent barbershop, award winning pancake/ coffee house, infrastructure and quiet.

Well, you have to bear in mind that Mayberry was fictional. And that it takes a population base to create/sustain all those things you listed.

Minden is attractive enough. There's a couple of good barbers here, quiet, scenic, lots of outdoor recreation (not so much indoor), and I don't know what all the negative comments are about with healthcare because we found good dentist, dermatologist, internist and ob/gyn here.

Afraid you're out of luck on the award-winning pancakes and coffee. I haven't found a truly good cup of coffee between here and Reno, but there is a local roaster (Alpen-Sierra) where you can get OK beans to make good coffee at home.

[NVDave]

Originally Posted by Den Mathias

Ok then........How about under 10,000 residents and "Andy of Mayberry" cute. Friendly people, self-contained (as in adequate shopping), recreation,good health care, excellent barbershop, award winning pancake/ coffee house, infrastructure and quiet.

Because only people who haven't lived in the west have such ideas that places like this exist.

Here's a harsh fact: Mayberry a) was a creation of Hollywood, and b) wasn't set in the West. Mayberry was in the southeast part of the US, specifically North Carolina.

Most small-ish (< 25K pop) towns in the west don't have all the "shopping" city folks want.

Most small towns (<10K) have hardly any of the shopping most people want.

Most small towns in NV have nothing but a basic grocery store, a greasy spoon diner or three and the barbershop is usually a local gal who has a license from the state to cut hair - sometimes in her own garage. In a couple of smaller towns, I've had my hair cut (if you could call it that) while I sat on a upturned 5 gallon bucket by a guy with sheep clippers. It works OK in the summer when you don't want much hair to start with.

Many of the small towns in NV are mining towns, so they're not going to be "cute" - they're going to be gritty and often ephemeral, increasing in size when the mines are starting up and operating, and shrinking rapidly in size when the mines quit. Ely is one example - when Kendicott closed the copper mine at Ruth, they lost 1000 jobs in a town of a bit over 5,000 people. Was it devastating? Yes, absolutely. One of the results was that the JC Penny's that had been there since WWII closed.

And as for medical care -- better get used to the idea of a foreign doctor here on rotation due to grants from the feds for rural health services, and in many smaller towns, you're sharing the doc with three or four other towns within a 100 mile radius. You'll have a physician's ass't on staff at the local clinic, maybe a RN. If you have something seriously wrong with you, you're going to be medivac's out by chopper or twin-engine turboprop from the local airstrip.

The people are friendly, that much is absolutely true. The crime is low to nearly non-existent, and that's due to isolation and a severe health hazard to criminals.

The recreation is what you make of it. If you like the outdoors, there's plenty of recreation. When I lived in Diamond Valley, there was chukar season, squirrel season, hay & farming season, deer/elk/sheep/goat season. If I got really motivated, I could find a pond big enough to drown a couple worms within 150 miles. There was an act booked into the Opera House every month or so, then there were the game group dinners - Mule Deer Foundation, Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, the Lions' Bingo nights, raffles, charity dinners, etc.

But there was no movie theater unless you went into Elko.

[uli2000]

I cant speak for all the rural hospitals in the state, but here in Ely, we have 8 full time physicians, 1 PA, and we allways have a orthopedic surgeon in town (3 of them rotate), plus about 15 visting specialists. All this in a town of 5000 and less than 10000 in the county. Though for anything serious (even for things which would be routine in a big city hospital), we do have to fly patiens out. My own wife got flew out last week for preterm labor.

[lavlady2000]

caliente is a good small town

[Pugmum123]

I live about 5 miles south of Silver Springs. I know we have fewer than 25K, and I have seen over 20 cities (???) about this size. It is hard to get a close population on most of "our" towns, because they don't have city limits. For example, our closest hospital is 30 miles away, but their range of services is not that great. Good enough for a broken leg, or getting a flu shot, but I think I heard that it is 40 miles to the nearest MRI, or "serious" ER. I don't know about trauma ER, I think that would be Reno, 75-80 miles away. The schools are mariginal, NV is in the bottom 5%, if not #50. Las Vegas is somewhat better on education, but also in gangs, and violence. (Las Vegas has a much greater education budget due to gambling revenues and a population of a bazillion, and an enormous tax base.) Before we moved here we were told that Lyon County had the best schools in the state. We were also told the weather was almost the same as Central CA...not funny! I wish we had rented an RV and spent a couple of weekends here and there. If you want a quick divorce, live here a year, and poof. If you don't drink or gamble, there is a greater than 50% chance you will start within a year. (I don't know if it is the wind or the water....the jury is still out.) I didn't much like the VietNam "Conflict", but I stuck it out...NV won't break me!!!

[Pugmum123]

My honest suggestion is to time travel back to 1952 or 1953, and pick a town close to your grandparents. Families that lived close, and got together several times a week, usually after attending a neighborhood church.......well, you get the picture. It has been chaos since TV started ruling our lives. Not all bad, medicine and technology have made us safer, healthier, smarter. Each successive generation feels they are smarter than the one before, but at a whatcost? I would never suggest we really go back to 1952 thinking, but the values of 1952 might be a guideline. There is no Eutopia, for everyone, on this planet. Don't stop looking for YOUR Promised Land.

[GeoMapster]

Mesquite is one of nice towns under 25,000!