Liberal Mountain Towns? (New York, Buffalo, Rochester: crime, home, school district)

[happeemommee]

Are there any liberal mountain ( or close to the mountains ) towns? We're fairly crunchy and enjoy outside activities, snow, farmer's markets, festivals, open mindedness and acceptance. We don't frequent bars, but love live music. I'd rather not be too close to "the city" but need to be close to a University and a decent public school. I'd rather stay with a smaller population town, but am open as long as crime isn't too bad.

Any ideas? Thanks very much!

[daydreamin71]

I would recommend looking into New Paltz.

[Krisps]

Thought of Angelica in the western southern tier... about as pretty a village as I've seen, not technically in the mountains but big wooded hills, lots of state land, near Letchworth state park, not too far from Allegany state park, and it's near several schools... Alfred, St.Bonaventure, and Houghton. Not sure if it's crunchy, but quite a quaint, remote, pastoral area.

[alw1964]

What about Saranac Lake?
I have friends that live up there. They have 3 kids that all went to school up there and have all gone on to great colleges.

Check out this place, BluSeed Studio. I grew up with Carol, the Artistic Director (who is awesome) who started the place. Her husband grew up in the area and she's been there since college. Paul Smith's is there. It's not real close to SUNY Plattsburgh but I know she taught some art classes there and it's about 50 miles away

About BluSeed « BluSeed Studios

[NYisontop]

Saranac Lake and New Paltz are options. Ithaca too, lots of mountains around, doesn't get much more liberal Upstate.

[daydreamin71]

Originally Posted by NYisontop

Saranac Lake and New Paltz are options. Ithaca too, lots of mountains around, doesn't get much more liberal Upstate.

Ithaca is a great suggestion. It's just down the road from me, so I should have thought of it, too. I forget that the 'hills' in this area are actually considered 'mountains'

[gk90]

What about Woodstock? I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet, it's the first place that comes to mind when I think about mountains, festivals and open-mindedness. It's close to New Paltz and the Catskills High Peaks and is surrounded by hills that they call mountains. No idea what the school district is like, though.

[Mike_Ithaca_NJ]

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[ckhthankgod]

Besides the already mentioned good suggestions; Saugerties, Oneonta and perhaps communities like Canton, Potsdam and Plattsburgh may work as well.

[alw1964]

I did think of. Potsdamn has SUNY Potsdam, Clarkson University and then "down the road
Because of the Crane Music school at Postdam you have a lot of great opportunities for Music. I've posted this elsewhere but Buffalo Business first recently did a ranking of Upstate New York Schools (which was defines as everything above the 42nd parallel) or roughly everything except that little part of New York that's on the lower right hand side of the map that hangs down. So it doesn't include the Catskills, NYC and surrounding areas or Long Island.

Now I think these things are a good guideline but not the be all end all (I live in the City of Rochester which is last on the list) I have one child at a Charter School and one child that is home schooled.

2011 Upstate school district rankings - Buffalo - Business First

My partner grew up in Watertown and went to Crane. I asked her opinion and she said it's a mix of everything (just like anywhere) some conservative but also liberal with the influence of the colleges.