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This post has been most fascinating. We're from LA, and began thinking about leaving the area for New England in the next 3-5 yrs after going back to Boston for my brother's graduation recently. Upstate NY crossed my mind briefly (I'd worked at Skidmore College during summers in college), but I assumed it was more expensive than New Hampshire, say. My boss tipped me off to how economically depressed the Niagara area was, and suddenly it's a whole new ballgame. The lovely post by HomewardBound has intrigued us. I've lived in Maryland, Boston, Seoul, Korea, San Diego and now LA, and the idea of that village green, the idyllic small town with four seasons (winters in Seoul are no picnic, so I'm kind of used to it) is incredibly appealing. Where would be the first place to start out for research purposes? Which county has the best mix of affordable housing, great schools and some chance of landing a job?
Look into Albany/Saratoga area. State is hiring big time right now- just get your foot in the door w/the State (Education Dept, Gov't, anything), you can't believe how quickly your salary grows and benefits/pension are fantastic. Other areas of upstate are too risky in my opinion.
I am quite sure, though, that great small towns, of the old village green type, would be in or near just about anywhere in Upstate NY you'd want to look.
So if you can narrow down your region, people could be pretty specific with their suggestions.
One place that I do want to emphasize again right off the bat, though, is in Steuben County, which is in Western NY. Southeast of Buffalo, northwest of Binghamton, south of Rochester: Hammondsport. It's like one of those beautiful New England coastal towns, except it's right on its own Finger Lake. It's a block's lovely walk from the great old village green (with the liqour store in the old bank building!) to the town's own lovely little sandy beach and boat docks on beautiful, swim-able, fish-able Keuka Lake. Take a summer morning stroll along the lakefront and the sunlight is just sparkling. Housing remains quite affordable, with quite a few stately older homes coming on the market every year. It's in vineyard & winery country, and not a very far drive to Buffalo, Rochester, or even Toronto. I'm almost reluctant to keep recommending it since I'd hate to see it swarmed and its charm ruined, but it's really a great place given what you're looking for.
Hope you'll post your choice & experiences on here!
Mcmartian wrote:
"I live in NY state. there's still beautiful land. but the job prospects are not great. And the property taxes make housing unaffordable for a lot of people. I'd love to move to virginia, where there's a longer growing season, summer actually exists and property taxes are lower."
Although we're headed the other way--TO Upstate NY from Virginia--as fast as we can make the move work, I fully understand what you're saying, Mcmartian.
So this is offered in the spirit of helpful cautions. And I hope I'm not telling you what you already know.
But Virginia is a very, and a very clearly, varied state. I don't know what your tastes/needs are, but you do want to be careful about choosing a section of the state that you may end up not liking.
About the *property taxes* & *job-prospects*:
-Yes, Virginia's tend to be lower than New York state's, and yes, Virginia's state income tax is lower than NY's. BUT you generally get what you pay for. Unless you're in a college town or one of the fast-growing areas (see below), you get some pretty mediocre, and sometimes lousy, school systems and other gov't. services. And where you DO get better school systems and gov't. services in Virginia, you're often paying NY-level property and local taxes anyway.
And while Virginia does have some job-hot areas, each of these come with serious congestion/housing affordability problems (noted below). Most of the other areas of the state have a job situation that's little better than, say, Western NY's job situation.
Now an area-by-area outline:
The *coastal area* is beautiful, but also has these flaws/disadvantages:
-Some places (Newport News, etc.) are very industrial and polluted. -Others (Norfolk) are very dysfunctional and crime-ridden.
-Others (Virginia Beach) are suffering from nearly unchecked growth that's destroying much of the region's distinct charm. Lots of jobs, but a real sense of getting too crowded and unlivable by the day.
-The Eastern Shore region, while largely unspoiled by either too much industry or too much unchecked growth, can feel very isolated and be somewhat insular in its culture. You're an "outsider" to some (perhaps many) if your family hasn't been farming or fishing there for the last 200 years. I really like this area's unchangingness, but it can seem very clannish to newcomers.
-The Chesapeake Bay area is of course gorgeous, but quickly getting overdeveloped to the point of ruined bays, clogging traffic, etc.
The *Piedmont* (my own favorite part of the state) is truly beautiful, and a great balance of physical and cultural environments. Mountains aren't too smothering, it's not too backward, it's nicely located in the central area of the state, etc. BUT
-Charlottesville, the Piedmont's jewel, has gotten VERY crowded and expensive in the last 10, 15 years. It also has some serious race and class tensions, and a few dangerous neighborhoods. Its outer areas are becoming smothered with suburban housing, strip malls, and TRAFFIC.
-Richmond has some great neighborhoods, but it's generally a dysfunctional and dangerous city. Its suburbs are fine if you like suburbs, but they won't stand out as VIRGINIA to you--they're like suburbs anywhere and everywhere. And there's always the fear, fairly realistic, of Richmond-like crime creeping into or even targeting the suburbs.
-Other cities, like Waynesboro and Winchester (which is actually in the Shenandoah Valley) have some charm, but have also suffered from the depleted downtown/stripmall "development" that plagues cities all over America. Some lovely countryside around them, though. The apple orchards of the Shenandoah Valley are beautiful--though the River itself has gotten so polluted that it's getting lots of hermaphrodite fish in it. No kidding! Male fish that have sterile eggs in them. As noted above, the state UNDER taxes and regulates in some ways--and you can see this in the rivers' pollution problems, the state draggings its feet on protecting the Chesapeake Bay, controlling strip mining better, etc.
-Consider, then, some unspoiled, typically Piedmont towns, if this is what you're looking for: e.g., Gordonsville, Orange, Scottsville, even little Crozet (just outside Charlottesville). These can be really nice.
-Also, if you're thinking of living in the country, say in a old farmhouse on a few acres, you can still find a great one for under $300,000 IF you start looking a good 30 miles outside of Charlottesville. Immediately around C'ville, though, you're looking at inflated prices and/or true plantations priced in the millions.
*Northern Virginia*--otherwise known as the D.C.-area SPRAWL:
-This area has seen some of the fastest "growth" in the country in the last 25, 30 years. Suburbs thick as could be, and thickening all the time. Fine if you want something like this, and it can nice to be so near D.C. and/or Baltimore. Good schools, food, culture, etc. But if you don't like always-worsening congestion, vastly overpriced housing, VERY high property taxes, and often-inert traffic, stay away.
*The Mountains*:
-Some people cherish this part of the state--and after having just spent the last week in the hellishly barren Houston suburbs, I can almost understand this feeling. But this can be a VERY smothering, isolating part of the state. The mountains are quite high by Eastern standards, and, much more, relentless. Daylight can feel very limited, and you're more often than not going from valley to valley, with the sky hemmed in all around you. And though the forests are impressive, there just isn't much to do around here. The rivers are often inaccessible; the state land is swarmed by hunters a good part of the year, making them dangerous; and there are almost no reservoirs (NO natural lakes!) to speak of, much less swim and fish in. The ones that do exist are ugly, crowded mudholes once you've been spoiled by Upstate NY's countless REAL lakes, streams, ponds, and rivers.
-The culture in the state's western, mountain region is truly Appalachian. I much admire the people's hardiness and sense of honor--I'd rather have Appalachian neighbors than spoiled Northern Virginia college student neighbors--but valuing education, and life beyond NASCAR and football and hunting isn't much here. Again, most Appalachian people I've known in my 13 years in this part of the state (23 in Virginia overall) are good and noble people. But once you've been raised as a Northerner, your outlook and habits and needs are going to differ from most of your Appalachian neighbors enough so that you might feel quite out of place in this part of the state.
-An unexpected (at least by me) GOOD side of this is that there is LESS racism in the Appalachian part of the state than elsewhere. And it isn't all attributable to the fact that there are relatively few blacks (and non-whites generally) in this part of the state. The big reason is that people here grew up Appalachian together more than they grew up racially apart. That's how strong the Appalachian quality is here: your grandpa was dirt poor with your black neighbor's equally dirt poor grandpa, and they HAD to help each other with a precious runaway cow or a fallen fence just to survive. It really carries over to many interactions and aspects of life here. I've never lived anywhere where native-born blacks and whites got along better than here in the very Appalachian southwest Virginia. And this carries a bit further to foster some real tolerance for others of other races around here (say, the college students). I know that "tolerance" suggests putting up with a nuisance more than real respect, but at least some reliable tolerance IS around here because of the "all poor together" heritage. After the Virginia Tech massacre in April, for example, I didn't hear one white local say anything racial or racist about the murderer being of Asian background, and everyone seemed to grieve the non-white victims just as much as we grieved the white ones.
-The *Southernmost counties*:
-Eastward of the state's far western reach, where it's Appalachia (see above), these are very heavily farmed counties. You can find some lovely country properties here and quaint, unhurried towns, but you've also got some of the outsider/local issues you'd run into in the Eastern Shore region. And with heavy modern farming often comes subtly heavy pollution, and you've got that problem down here.
-It's considerably hotter down along the North Carolina border from, say, Lynchburg eastward than it is westward up into the mountains. Here in Blacksburg, 2100 feet up, we haven't ever needed an air-conditioner. Just off the mountains, though, we would. Head eastward from there, and you're talking some real Southern heat.
Also, if you're not in the mountains or enjoying a coastal breeze, Virginia summers can melt you. The humidity north of the Piedmont, esp. in the D.C. suburbs, can be as thick as anything you'd find in Mississippi, and the Piedmont region and the southern counties region can both bake your brains but good.
Don't mean to blitz or patronize you with all this, but since the state does have its distinct regions with their distinct issues, I did want to let you know.
A real nice blend and balance of things is Lexington, Virginia. It's in the mountains, but they're not too smothering there. A college town, but with some non-student neighborhoods. Good schools, decent culture, pretty good food, lots of pretty farms/farmland around it, beautiful architecture--it's like a smaller Charlottesville before Charlottesville's own charms did it in. Housing isn't cheap, but taxes are moderate.
One last thing to consider: There are TOO FEW GREEKS, ITALIANS, VIETNAMESE, etc. in too few places down here, so you have to work hard/luck out to get truly good food unless you're making it yourself! You don't know just how much a hot calzone means to the soul until you're being served "pizza" that came from a factory in Georgia in a so-called "pizza restaurant"!
Wow! This is by far the best thread I've read at CD. I can't put it as eloquently as previous writers here but WNY is everything that has been said and more. I didn't see the indian history mentioned but that is one more thing. Plus fossils, they are all over the place. I grew up in a small village east of Depew... visited a few years ago, and, it was like nothing had changed. I miss home and all it has to offer and I'll be going back hopefully next year, for good. (I did enjoy the "you bloom where you are planted" mention.) I'm in Florida now and I've made my money here on real estate so I'll be able to go back and buy outright and I love all four seasons so its all good to me. On another note, I come from a Very Large family and most of my aunts and uncles who stayed in WNY still live in the same houses... its nearly like a second childhood to me. A couple of other mentions here, Letchworth State Park (Wolf Creek is a fave), and walking the stone stepped paths at Watkins Glen. Oh, and Vargo's Pizza, a concert on the bandstand in the circle on Friday evening, croquet (no one down here seems to know what it is), fireflies in the summer, real smalltown parades instead of the commercial garbage here, Good Dogs with Webers mustard, The Buffalo Bills (we are looking good so far this year, Marv, I love ya), leaf suckers in the fall rolling along the curb (no matter how I tried to describe these it was like I had stolen an invention from Rube Goldberg), pussywillows and lilacs and forcythia, on and on. I'm primed and I'm ready cause baby I'm coming home.
P.S.~ no matter where you live or no matter your lifestyle always live Below your means, it'll give you much more peace of mind, on a daily basis.
I'm laughing my butt off at Homeward Bound. Really talk about looking for the bad in everything. I'll take just about anywhere in VA versus it's counterpart in NYS.
Rug City,
Thank you. I was looking into the State of New York website ... we have a similar system here in the City of LA. Would you know if seniority credits or retirement benefits can be transferred or purchased if one has worked in the public sector for a while?
Homeward Bound,
Thanks again for the thread link and for a few good suggestions to start off. We're heading out there in August for a week and will scout around.
ClarkStreetKid wrote:
"Laughing my butt off at Homeward Bound. Really talk about looking for the bad in everything. I'll take just about anywhere in VA versus it's counterpart in NYS."
I don't much mind being misrepresented on many issues, but not on supposed negativism, ClarkStreetKid! Finding the best in something not-so-good or even pretty bad is one of my few real talents. So, please, if you want to be accurate, re-read the post. Or at least notice that it was written TO point out some negatives that another poster, thinking of moving to Virginia, was entitled to hear about. I also pointed out quite a few counter-balancing positives about Virginia there. Did you miss that big paragraph about Virginia's Appalachia being admirably un-racist (relatively speaking)? Or my many points about "nice town this, beautiful countryside that"? Or are you going to contend that Charlottesville hasn't gotten smothered with development and traffic, that Richmond doesn't have a huge crime and blight problem, etc.?
Plus, if you look at many of my other postings, they're so positive people more accurately accuse me of nostaglizing/idealizing more than being too negative.
And however trapping my circumstances have been, why would I have lived 23 years now in Virginia, and traveled and vacationed and explored all over it by choice and often with great pleasure, and raised my four kids here, if I didn't believe there were a lot of positives about it?
Last point: I'll be the first to admit that while I've come to know Virginia pretty well, I sure as hell don't know all of it, and have just one person's view of it--positives and negatives alike.
Can you do the same about New York State? You know ALL of NY State well enough to say that "just about anywhere in VA is better than its NY State counterpart"?
Okay, the real last point: For every lovely Chincoteague, Virginia, there are hundreds and hundreds of Hammondsport, New Yorks. Given that most of the posters on the NY forum seem to favor Hammondsport, NY-like qualities, it's hardly a stretch to say, "NY thus offers more to your preferences than Virginia does."
I'm glad I lived in the sunbelt when I was a teenager for a few years. Now I can avoid the mistake of moving there as an adult like many on this board are making.
The master planned plastic community just will not cut it for me. These places are dull, boring and lacking in personality. No wonder why anti-depressants are such a big business with suburban people, those new communities are dead culturally and literally.
If I am going to live somewhere in the States it is going to be NYC metro. If there is going to be a move it is going to be abroad, someplace with culture.
There is no way I can move to randomsville USA and have my entire life be going to Wal Mart, watching ballgames and BBQ's. You move to these palookaville places and order a Pizza and you get a ritz cracker with Prego and Kraft cheese on it. Olive Garden in not Italian food. Even If I have to pay property tax out the wazoo to fund massive corruption I would rather do that than live in some sunbelt dead suburb.
If you are thinking of moving down there, don't do it. You will regret it and spend every day dreaming of NY. You will be a sorry sap who pines daily about how good the bagels where back home and how bad there are here in McDonaldsville USA.
Can you do the same about New York State? You know ALL of NY State well enough to say that "just about anywhere in VA is better than its NY State counterpart"?
Please note the difference in what you said and what I actually said.
"I'll take just about anywhere in VA versus it's counterpart in NYS."
Note that I am stating my preference. Yes, having lived in both places I prefer just about anywhere in VA compared to it's NYS equivalent. I love NY, grew up in NY and vacation in NY, but I enjoy VA more.
I'll stand by my opinion of your opinions.
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Virginia's great BUT...
