HELP! Best towns in Upstate NY to move to? (New York: relocation, houses)

[honeychrome]

You can drive from Ithaca to NYC in about four hours if you time your trip to avoid the worst traffic times.

[a1m1700]

Originally Posted by BBG

My husband and I are considering New York for a possible relocation. I would like some land (10-15 acres), a place to have a few chickens, a small town atmosphere, a place that's safe and the community is friendly. The Upstate NY home prices seem reasonable from what I'm seeing, but I don't want to be so far from some excitment (NY,NY/Boston) when we want it, or a Starbucks if possible Does any such town exist? Ithaca seems interesting, I would enjoy a college atmosphere, as long as there's no homeless lurking around, it's rampant here in California near the colleges. Am I asking for too much? We are in our late 40s and early 50s, no children, employment is not a concern, just wanting some peace and quiet and quality of life. Thanks!

How about New Paltz, it's kind of weird and hippieish, like a time warp but you may find it interesting.


Maybe Fredonia too.

[holliboyd]

I am so glad I found this forum. I love the county I live, work and play in. It has the most reasonable housing market in the Capital Region, tons of land available, small towns, extremely safe, close proximity to the major interstates/Vermont/Berkshires of Mass, great colleges (Russell Sage, RPI), Starbucks , and 3 hours from Boston, Montreal and NYC. What else would you need??

Holli Boyd

[BacktoNE]

Doing the happy dance! I am so glad I found this forum!

6 months ago my DH & I packed up and moved to Wisconsin after living our whole lives in Maine. Eeuuw, eeuuww, eeuuuwwww! We hate it here and are already making plans to escape in the first half of 2007. We both love upstate NY and believe that it will feel like home to us. We don't want to return to ME because the economy is so incredibly bad there still with no signs of significant improvment.

We now recognize that we need to be in the northeast to feel like we are at home and since we both think upstate NY is a beautiful part of the country that is where we've decided to start looking.

I need to stay away from heavily farmed areas because of severe allergies; and we need to stay away from really large cities because we don't want the traffic headaches. So a nice smallish town maybe with a population of 35-50 thousand (could be smaller but not less than 10K please).

Job market is important as we are only in our 40's. DH is a sales rep so will need something in outside sales, although he isn't fussy what it is as long as it makes money. Some shopping would be good. A college or two nearby would be handy as well since I like to take classes.

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I am reading what has already been posted and taking notes.

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ Might want to consider Ithaca. About 30,000 population, Cornell Univ.& Ithaca College (and a community college -TC3), plenty of outdoor activities, some shopping (though not tremendous), tons of restaurants (all kinds), many cultural events. On the down side, the job market is usually quite tight, and housing costs are higher than other nearby counties. I think it would be at least worth a look. Hope you find what you're looking for BacktoNE.

[I'minformed2]

I would also suggest Ithaca. It's pretty much the only city it's size in Upstate NY with a good economy.

[Reporter]

I think you should consider Jefferson County: Philadelphia, New York, or Theresa, or Antwerp. These are all small villages but lots of things going on. There are many small lakes nearby. The 1,000 Islands is beautiful, Lake Ontario is nearby and is hard to beat in the summer. Adirondacks nearby (skiing), small towns, great school system. Cold in Winter, but no bugs, no extreme heat, no earthquakes, no tornadoes, no volcanos and lots of cheap land compared to most anywhere else.

[farrellw]

plattsburgh has a starbucks!!!!

[plattsburgher]

Those are my three picks, but not sure how out of reach the housing market is for the second two. Housing is economical here, but seems like the area is growing and since you are coming from very low crime areas (sounds like anyway), would hate to see you again to just anywhere and THEN find out that their stats are on the rise for big crime such as robbery, murders, assaults, etc. Once you have lived away from all of that, it is a big shock to have to deal with that again. I know from personal experience. It seems as though there are lots of references to all of the above towns on other posts..........Good luck finding what you need. Where exactly in Maine were you????????

[Sgoldie]

All of upstate is friendly! There are zillions of small towns most a short jaunt to lakes and/or mtns.

We tend to go towards the Canadian cities: Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal as they're closer to us and pretty darned nice. But, we are centrally located between all of them and NYC/Boston/Philadelphia/Cleveland, so take your pick.

Franchises aren't so big here unless you're in one of the larger cities. You can get good coffee however anyway.

There are several regions - Western (Buffalo), Genesee Valley (Rochester), Central NY (Syracuse), Southern Tier (Binghamton, Capital (Albany), Northern (spans Watertown to Plattsburg). Each one is slighlty different, closer to this lake or that, this city or that. All are driveable, one to the other, in a couple of hours. The Adirondack Mtns and Catskill Mtns encompass quite a bit of territory in northern, eastern, north-central, and southern NYS.

NYS has a state university system whose schools should all be listed on [some] website.