Towns north of Ithaca? (Union, Elmira: apartments, rent, condos)

[homeward bound]

Can anyone give me his/her take on towns like Lodi, Trumansburg, Ovid, Aurora, Interlaken, etc.? Also, how is Seneca County doing economically & culturally? Is it a drab or good place to raise kids? Do its smaller towns feel isolated or cozy, run-down or quaint? How so? Thanks so much--we're headed up there soon and are trying to plan our trip.

[Weloveantiques]

Wow you are pushing your luck here!! These are some tiny towns!! Trumansburg has long been a little area that Ithaca workers have commuted to, Aurora had the school I wanted to go to...Wells College, all girl school til recently..whoo whoo. Nothing to do in these little burgs. There are only a few homes in these towns. Not much of a selection, I'm more familiar with the East side of Cayuga Lake, Kings Ferry, Lansing-that might be a good one for you, Aurora, Union Springs, etc. A cottage on the lake sounds good! How about Watkins Glen over on Seneca? If you are looking for a good place for kids, low crime, etc...any of these are winners.

[homeward bound]

Thanks for your reply, Weloveantiques (we do too!) We wouldn't mind tiny too much--we've had ten lifetimes' worth of trouble in our too-many-college-students-per-square-foot current town. And with some land, we could put in a pool for our kids, a playhouse, etc. Plus, we like to do things as a family: biking, hiking, fishing, exploring, antiquing, historical sites (all of which abound there but are painfully rare here). Our kids love sports & having friends sleep over. And we like visiting (and then leaving) a big city, and going camping Ontario whenever possible. And the distance to and between places up there are tiny compared to here. Here, it's 45 minutes to Roanoke, which offers *some* things, but not much. It's another hour to Lexington (the ONLY nice place "around" here), another hour after that to Charlottesville, etc. It's five hours to the beaches, and many MANY hours until you're out of Appalachian darkness. A half hour's pretty drive to get into Ithaca would be a nice buffer, and a prettier, safer drive than taking I-81 up to Roanoke is for us now. So I guess my question is, given our tastes & habits as a family, are any of the towns both you and I named too gloomy or run-down or isolated for us to consider?

[I'minformed2]

Turmansburg is an ancestoral town of mine. It was named after my 3 greats gandfather Abner Tremain, which at that time (the late 1700's) was pronounced like Truman. It's a neat little peice of family history. I've never actually been to the town though and neither has anyone in my family that is still alive actually lived there.

[Ex-Ithacan]

I think two good choices (particularly for schools) would be Trumansburg and Lansing. Both are about 15 minutes from Ithaca and both are growing (though slowly). Can't say much about the price or options on housing, but I'm sure there's some availability. Maybe you can rent until you find something permanant. Neither town is right on the lake, but it's a very short drive to it.
Lansing is a bit more typical of suburbia/rural mix. Trumansburg has a more eclectic atmosphere. Lansing is closer to Cornell (about 15 minutes) and I-81 (about 20 miles away). T-burg has an annual music festival (Grassroots Festival) which is kind of unique(wide variety of bands).
Lansing is also split between the town(more rural and spread out) and the Village (big mall, apartments/condos, lots of traffic, but close to Ithaca & Cornell). So if you are looking up anything on the net please be aware of the difference. Good luck, hope you find something.

Oh yeah, on the same side of the metro as Lansing are Dryden and Groton. Kind of nice small towns too. Dryden has the area's community college (TC3) and is about midway between Ithaca and Cortland. Groton is a small factory town which has lost the factories. Becoming a bedroom community to Ithaca and Cortland. Both have their own school systems.

[homeward bound]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! (What a helpful bunch of people & web-site.) Any thoughts on whether the smaller, older places we're also interested in are too gloomy for kids? We've spotted some great-looking places on web, but of course "home" is more than the (great) house... Thanks in advance.

[Weloveantiques]

I was going to plug Dryden too and forgot. These are real small towns, not many minorities, low crime, everyone knows everyone towns. I still think Watkins Glen is good, or Odessa-Montour Falls. Not far from Ithaca or Elmira/Corning.

[homeward bound]

Thanks again for everyone's feedback. Does anyone know anything about Groton? Someone in town here mentioned it as a "family kind of place and very pretty."

(By the way, just to reassure everyone, we're not looking to these kinds of towns to avoid living with minorities. One of Blacksburg, VA's few good features, in fact, is its great diversity and even greater appreciation for this diversity. We're just looking for a good neighborhood and town, in a less smothering part of the country, whatever the neighbors' ethnicity there. I'm sure everyone else writing to this forum feels the same way, but I wanted to mention this lest anyone think "civilized" is any kind of code for any kind of prejudice. The only prejudice I *can* admit to is one against living among college students. As a 20-year vet of college teaching and college town/city living, I've had enough of trying to live a normal family life among 'em!)

[I'minformed2]

lol, while it shouldn't be your deciding factor what they look like from above, if you go to Google Earth, all of the "larger" finger lakes towns have satelite pictures...... Canandaigua, Auburn, Waterloo, Seneca Falls, and Geneva.

[aquaecny]

As people mentioned, Trumansburg or Lansing are very nice. Trumansburg's HS is listed in the Newsweek top schools in the nation along with Ithaca HS. Ithaca is not too far away and really nice. Definitely recommend it!