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Why is it these lists, and many posters who have never been there, always have to run down the south? Not everyone is a candidate for Honey Boo Boo or Myrtle Manor. We do have doctors, hospitals, fire stations, police and a virtual plethora of other government services.
But because one chooses to live south of the Mason-Dixon line, your automatically an uneducated, no indoor plumbing, backwoods living, wife beater wearing, pick up driving, ignorant, trailer trash. Sad.
And I am not from the south, I just happen to live here.
I hear you MG! When we announced our intention to move to eastern Tennessee our CA friends and family acted like we had lost our minds. They envision outhouses and moonshine stills in the backyard. In reality, we are 30 minutes from a university teaching hospital, another hospital that ranks in the top 5% for cardiac care, a symphony, and continuing education taught by nuclear physicists and the like. We are less than an hour from theme parks and the U.S. most visited national park. We are less than 1/4 mile from an amazing lake with marinas and hundreds of miles of sailing, waterskiing, and tournament quality bass fishing. We are about 60 feet from the 18th fairway of a semi-private golf course. We live in a neighborhood that looks like a place most people would go to for their vacation, where we were actually greeted with open arms and even had parties thrown for us upon arrival. We feel so safe here that many seldom lock their doors. The fire department is 2 miles away, and we have community first responders that usually beat the EMT's to the scene. We have boat rescue groups that will tow you in for free if your boat breaks down. We have streetlights and sewers and volunteer gardeners who help to keep the community blooming. So if these articles want to scare people away, maybe we shouldn't complain. Maybe they are just helping us keep our little secret!
Why is it these lists, and many posters who have never been there, always have to run down the south? Not everyone is a candidate for Honey Boo Boo or Myrtle Manor. We do have doctors, hospitals, fire stations, police and a virtual plethora of other government services.
But because one chooses to live south of the Mason-Dixon line, your automatically an uneducated, no indoor plumbing, backwoods living, wife beater wearing, pick up driving, ignorant, trailer trash. Sad.
And I am not from the south, I just happen to live here.
I hear you MG! When we announced our intention to move to eastern Tennessee our CA friends and family acted like we had lost our minds. They envision outhouses and moonshine stills in the backyard. In reality, we are 30 minutes from a university teaching hospital, another hospital that ranks in the top 5% for cardiac care, a symphony, and continuing education taught by nuclear physicists and the like. We are less than an hour from theme parks and the U.S. most visited national park. We are less than 1/4 mile from an amazing lake with marinas and hundreds of miles of sailing, waterskiing, and tournament quality bass fishing. We are about 60 feet from the 18th fairway of a semi-private golf course. We live in a neighborhood that looks like a place most people would go to for their vacation, where we were actually greeted with open arms and even had parties thrown for us upon arrival. We feel so safe here that many seldom lock their doors. The fire department is 2 miles away, and we have community first responders that usually beat the EMT's to the scene. We have boat rescue groups that will tow you in for free if your boat breaks down. We have streetlights and sewers and volunteer gardeners who help to keep the community blooming. So if these articles want to scare people away, maybe we shouldn't complain. Maybe they are just helping us keep our little secret!
You and us both. CA people, including many of our children, thought we were out of our minds to move to SW Missouri, and the Ozarks at that. They all had visions of singlewides, hicks, rednecks, hillbillies, et al. Yet in truth, we live on the shore of a lake with 720 miles of shoreline and enjoy many of the same, close-by amenities you listed.
Right now while they're all baking and in the grip of a drought, our lawns, flower and vegetable gardens are enjoying the over 2" of rain they received yesterday and the fast approach to a third inch we're receiving right now.
As they used to say, diff'rent strokes!
We certainly don't court sprawl, crowds, traffic, crime, pollution, etc.
Has no one else figured out these lists have tantalizing titles to generate interest and the once on the site, each of the top or bottom ten have to be clicked on to advance through them? Each click is supplying more advertisements that are so easy to mistakenly click on. What an easy way to mine for data with little effort.
Every location/state had it's pros and cons and people tend to slant those to get the answer they wanted all along. They want their choice to be vindicated and if it is, it's a great list and if not... Oh well.
Heaven help those that truly wanted info and get sucked into these list sites.
I hear you MG! When we announced our intention to move to eastern Tennessee our CA friends and family acted like we had lost our minds. They envision outhouses and moonshine stills in the backyard. In reality, we are 30 minutes from a university teaching hospital, another hospital that ranks in the top 5% for cardiac care, a symphony, and continuing education taught by nuclear physicists and the like. We are less than an hour from theme parks and the U.S. most visited national park. We are less than 1/4 mile from an amazing lake with marinas and hundreds of miles of sailing, waterskiing, and tournament quality bass fishing. We are about 60 feet from the 18th fairway of a semi-private golf course. We live in a neighborhood that looks like a place most people would go to for their vacation, where we were actually greeted with open arms and even had parties thrown for us upon arrival. We feel so safe here that many seldom lock their doors. The fire department is 2 miles away, and we have community first responders that usually beat the EMT's to the scene. We have boat rescue groups that will tow you in for free if your boat breaks down. We have streetlights and sewers and volunteer gardeners who help to keep the community blooming. So if these articles want to scare people away, maybe we shouldn't complain. Maybe they are just helping us keep our little secret!
You also need to remember that most of east TN is a very high crime, very poor area. You may live in a nice area in Loudon, but I can certainly say growing up in Kingsport and most everything east of Knoxville is very high crime and poor.
The fact that you can afford to use the marinas, golf clubs, etc, means you have extra money, which is more than I can say when I was living in TN and hardly had two nickels to rub together.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 06-06-2014 at 02:09 PM..
Their premice is that with lower taxes you don't get high quality govt. services. (High quality govt. services.)
^^^No it's not. Using criteria they developed, they have ranked states based on the return on investment of taxpayers' dollars. It says in the introduction that " . . . people living in these 10 states don’t get as high quality government services — relative to the amount they pay in taxes." Using a simpler and hypothetic example, let's say a resident pays $100 dollars in taxes. What is the value of services is that taxpayer is getting in return? $50? $100? $200? Something else? This is simply a ranking of the states that offer the 10 lowest return on their taxpayer dollars (using their own criteria).
This means that this . . .
Quote:
Originally Posted by augiedogie
They go on to assume that because you have lower taxes you have poor quality schools, higher crime and a host of other things.
. . . is wrong.
This list has nonetheless caused quite a kerfuffle among us retirees based on a mis-interpretation of the data. In fact, as I looked it over, I've concluded this study is better suited to the Economics forum rather than here.
Has no one else figured out these lists have tantalizing titles to generate interest and the once on the site, each of the top or bottom ten have to be clicked on to advance through them? Each click is supplying more advertisements that are so easy to mistakenly click on. What an easy way to mine for data with little effort.
One thing to look at when considering retirement is do you need those bang for the buck services? Do you need a good school system? Do you need Social Services? The list goes on and on.
Many retires would be very happy with low cost versus good services.
While you may not need a good school system and may not want to pay for it, I look at good schools as barometer of the area. Good schools usually equal a vibrant active community, with a lower crime rate and where homes maintain or appreciate in value.
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