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Old 05-09-2013, 03:39 PM
 
2 posts, read 19,690 times
Reputation: 10

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I am considering a job opportunity at V.Tech. Right now I live in North Louisiana and have a stable job, a house and a 3 year old son. My husband likes cold climate and so do I. He thinks if I get a good job, I should move find an apartment and daycare, take my son with me. He can look for job over here meanwhile, and can follow us. It can be a year or two.

I am living a peaceful life here and the only reason I would love to move is the opportunities our kids will have. Better schools, universities and they will have other outdoor activities (all people here do is hunting and fishing). We are vegetarians and do not have more options to eat out.

I am looking for a small town life surrounded by natural beauty and nice people. What is the cost of living in Blacksburg area? I think I could afford a house from 250,000 to 350,000. My son will not start school until 2 more years, so what are good daycares in the area? Also how much does it cost for average car insurance, utility bill and other misc expenditures?

Thanks in advance.
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Old 05-10-2013, 10:52 AM
 
696 posts, read 1,424,029 times
Reputation: 461
Given your budget and the cost of housing in Blacksburg, you will not have to worry about the cost of car insurance, utilities, and the price of milk. There is SO MUCH to do outside in this region, and there are veggie options in Blacksburg. However it is a small town. A growing tech sector but still small, and there's not much in the charming heart of Blacksburg besides the university and its students. Chain shopping & eating is in next-door Christiansburg. Roanoke is 30ish minutes away and has even more options for work/food as a small city, but that adds a commute to your consideration.

These are Roanoke links but a good place to start:
www.roanokeoutside.org
Kids in the Valley, Adventuring! a free family nature club
The Roanoke Outdoor and Social Club (Roanoke, VA) - Meetup
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Old 05-10-2013, 12:23 PM
 
2 posts, read 19,690 times
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Thank you headnsouth. I am not concerned about shopping, as I live in small town here and major malls are 30 miles from my town. Also,it takes just 5 minutes to commute to work, I want to maintain my lifestyle. The only reason I want to move is because I want my kids to have better opportunities (education).
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Old 06-03-2013, 10:44 AM
 
2 posts, read 16,465 times
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My husband and kids and I (2 year old and 6 month old) moved to Blacksburg from Utah last year for school and we love it!! We came from a town where education wasn't important and the difference between the 2 places are huge! My husband is an Aerospace Engineer major so obviously education is very important to us. For it being such a small town there is so much diversity! Countless different churches, races etc. It is very safe. We hardly ever lock our doors and everyone is so friendly. It has such a community feel. There are quite a few vegan places downtown and the Farmer's Market is awesome. The only bad thing I can think of is that the closest airport is in Roanoke (30 min away) and it is a pretty small one so we usually end up driving to Charlotte, NC to fly. As for child care, I'm not much help because I stay at home but we just got a little childrens museum that is wonderful for kids.
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Old 10-09-2013, 09:43 PM
 
25 posts, read 49,307 times
Reputation: 157
I've lived here for 20 years, raised two kids here, and am raising two more. I've also worked at Virginia Tech during those years.

To address your direct questions:
For southwest Virginia, Blacksburg is a pricey housing market, because it is relatively desirable and expanding. But a 250-350k price range would give you many options. In fact, I'd bet that you'll find a place you much like in the 275-300k area. Beyond housing, the cost of food, gas, etc., is probably within the national averages.

Some daycares closed a few years ago when parents, having lost their jobs in the recession, found it cheaper to stay at home with their kids, or found cheaper alternatives (friends, family, etc.). But Rainbow Riders is a very good option. (One of my kids went there, years ago, and loved it, and it's kept a fine reputation.) It has, I believe, a good-sized waiting list, so you many want to look into that well ahead of your move. I think that Tech itself still has a daycare for employees' kids, so you may want to look into that, too.

Regarding Blacksburg generally, the encouraging posters are quite accurate, I think. In fact, I'd emphasize some positives even more strongly.

Except for the town's cultish Tech and football obsessions, it is a very open-minded, egalitarian place. Most people here really cherish the town's diversity. And it sure stands out in this compared to neighboring places, even ones (such as Radford) that themselves have a university. You won't feel hemmed in by ignorance or prejudice here. The neighbor who hunts may have, or live next to, a PhD, or be a local professional, etc. The only caveat here is that since the town has only about 13,000 residents (as opposed to Tech students), and most of them work at Tech, it can be somewhat clique-ish and gossipy, in a typical, small-town, faculty-sniping way. But out-and-out "You're different so I don't like you" garbage is very rare. For example, you won't feel at all out of place being a vegetarian. As noted, the town has two fine vegetarion/whole-foods-type stores, and its better restaurants serve (very good!) veggie dishes.

The weather. People call it "Bleaksburg" in the winter, and it can get gray, windy, and gloomy. But, to me, that's worth this being a relatively cool, moderate part of Virginia. It rarely gets as smotheringly muggy as Charlottesville, Richmond, and the coast can get--and stay, for months. The springs, summers, and falls here are generally great. Only a few weeks a year do we use the AC, and when I had an old house with high ceilings, I lived without any AC for 13 years. The air is quite clean, too, even though Tech and some surrounding small cities/towns burn coal. It doesn't snow enough here for me, but we do get some snow almost every winter, and, every few years, a good snowfall. (Beware the more-frequent ice storms, though, if you're not used to driving in wintery conditions. Ice + hills can quickly = "How badly am I going to hit that very, very big tree?")

The school system. It's extremely good. My oldest kids were wonderfully prepared for college, and my youngest kids are being very well taught and respected. The school system also does a fine job availing itself of the community's functions and virtues. Kids grow up here richly aware of what the world has to offer, and what they themselves can become. The kid who doesn't want to learn is the rare one (less so in high school, of course!).

The town's Recreation Department is also excellent. There's a lot for kids, families, and individuals to do, including during the winter.

And a lot of solitude/family picnic places nearby, too. Check out The Cascades hiking loop, the New River Trail (a converted old railroad line), the Appalachian Trail (passes very near town), the walking/biking/jogging Huckleberry Trail (starts near the fine library), and many other hikes in the state and national forests around here. For young kids, you may want to start with Pandapas Pond and its mini-trails. There are some nice camping places and rentals around, too. The beach at Claytor Lake State Park is particularly great. It's perfect for kids and families. People there are almost uniformly considerate, it's kept very clean, has lifeguards, and is plain pretty. It's about a 25-minute drive down I-81 and then one country highway, and pretty cheap. (Four bucks per car to get into the park and four or five bucks per person at the beach itself, I think.) My kids would live there if they could.

I'm not a big Roanoke fan, though it has some fine neighborhoods and merits. But Salem is fairly nice, especially because of its cozily situated minor league baseball park. The fans there are very family-friendly, too. Further up I-81, Lexington is a bit taken with its own history, but it's a beautiful city. The Washington & Lee campus is very handsome, and some people (not I) like VMI's West Point-like looks & feel. Charlottesville's charms have worked against themselves, in that the city's gotten so popular it's quite crowded and cramped-feeling now. But it's still a great place, and the central UVA campus is beautiful. As you head up into the Shenandoah Valley, or east into the Piedmont, you're in very historical areas, many with handsome and stately towns. (Tech's area was too remote to have had much history happen here.) Richmond has some surprisingly fine areas (especially Carytown and The Fan), but you do have to use your city-smarts there. The (beautiful) Richmond train station has a great Amtrak line up to D.C., NYC, and Boston, and many smaller cities in between. A great trip would be to drive to Richmond, enjoy Carytown/The Fan for the day & evening, stay in a hotel, and take the morning northbound train. That particular line actually sticks to its schedule, has a dining car/decent available food, and is clean and comfortable. If your son likes trains, he'd love that trip.

I will emphasize some cautions, though.

B'burg lives in the shadow of Tech. The students far outnumber the residents. And the students can be nasty to live among, with excessive drinking, vandalism, and even violence probably much more common & vicious than you might suspect. Because you have a young kid, and want a sane, peaceful daily life, I urge you to be very careful where you rent and then buy. Many neighborhoods that seem to be VT-student-free in fact have rentals, and sometimes quite a few. And many of those rentals are overcrowded w/ VT students. You'd do well to see such places on Fri & Sat nights--before and as the VT students are heading to the bars/parties, and afterward. That would be around 10 p.m. to Midnight, and again from 1:30 a.m. until around 2:30 a.m. I bought a great house in a quiet-seeming neighborhood--but paid the price for my gullibility when, the first weekend after moving in, it turned into a war zone of incredibly drunk and aggressive Tech students wrecking and fighting their way through our neighborhood. It remained that way almost every weekend that Tech was in session, and got much worse every football weekend. I don't mean to project my own experience here, but this is fairly common if a neighborhood is anywhere near downtown, or near the many student-rental complexes, which are in many places around town. I've had committed against my home, and have seen and know of occurring against many other people's homes, hit-and-run destruction of vehicles and fences, drunks driving through yards, rocks & bottles thrown at windows, people threatened with violence and even rape out of the blue, six-way fist fights at 3 a.m. on someone's yard, drunks trying to get into homes they think are theirs, etc. These are worst-case scenarios. But they happen. So check out a prospective home and neighborhood yourself during the bad hours.

(With a young child, you may be particularly interested in buying in Toms Creek Village. I myself wouldn't choose it because it's not really walkable to/from Tech & downtown, as it's on the other side of highway 460. But it's very family-dense and kid-friendly, and has nice new copies of old-fashioned home styles. What isolates it somewhat from the town also protects it quite a bit from the town's issues. McBryde Village, nearer Tech & downtown, is generally fine, as is the Woodbine neighborhood, which is a bit further out. Airport Acres has smallish houses, but it's a great neighborhood, with a lot of young families, and most of the houses are nicely kept/expanded. In terms of rentals, Windsor Hills is particularly nice. It's on a bus route to downtown & Tech, has more grad students than undergrads, takes pretty good care of the apts./buildings, allows pets, and has a nice pool. It's also on a very quiet edge of town, with pretty farmland right next door.)

Similarly, downtown has some charm and good restaurants (check out the Indian restaurant near downtown, on Prices Fork Road, and Green's restaurant next to the Lyric). The rehabbed Lyric theater is great. But downtown too can be nasty from 10 p.m. onward. And unsuitable even from 9 p.m. onward in terms of kids. Bringing mine back from a late summer evening ice-cream or a movie that ends at 9:30, I've had to cover their ears and rush them across the street to minimize their exposure to howling curses, careening drunks, fights, etc. Downtown, my kids have been pushed out of the way--even into traffic--and threatened by stumbling drunks, and they've seen people punch each other in the face amid an instantly gathering, cheering crowed, etc. During the summers, downtown, and for that matter almost everywhere in town, are great. Student numbers are minimal due to most summer classes being now online. Things are serene. But during the Tech school year, on Fri & Sat nights and during football weekends, downtown is a big, volatile keg party.

The area's football team obsession. All I can say about this is that it makes many people dumb in their values and conduct, and makes Tech & Blacksburg seem like an overgrown high school instead of a real university in a balanced community. But if you love college football, then you'll love what I can't stand about what the Tech team means around here. (Beyond that, Tech has a fine range of sports and teams, and sees everything except football sanely.)

Regarding all of this, the Blacksburg police are enigmatic. They seem to under-report many crimes. I've seen people (almost always Tech students) getting arrested for public drunkenness, vandalism, fighting, etc., yet not seen those arrests reported on the public-disclosure arrest-incident sites. Blacksburg's crime data generally seems very low, even misleading, on City-Data. That's partly because neither Blacksburg nor Tech consider crimes committed on Tech property as "Blacksburg" crimes. But it's also because the town seems more intent on maintaining a cozy reputation than on full honesty. The individual officers are great (unfortunately, I've had to call them quite often). They have a fine balance of patience and firmness with the Tech students and residents. And since the April, '07 slaughter, both town and Tech cops are especially responsive to calls and problems. But I truly wonder about their leadership's agenda.

Similarly, the town
*rarely enforces over-occupancy
*does much less than it could do to protect notoriously battered neighborhoods from the very predictable patterns of abuse from drunken Tech students
*steps into public drunkenness situations only when the drunks are committing another crime (about 10,000 people would be in jail on a Saturday night if the cops were to enforce public drunkenness codes strictly!)
*buddies up with/kowtows to quite a few high-powered developers.

For example, it took many years to increase the number of bike cops by just a few, when such cops are clearly very effective in thwarting drunks & vandals in neighborhoods. The citizens often struggle for years to get any progress on zoning, policing, disclosure, etc., progress and openness. The town leadership does a lot of dithering because it can't seem to determine whether it wants to be Tech's extension, or a town that has a large university in it, whether it wants to say yes to almost every "development" demand, or whether it wants to balance options. For example, years ago, our neighborhood association asked the town and Tech to limit Tech's fireworks displays (which can occur, at random, on any night of the week, at any time of night) to pre-9 p.m. hours so young kids aren't awakened in the many neighborhoods surrounding Tech. The town and Tech's jaws dropped. The 10 p.m., mid-week, window-rattling, 15-minutes-long fireworks eruptions continue. The attitude is generally "If Tech does it/doesn't do it, then that's good because displeasing Tech makes Blacksburg look bad."

Similarly, the town tore down its old middle school probably eight years ago. (A fine new one was built just outside town.) The old building had some potential use as a community center, etc. Instead, the town and county let it rot while they dithered over what to do with it. Now, several years after the building has been torn down, the property has been sitting there, its use still in limbo. Likewise, for years, the town and county knew that the high school was dangerously flawed in design, and was visibly buckling and crumbling. Both did almost nothing--and the high school gym's roof indeed collapsed, the morning after a basketball game had been played under that roof. No one had tested the school well enough to see what its condition really was, though its risks were obvious and appeals to test and fix it were rampant. The uncollapsed sections of the old high school building are still sitting there, three or four years later, unused and unusable. And the town and county still haven't decided what to do about that, either.

So as long as you're careful not to assume this is quite the cozy, logically led college town it likes to present itself as, and you're particularly mindful of how wild things get, particularly in downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods during certain times of year, week, and hour, you'll probably love living here. No offense, but it's far better (in my view) than Louisiana.

That said, I'm going to Boston as soon as I can!

I hope your move is a great one for you and your family. And I hope you try the Indian Garden's lunch buffet!

Last edited by 58Belvedere; 10-09-2013 at 10:05 PM..
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Old 10-10-2013, 04:50 AM
 
Location: Daleville, VA
2,276 posts, read 4,028,285 times
Reputation: 2413
Wow 58 what an amazingly detailed "review" of Blacksburg. So very interesting to read. So much so that I will almost forgive you for saying this...

Quote:
Originally Posted by 58Belvedere View Post
I'm not a big Roanoke fan, though it has some fine neighborhoods and merits.

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Old 10-10-2013, 02:02 PM
 
3,852 posts, read 4,135,121 times
Reputation: 7866
Techie13, I'm not clear on whether you have the job offer yet, but I believe that Virginia Tech HR has at least one staff member devoted to helping spouses transition to the area when new staff members come on board. They may have resources for you.
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Old 10-10-2013, 02:05 PM
 
Location: Tysons Corner
2,772 posts, read 4,303,029 times
Reputation: 1504
Quote:
Originally Posted by 58Belvedere View Post
I've lived here for 20 years, raised two kids here, and am raising two more. I've also worked at Virginia Tech during those years.

To address your direct questions:
For southwest Virginia, Blacksburg is a pricey housing market, because it is relatively desirable and expanding. But a 250-350k price range would give you many options. In fact, I'd bet that you'll find a place you much like in the 275-300k area. Beyond housing, the cost of food, gas, etc., is probably within the national averages.

Some daycares closed a few years ago when parents, having lost their jobs in the recession, found it cheaper to stay at home with their kids, or found cheaper alternatives (friends, family, etc.). But Rainbow Riders is a very good option. (One of my kids went there, years ago, and loved it, and it's kept a fine reputation.) It has, I believe, a good-sized waiting list, so you many want to look into that well ahead of your move. I think that Tech itself still has a daycare for employees' kids, so you may want to look into that, too.

Regarding Blacksburg generally, the encouraging posters are quite accurate, I think. In fact, I'd emphasize some positives even more strongly.

Except for the town's cultish Tech and football obsessions, it is a very open-minded, egalitarian place. Most people here really cherish the town's diversity. And it sure stands out in this compared to neighboring places, even ones (such as Radford) that themselves have a university. You won't feel hemmed in by ignorance or prejudice here. The neighbor who hunts may have, or live next to, a PhD, or be a local professional, etc. The only caveat here is that since the town has only about 13,000 residents (as opposed to Tech students), and most of them work at Tech, it can be somewhat clique-ish and gossipy, in a typical, small-town, faculty-sniping way. But out-and-out "You're different so I don't like you" garbage is very rare. For example, you won't feel at all out of place being a vegetarian. As noted, the town has two fine vegetarion/whole-foods-type stores, and its better restaurants serve (very good!) veggie dishes.

The weather. People call it "Bleaksburg" in the winter, and it can get gray, windy, and gloomy. But, to me, that's worth this being a relatively cool, moderate part of Virginia. It rarely gets as smotheringly muggy as Charlottesville, Richmond, and the coast can get--and stay, for months. The springs, summers, and falls here are generally great. Only a few weeks a year do we use the AC, and when I had an old house with high ceilings, I lived without any AC for 13 years. The air is quite clean, too, even though Tech and some surrounding small cities/towns burn coal. It doesn't snow enough here for me, but we do get some snow almost every winter, and, every few years, a good snowfall. (Beware the more-frequent ice storms, though, if you're not used to driving in wintery conditions. Ice + hills can quickly = "How badly am I going to hit that very, very big tree?")

The school system. It's extremely good. My oldest kids were wonderfully prepared for college, and my youngest kids are being very well taught and respected. The school system also does a fine job availing itself of the community's functions and virtues. Kids grow up here richly aware of what the world has to offer, and what they themselves can become. The kid who doesn't want to learn is the rare one (less so in high school, of course!).

The town's Recreation Department is also excellent. There's a lot for kids, families, and individuals to do, including during the winter.

And a lot of solitude/family picnic places nearby, too. Check out The Cascades hiking loop, the New River Trail (a converted old railroad line), the Appalachian Trail (passes very near town), the walking/biking/jogging Huckleberry Trail (starts near the fine library), and many other hikes in the state and national forests around here. For young kids, you may want to start with Pandapas Pond and its mini-trails. There are some nice camping places and rentals around, too. The beach at Claytor Lake State Park is particularly great. It's perfect for kids and families. People there are almost uniformly considerate, it's kept very clean, has lifeguards, and is plain pretty. It's about a 25-minute drive down I-81 and then one country highway, and pretty cheap. (Four bucks per car to get into the park and four or five bucks per person at the beach itself, I think.) My kids would live there if they could.

I'm not a big Roanoke fan, though it has some fine neighborhoods and merits. But Salem is fairly nice, especially because of its cozily situated minor league baseball park. The fans there are very family-friendly, too. Further up I-81, Lexington is a bit taken with its own history, but it's a beautiful city. The Washington & Lee campus is very handsome, and some people (not I) like VMI's West Point-like looks & feel. Charlottesville's charms have worked against themselves, in that the city's gotten so popular it's quite crowded and cramped-feeling now. But it's still a great place, and the central UVA campus is beautiful. As you head up into the Shenandoah Valley, or east into the Piedmont, you're in very historical areas, many with handsome and stately towns. (Tech's area was too remote to have had much history happen here.) Richmond has some surprisingly fine areas (especially Carytown and The Fan), but you do have to use your city-smarts there. The (beautiful) Richmond train station has a great Amtrak line up to D.C., NYC, and Boston, and many smaller cities in between. A great trip would be to drive to Richmond, enjoy Carytown/The Fan for the day & evening, stay in a hotel, and take the morning northbound train. That particular line actually sticks to its schedule, has a dining car/decent available food, and is clean and comfortable. If your son likes trains, he'd love that trip.

I will emphasize some cautions, though.

B'burg lives in the shadow of Tech. The students far outnumber the residents. And the students can be nasty to live among, with excessive drinking, vandalism, and even violence probably much more common & vicious than you might suspect. Because you have a young kid, and want a sane, peaceful daily life, I urge you to be very careful where you rent and then buy. Many neighborhoods that seem to be VT-student-free in fact have rentals, and sometimes quite a few. And many of those rentals are overcrowded w/ VT students. You'd do well to see such places on Fri & Sat nights--before and as the VT students are heading to the bars/parties, and afterward. That would be around 10 p.m. to Midnight, and again from 1:30 a.m. until around 2:30 a.m. I bought a great house in a quiet-seeming neighborhood--but paid the price for my gullibility when, the first weekend after moving in, it turned into a war zone of incredibly drunk and aggressive Tech students wrecking and fighting their way through our neighborhood. It remained that way almost every weekend that Tech was in session, and got much worse every football weekend. I don't mean to project my own experience here, but this is fairly common if a neighborhood is anywhere near downtown, or near the many student-rental complexes, which are in many places around town. I've had committed against my home, and have seen and know of occurring against many other people's homes, hit-and-run destruction of vehicles and fences, drunks driving through yards, rocks & bottles thrown at windows, people threatened with violence and even rape out of the blue, six-way fist fights at 3 a.m. on someone's yard, drunks trying to get into homes they think are theirs, etc. These are worst-case scenarios. But they happen. So check out a prospective home and neighborhood yourself during the bad hours.

(With a young child, you may be particularly interested in buying in Toms Creek Village. I myself wouldn't choose it because it's not really walkable to/from Tech & downtown, as it's on the other side of highway 460. But it's very family-dense and kid-friendly, and has nice new copies of old-fashioned home styles. What isolates it somewhat from the town also protects it quite a bit from the town's issues. McBryde Village, nearer Tech & downtown, is generally fine, as is the Woodbine neighborhood, which is a bit further out. Airport Acres has smallish houses, but it's a great neighborhood, with a lot of young families, and most of the houses are nicely kept/expanded. In terms of rentals, Windsor Hills is particularly nice. It's on a bus route to downtown & Tech, has more grad students than undergrads, takes pretty good care of the apts./buildings, allows pets, and has a nice pool. It's also on a very quiet edge of town, with pretty farmland right next door.)

Similarly, downtown has some charm and good restaurants (check out the Indian restaurant near downtown, on Prices Fork Road, and Green's restaurant next to the Lyric). The rehabbed Lyric theater is great. But downtown too can be nasty from 10 p.m. onward. And unsuitable even from 9 p.m. onward in terms of kids. Bringing mine back from a late summer evening ice-cream or a movie that ends at 9:30, I've had to cover their ears and rush them across the street to minimize their exposure to howling curses, careening drunks, fights, etc. Downtown, my kids have been pushed out of the way--even into traffic--and threatened by stumbling drunks, and they've seen people punch each other in the face amid an instantly gathering, cheering crowed, etc. During the summers, downtown, and for that matter almost everywhere in town, are great. Student numbers are minimal due to most summer classes being now online. Things are serene. But during the Tech school year, on Fri & Sat nights and during football weekends, downtown is a big, volatile keg party.

The area's football team obsession. All I can say about this is that it makes many people dumb in their values and conduct, and makes Tech & Blacksburg seem like an overgrown high school instead of a real university in a balanced community. But if you love college football, then you'll love what I can't stand about what the Tech team means around here. (Beyond that, Tech has a fine range of sports and teams, and sees everything except football sanely.)

Regarding all of this, the Blacksburg police are enigmatic. They seem to under-report many crimes. I've seen people (almost always Tech students) getting arrested for public drunkenness, vandalism, fighting, etc., yet not seen those arrests reported on the public-disclosure arrest-incident sites. Blacksburg's crime data generally seems very low, even misleading, on City-Data. That's partly because neither Blacksburg nor Tech consider crimes committed on Tech property as "Blacksburg" crimes. But it's also because the town seems more intent on maintaining a cozy reputation than on full honesty. The individual officers are great (unfortunately, I've had to call them quite often). They have a fine balance of patience and firmness with the Tech students and residents. And since the April, '07 slaughter, both town and Tech cops are especially responsive to calls and problems. But I truly wonder about their leadership's agenda.

Similarly, the town
*rarely enforces over-occupancy
*does much less than it could do to protect notoriously battered neighborhoods from the very predictable patterns of abuse from drunken Tech students
*steps into public drunkenness situations only when the drunks are committing another crime (about 10,000 people would be in jail on a Saturday night if the cops were to enforce public drunkenness codes strictly!)
*buddies up with/kowtows to quite a few high-powered developers.

For example, it took many years to increase the number of bike cops by just a few, when such cops are clearly very effective in thwarting drunks & vandals in neighborhoods. The citizens often struggle for years to get any progress on zoning, policing, disclosure, etc., progress and openness. The town leadership does a lot of dithering because it can't seem to determine whether it wants to be Tech's extension, or a town that has a large university in it, whether it wants to say yes to almost every "development" demand, or whether it wants to balance options. For example, years ago, our neighborhood association asked the town and Tech to limit Tech's fireworks displays (which can occur, at random, on any night of the week, at any time of night) to pre-9 p.m. hours so young kids aren't awakened in the many neighborhoods surrounding Tech. The town and Tech's jaws dropped. The 10 p.m., mid-week, window-rattling, 15-minutes-long fireworks eruptions continue. The attitude is generally "If Tech does it/doesn't do it, then that's good because displeasing Tech makes Blacksburg look bad."

Similarly, the town tore down its old middle school probably eight years ago. (A fine new one was built just outside town.) The old building had some potential use as a community center, etc. Instead, the town and county let it rot while they dithered over what to do with it. Now, several years after the building has been torn down, the property has been sitting there, its use still in limbo. Likewise, for years, the town and county knew that the high school was dangerously flawed in design, and was visibly buckling and crumbling. Both did almost nothing--and the high school gym's roof indeed collapsed, the morning after a basketball game had been played under that roof. No one had tested the school well enough to see what its condition really was, though its risks were obvious and appeals to test and fix it were rampant. The uncollapsed sections of the old high school building are still sitting there, three or four years later, unused and unusable. And the town and county still haven't decided what to do about that, either.

So as long as you're careful not to assume this is quite the cozy, logically led college town it likes to present itself as, and you're particularly mindful of how wild things get, particularly in downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods during certain times of year, week, and hour, you'll probably love living here. No offense, but it's far better (in my view) than Louisiana.

That said, I'm going to Boston as soon as I can!

I hope your move is a great one for you and your family. And I hope you try the Indian Garden's lunch buffet!
You should work for the town PR, just reading that made me want to move back.
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