Where should home be in the Spg area?

[Arrby]

How much are you willing to spend? View? View of what? What kind of character do you want in a neighborhood?

Every city has an area where the traffic flow is awful and your office location is in Springfield's worst by at least one order of magnitude. I moved out of Parkcrest more than 25 years ago because of the awful traffic. My last move was to the north precisely because of traffic problems in the southwest. I commute from north of Fair Grove to roughly Sunshine/Glenstone in exactly 30 minutes. However, a 25 minute commute to southwest Springfield could take you out west as far as Billings, southwest to Clever, possibly as far south as Ponce de Leon.

Comments:
Greed: I am sick of hearing about "greedy developers". Greed is a universal human condition. Developers will be happy to build houses on three acre lots with landscaping, hiking trails, greenspace, and so forth if people will pay for it. Buyers will not spend the bucks for such properties, however - the greedy cheapskates. "Greedy" buyers are, or at least until recently, were quick to snap up poorly designed, poorly constructed houses that were new, clean, had lots of square footage, and great financing. "Greedy" banks were quick to provide the money. Greedy politicians couldn't pass laws fast enough to make it all possible. By the way, I have never heard of any buyer so altruistic as to raise their offer price because they felt the seller is not asking enough. I certainly am as guilty as anyone - I chose the area I wanted, bought the land I wanted, and built the house I wanted. Did it all as cheaply as I could and still get what I wanted. If that isn't the epitome of greed, I don't know what is.

Roads: Where are these cities with such marvelous roads? Seriously, I'd like to know. I have traveled extensively both in the US and Europe and cannot think of anywhere I'd move for the quality of the roads. Kansas City? St. Louis? Dallas? Chicago? Denver? Memphis? Minneapolis? Give me a break! Locally, we ARE taxed extra for the roads. In addition to the usual property taxes, gas taxes, and various state and federal slush funds, Springfield has a 1/4 cent sales tax exclusively to squander on things like unneeded new roads to the unneeded new airport terminal.