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this thread is cracking me up cause i am considering a move to troy BECAUSE the capital region seems like the closest thing to pittsburgh in the new england/eastern ny area. my husband and i love pittsburgh but we are moving back up that way to be closer to our families in ct. the albany area is about as far away from ct as we are willing to go, but it sounds really, really appealing to us.
pittsburgh is much bigger than albany, schenectady or troy but the 3 together kinda form a voltron pittsburgh.
- both areas have very low housing costs (albany area might be even lower!)
- both areas have great 19th century architecture
- both areas seem unpretentious and down to earth BUT
- both areas seem to have thriving art and underground music scenes, interesting restaurants, coffee houses, etc.
- both areas have state and national parks easily accessible just outside the city, although i think the capital region is a lot better in that respect.
we will be in the area in a couple of weeks and we are very excited to visit! if anyone has any suggestions of places to check out, please feel free to share them. some stuff about us:
- we're leaning toward troy because of the low housing prices, beautiful architecture and evidence of an interesting countercultural community there. but we are open to other towns as well.
- we are ok with living in a marginal neighborhood
- we don't have kids so schools are not an issue right now but they might be a few years down the line.
- our housing budget is around $100k and we'd rather buy than rent
- if we're going to live in a densely populated area, we'd like to be able to get to shopping/restaurants/places to hang out on foot, bus or bike.
- if we're going to live outside the city we want a good sized piece of land - at least an acre. we don't really want to live in a densely-populated area that is also very car-dependent - it's either/or.
- we are vegan so easy access to vegan or vegan-friendly restaurants and farmer's markets, natural foods stores, etc is a plus.
oh and just an edit to add - i don't mean to say the OP is wrong - his or her experience of pittsburgh is just different from mine, and i can see the validity in a lot of the complaints in this thread. also i've only been through albany and never been to troy so i could be totally wrong about the similarities.
Some suggestions:
-troy would probably be a good match for you based based on your criteria but so would albany.
- the area you would be looking to live in in troy would be the area surrounding river street. Its where all the independent, mom and pop shops are. Its the gay, hip, artist community. The troy farmers market also occurs in that neighborhood so that would be good for you guys.
- you're right troy does have cheaper housing than albany
-i would urge you to not discount albany though. The center square neighborhood may be out of your price range to buy in, but the surrounding neighborhoods are in that range. Lark street is also a great place for vegans, there's bombers which has some vegan mexican food, there's a small natural foods store on the street, and within a short bus-ride or drive is my favorite vegan-friendly resteraunt new world bistro bar and my favorite vegan breakfast/lunch place, all good bakers. they also have a walkable farmer's market near lark, located on the empire state plaza.
i've been to binghamton and it is very nice (and ithaca is great) but that's too far out from our target area. we are looking for something not more than 3 hours from meriden, ct (which is near new haven). the closer the better, and the capital region is about 2 1/2 hours.
oh and hock41, we are definitely going to look in both cities. we'd also consider somewhere rural if we could have a lot of land - we saw an amazing property in schodack (sp?) that looks like a headache (very old and needs work) but could be amazing and has 3 1/2 acres. we are very torn between the idea of having a hobby farm kinda thing and living in a walkable area though. i guess that's what urban farming is for!
also what's the deal with schenectady? just looking at the houses for sale and the prices relative to the area i feel a bit skeeved out by it but is there anything worthwhile there?
When you come to visit the cities here's the areas you should check out in Troy and Albany:
In troy, the area bordered by adams street in the south, the hudson river on the west and north, and 4th street on the east.
In albany, the neighborhoods of center square, park south, delaware avenue, the manion area, central avenue and the streets surrounding washington park.
If you have any more questions or concerns feel free to PM me.
There are some nice area's in schenectady, the stockade and upper union street are good examples. The downtown also has some nice places to offer in terms of shopping and entertainment. But in general schenectady is the poorer, more rundown of the 4 cities in the cap region.
also i have to say that i love that there are a lot of people in this forum who are willing to give rundown urban areas a chance. of course some people still think city automatically = dangerous unless it looks like disney world, and there is a spectrum of opinions in between, but there is some diversity of opinion on the subject here which is great. some other forums i've been looking at seem to be really hard to get through to with the idea that not everyone necessarily WANTS to live in a pristine suburb. so props to you guys!
Oh I thought of another good area in Albany that's fits your criteria well, madison ave.
Its this area that has these huge old mansions but because they need work and are in the city, they might be in your price range a bit. They're right across from washington park and are near lark street. They also have pretty good sized yards.
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