Premium To Live ITP (Atlanta, Roswell: fit in, move to, suburbs)

[plessthanpointohfive]

I personally like a small yard because I enjoy gardening. But when I say small...my backyard consists of a parking pad for two cars, and then the actual yard is the same size as the parking pad...you can imagine not large. We've turned it into a courtyard, with a flagstone patio. There is so little grass we mow it with a hand pushed reel mower.

The front yard has been turned into a flagstone walk that catches outflow of people traffic from the front door and steers it around the side of the house to a small fenced in "utility area where we store our bikes, garbage cans, etc. The sides of the walk are garden beds filled with azaleas and hydrangeas.

Once my husband outfitted the garden beds with a low-flow drip irrigation system all we do is turn on the pumps in our rain barrels and the garden is watered. Other maintenance is a matter of a couple weekends of weeding. I like gardening so I don't mind it at all. And it's turned into a nice shady flowery space for entertaining. We have a lot of "vertical" gardening going on.

But I wouldn't want MORE than this. We had more, nearly an acre, back in the burbs and, yes, we were slaves to it's maintenance. Won't go back. We have public parks when we need large green space...two of them within a block of our house.

But even what we have is probably too much for Denny. There are, however, SFHs with even smaller green space than ours, so don't rule out a cottage entirely. Most, though, won't have any kind of garage unless they were built from the 50's and newer.

[DennyCrane]

Originally Posted by terrence81

Hire someone. I grew up in a house with a yard etc and I've mowed a lawn twice my whole life. My mother has always hired people and the grass doesn't really grow in the winter so its not even a year round expense. I understand that's an extra expense but I say its worth it. I plan to get a house or townhouse with a little yard one day but you won't EVER see me mowing it. So keep that in mind with your options.

I'd rather not pay someone to do something I'm capable of doing myself. That's one of the things I don't like about townhouses. On the one hand, you don't have a big lawn to mow or weeds to pull. But on the other hand, part of your association fee is going to someone else who does that stuff for you.

[10 feet tall]

Originally Posted by DennyCrane

Yeah, it does feel very "southern" when you venture far past the Perimeter. Very conservative, very religious, and very family-oriented.

This has less to do with a north vs south thing and more to do with an urban vs non-urban thing. Not sure what about having a family, being religious or being conservative is exclusive to southerners. You will find these qualities in all parts of the country when you get away from large cities.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by 10 feet tall

This has less to do with a north vs south thing and more to do with an urban vs non-urban thing. Not sure what about having a family, being religious or being conservative is exclusive to southerners. You will find these qualities in all parts of the country when you get away from large cities.

Exactly. That's true of the suburbs in almost every city in the country.

[ericsonga]

Originally Posted by DennyCrane

Yeah, it does feel very "southern" when you venture far past the Perimeter. Very conservative, very religious, and very family-oriented. Even if I had kids, I'm not sure I'd want to live out there. As for owning a SFH, no thanks. I don't want to mow the lawn, pull weeds, or clean gutters.

Some of us like to mow!

Me and my partner bought our house close to Brookwood High in Lawrenceville almost 4 years ago, and we have never doubted our decision. We love the area, our neighbors, and friends. I do have a fair number of friends ITP, however I also have a large number close to me in Gwinnett. We have never experienced any sort of backlash in our community for who we are. I will concede that we are fairly conservative ourselves. We both are white, have upper middle class backgrounds, well educated, and religious. I would be careful to paint such broad stokes on areas you have never ventured in. Yes, it's going to be more conservative, but that doesn't always equate to terrible. Gwinnett County offers excellent services for what we pay in taxes. Sometimes that's overlooked. We don't have potholes in Gwinnett.

In all truth however, I would probably move ITP if things permit. The only reason we settled here was that both of our jobs are located directly off Sugarloaf Parkway. We each have less than a 10 minute commute. We love the area, but who knows what the future will hold for us.

[plessthanpointohfive]

Originally Posted by ericsonga

Some of us like to mow!

Me and my partner bought our house close to Brookwood High in Lawrenceville almost 4 years ago, and we have never doubted our decision. We love the area, our neighbors, and friends. I do have a fair number of friends ITP, however I also have a large number close to me in Gwinnett. We have never experienced any sort of backlash in our community for who we are. I will concede that we are fairly conservative ourselves. We both are white, have upper middle class backgrounds, well educated, and religious. I would be careful to paint such broad stokes on areas you have never ventured in. Yes, it's going to be more conservative, but that doesn't always equate to terrible. Gwinnett County offers excellent services for what we pay in taxes. Sometimes that's overlooked. We don't have potholes in Gwinnett.

In all truth however, I would probably move ITP if things permit. The only reason we settled here was that both of our jobs are located directly off Sugarloaf Parkway. We each have less than a 10 minute commute. We love the area, but who knows what the future will hold for us.

Hey, a diminished commute ALONE is a reason to live ANYWHERE. I love my intown neighborhood and all but I wouldn't live here if I didn't work here.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by plessthanpointohfive

Hey, a diminished commute ALONE is a reason to live ANYWHERE. I love my intown neighborhood and all but I wouldn't live here if I didn't work here.

Understand that!

[Esteban5]

It's a huge premium to live intown.

[ericsonga]

Originally Posted by ericsonga

Some of us like to mow!

Me and my partner bought our house close to Brookwood High in Lawrenceville almost 4 years ago, and we have never doubted our decision. We love the area, our neighbors, and friends. I do have a fair number of friends ITP, however I also have a large number close to me in Gwinnett. We have never experienced any sort of backlash in our community for who we are. I will concede that we are fairly conservative ourselves. We both are white, have upper middle class backgrounds, well educated, and religious. I would be careful to paint such broad stokes on areas you have never ventured in. Yes, it's going to be more conservative, but that doesn't always equate to terrible. Gwinnett County offers excellent services for what we pay in taxes. Sometimes that's overlooked. We don't have potholes in Gwinnett.

In all truth however, I would probably move ITP if things permit. The only reason we settled here was that both of our jobs are located directly off Sugarloaf Parkway. We each have less than a 10 minute commute. We love the area, but who knows what the future will hold for us.

Ugh....This post should have started my partner and I...

I'm not posting anymore after my post church nap. Apparently, I need to be fully awake to post grammatically correct.

[DennyCrane]

Originally Posted by 10 feet tall

This has less to do with a north vs south thing and more to do with an urban vs non-urban thing. Not sure what about having a family, being religious or being conservative is exclusive to southerners. You will find these qualities in all parts of the country when you get away from large cities.

The difference is that if you go to the suburbs of Chicago, you're not likely to see people sporting the confederate flag or people pushing to ban mosques from being built in their neighborhood.

Originally Posted by ericsonga

I would be careful to paint such broad stokes on areas you have never ventured in.

What makes you think I haven't? I'm not basing my views on guesswork or stereotypes. I've actually done a lot of exploring and am basing my views on what I've actually observed.