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A resident poster here will vehemently disagree with you advice misfit toy but I personally have to agree with you.
Few places would be better than Broad Ripple in Indy for you to check out if you are serious about moving.
Good luck!
Thanks for the mention. :-)
Cincy has several areas that would likely appeal to the OP while Indy more than likely has a couple. Broad Nipple recently made the news when 7 people were shot at a nightclub. Crime is increasing there and it is starting to impact businesses in the area.
I guess to each his own when it comes to people. Personally I have found the people in the Cincy area to be a little more cordial than in Indy. I prefer people that are somewhat reserved or aloof as opposed to too outgoing or over bearing to the point of being oppressive. Dealt with that a lot in KC and to an extent in Indy.
To the OP. I think The Twin Cities and Pittsburgh are also solid choices aside from Cincinnati. I lived in the Twin Cities for a while and think it is probably the most sophisticated city in the Midwest aside from Chicago. And Pittsburgh has a somewhat quirky personality that can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and suburb to suburb just like the Cincinnati area.
Since your car has that many miles on it, I suggest you at least consider finding a place to live on a bus or rail line that will get you to work and school. Just to be safe…
I should add that at your age, you should not feel compelled to get your Bachelor's Degree immediately unless you have a specific career goal in mind. I know a couple of people that wasted years in college only to find they could not use their degree to get a good job after graduating. And one guy spent 12 years in college and changed his degree program something like 3 times! Never got a degree. He ended up working as a supervisor in his father's machine shop.
At least get that two year degree under your belt while in Iowa. Then see if you are still interested in testing the waters elsewhere. Working full time and going to school part time to work towards a Bachelor's degree is probably doable as long as you don't have a lot of personal debt and can be self disciplined when it comes to pulling in the reigns on partying a lot. Don't spend a lot of money partying and you can probably pull it off.
Cincy has several areas that would likely appeal to the OP while Indy more than likely has a couple. Broad Nipple recently made the news when 7 people were shot at a nightclub. Crime is increasing there and it is starting to impact businesses in the area.
I guess to each his own when it comes to people. Personally I have found the people in the Cincy area to be a little more cordial than in Indy. I prefer people that are somewhat reserved or aloof as opposed to too outgoing or over bearing to the point of being oppressive. Dealt with that a lot in KC and to an extent in Indy.
To the OP. I think The Twin Cities and Pittsburgh are also solid choices aside from Cincinnati. I lived in the Twin Cities for a while and think it is probably the most sophisticated city in the Midwest aside from Chicago. And Pittsburgh has a somewhat quirky personality that can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and suburb to suburb just like the Cincinnati area.
Since your car has that many miles on it, I suggest you at least consider finding a place to live on a bus or rail line that will get you to work and school. Just to be safe…
I should add that at your age, you should not feel compelled to get your Bachelor's Degree immediately unless you have a specific career goal in mind. I know a couple of people that wasted years in college only to find they could not use their degree to get a good job after graduating. And one guy spent 12 years in college and changed his degree program something like 3 times! Never got a degree. He ended up working as a supervisor in his father's machine shop.
At least get that two year degree under your belt while in Iowa. Then see if you are still interested in testing the waters elsewhere. Working full time and going to school part time to work towards a Bachelor's degree is probably doable as long as you don't have a lot of personal debt and can be self disciplined when it comes to pulling in the reigns on partying a lot. Don't spend a lot of money partying and you can probably pull it off.
I've looked into Indy a bit, I'm really not sure that would fit me the greatest. Seems like a solid up and coming city but from the sounds of it their public transportation is non existent and the Governor has no interest in improving it...and public transportation would likely be heavily involved in my life if I were to move to a city. Also not sure how I feel about Indiana...
Twin Cities and Pittsburgh i'm definitely looking into as well. You certainly make a great point on the whole bachelors degree part, I just want to make sure I have a good education and well paying job. I really don't know what I want to do atm, but anything in sports whether thats being on the radio talking sports, working for a team in the marketing department, scouting, etc. etc. would be absolutely awesome. Very tough field, I definitely know that, but it's definitely a dream of mine.
I will likely have right around 40 credits completed after this year. I really would prefer to move after next spring/summer, gotta say. Been wanting to make a move for a couple years now, have kind of had a soft date set on mid 2015 since I graduated high school...
But yes, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Chicago (i'd love to move to Chicago but not sure how the cost of living in there, I know its cheaper than other cities that size but still), Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cleveland all, I think, make some sense.
Snow removal in Indy is awful. And I mean awful. Some of the smaller outlying cities and suburbs do a far better job of keeping the roads somewhat clear of snow than all of Marion County where Indy is located.
There have been some proposals to expand the bus service and also create light rail in Indy but the voters shot it down. Not sure it would be cost effective to create light rail here since the population density is rather low. The Twin Cities, Pittsburgh and of course Chicago all have rail systems in addition to fairly extensive bus service.
Bus service in the Cincy area seems adequate. Buses run pretty late at night on some routes and if you live near UC you could easily take classes there. Rentals are hard to come by in the city these days or at least good rentals. You may have to settle for a less than ideal apartment if that trend continues. One of the pitfalls of a city on the upswing where people are not only buying houses like they were going out of style but also renting anything they can find.
Miscellaneous notes on the other cities.
Cleveland is making some progress at rebuilding albeit slowly. St. Louis's economy always seems to be stagnant for some reason. Both have pretty affordable housing. Don't know much at all about Milwaukee since I've never been there and have only read about it.
To the OP - Instead of looking for someplace you want to live for a long time to come, just focus on finding someplace you'd rather live for the next few years.
You may want to consider Indianapolis. I think the people there tend to be friendlier than here. It's a couple hours closer to your home in Iowa, yet you still have enough distance and it satisfies other requirements like having pro sports teams in town (and if you just have to see big league baseball, Cincinnati is only 2 hours away). It's affordable and the weather there is comparable to Cincy.
Not sure Indy has any good schools though...Butler is the only university I can think of there and not sure it's a good school or not...good bball team usually though.
Every city you are looking at is going to have it's positives and negatives so just remember that. I certainly don't blame you for wanting to get into a city and out of the small town life w/ nothing to do.
Snow removal in Indy is awful. And I mean awful. Some of the smaller outlying cities and suburbs do a far better job of keeping the roads somewhat clear of snow than all of Marion County where Indy is located.
There have been some proposals to expand the bus service and also create light rail in Indy but the voters shot it down. Not sure it would be cost effective to create light rail here since the population density is rather low. The Twin Cities, Pittsburgh and of course Chicago all have rail systems in addition to fairly extensive bus service.
Bus service in the Cincy area seems adequate. Buses run pretty late at night on some routes and if you live near UC you could easily take classes there. Rentals are hard to come by in the city these days or at least good rentals. You may have to settle for a less than ideal apartment if that trend continues. One of the pitfalls of a city on the upswing where people are not only buying houses like they were going out of style but also renting anything they can find.
Miscellaneous notes on the other cities.
Cleveland is making some progress at rebuilding albeit slowly. St. Louis's economy always seems to be stagnant for some reason. Both have pretty affordable housing. Don't know much at all about Milwaukee since I've never been there and have only read about it.
From looking at all the downtown projects there, Cleveland is catching fire...the inner cores of both Cincy and Cleveland probably are seeing record amounts of development.
Not sure Indy has any good schools though...Butler is the only university I can think of there and not sure it's a good school or not...good bball team usually though.
Every city you are looking at is going to have it's positives and negatives so just remember that. I certainly don't blame you for wanting to get into a city and out of the small town life w/ nothing to do.
This as well.
Researched Indy a bit more last night, and none of their colleges from what I can tell are cheap at all. Minneapolis has some private universitiers where you get very good financial aid, Cleveland has a couple as well and CSU is cheap, Cincinnati has a couple private universities as well that get to be had at a decent price i believe. It's fairly easy after a year in Missouri to gain in-state residency...although not sure how much I like the thought of Missouri. Chicago has a big selection, still looking into costs of some of there schools. Pittsburgh has Duquesne which is a solid private school and with financial aid is at an OK cost, etc.
Researched Indy a bit more last night, and none of their colleges from what I can tell are cheap at all. Minneapolis has some private universitiers where you get very good financial aid, Cleveland has a couple as well and CSU is cheap, Cincinnati has a couple private universities as well that get to be had at a decent price i believe. It's fairly easy after a year in Missouri to gain in-state residency...although not sure how much I like the thought of Missouri. Chicago has a big selection, still looking into costs of some of there schools. Pittsburgh has Duquesne which is a solid private school and with financial aid is at an OK cost, etc.
One advantage to Pittsburgh is it's about as close as you can get to the east coast and still have an affordable cost of living in a major city. Most of the east cost is easily within a day's drive of PGH, and you have the Allegheny Mountains close by, if that's your thing. So if you've decided Indianapolis is not for you, then Pittsburgh is worth a closer look.
From looking at all the downtown projects there, Cleveland is catching fire...the inner cores of both Cincy and Cleveland probably are seeing record amounts of development.
True. Lots of restaurants and I think hotels are being built in Cleveland. But when I drove around the area in August I did not see much redevelopment in the neighborhoods and many still look very run down. Hopefully the investments in downtown will have a trickle down effect into the city neighborhoods. Cincinnati really is seeing an uptick in development in its neighborhoods and suburban areas.
Cleveland's issue long term is that almost all of the development is publicly financed, such as the Hilton/Convention Center and the VA, and that when you dig into those numbers you see relatively little private investment. Cincy's development has a lot of publicly funded projects too, such as the streetcar, but also has a more significant portion that is private investment through 3CDC or companies like Dunnhumby.
I don't know if that matters to the OP, though and there are certainly other signs of a rebound in Cleveland. Pittsburgh seems like it would be a solid choice, given what the stated interstate are or Minneapolis.
I definitely after further research of however many cities the OP is considering, would narrow it down to a top 3 or 4 and visit each one before deciding. One place may seem close to perfect after the research only to find out it's not really what you thought. Of course the opposite can happen too, where you might not consider a place as high but then you visit it and it's not at all what you've been led to believe through your research from afar.
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Pittsburgh
