[Mr_250]

Originally Posted by JayCT

You do not know that, they could be just downsizing now that their kids are all grown and they have reached retirement years. Jay

The article states that they bought the house for the sole purpose to raise their kids outside of the show business world. It served its purpose, like you said, kids are grown and none live around here so why not sell it. Not a big loss to CT. Some rich NYC headge fund dude will come and swipe that place up.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by Stratford, Ct. Resident

The Howard's are getting the hell out.

Director Howard's Conyers Farm house on the market - Connecticut Post

Originally Posted by JayCT

You do not know that, they could be just downsizing now that their kids are all grown and they have reached retirement years. Jay

It was meant to be a tongue in cheek post. They actually weren't Greenwich "residents". Their mansion is in NY, not CT.

[Wilton2ParkAve]

Originally Posted by Stratford, Ct. Resident

It was meant to be a tongue in cheek post. They actually weren't Greenwich "residents". Their mansion is in NY, not CT.

Ron Howards property is located entirely in Greenwich CT.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by Stratford, Ct. Resident

It was meant to be a tongue in cheek post. They actually weren't Greenwich "residents". Their mansion is in NY, not CT.

Originally Posted by Wilton2ParkAve

Ron Howards property is located entirely in Greenwich CT.

So you're saying that the mansion isn't located at Lake and Edgar in Armonk?

[HeadedWest]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Since this post started, I have been quietly asking people around if they wanted to leave Connecticut.

That's called the Pauline Kael approach to polling.

[nep321]

But doesn't news like this want to make people jump on the bandwagon and move out of CT? It's just a downward spiral.

I mean, doesn't it energize you and validate the idea that you should move out of state to greener pastures?

[Sigequinox]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Since this post started, I have been quietly asking people around if they wanted to leave Connecticut. I must say I have only found about 20% to say they would consider it. I know my method is not scienific but I do question how they sampled people. Just saying. Jay

Are you implying that a few anecdotal reports from a select group of people YOU chose invalidates random selection of over 600 residents?

They dialed people by land line and cell phone from a list thats randomly generated. This includes people of any age (over 18), of any socioeconomic status, of any geographical area, etc etc. If your asking this question in a board room meeting vs the group of day laborers hanging around outside 711 waiting for contractors to pick them up for 100 bucks, you will get skewed results. However, the randomness and size of the sample population in this study is enough to filter out such statistical noise and determine a more accurate conclusion.

You can flip a coin 5 times and get tails 5 times in a row. Flip it 600 times and you will most likely (almost certainly) be +/- 5% 300 heads and 300 tails. Same goes for this study. The larger the sample, the greater the accuracy in probability. Ideally, you wouldn't need to use a probability since there is a finite population size, but the reality is that it's impossible to survey 3 million people reliably. So this is as good as you will get.

[mlassoff]

Originally Posted by nep321

But doesn't news like this want to make people jump on the bandwagon and move out of CT? It's just a downward spiral.

I mean, doesn't it energize you and validate the idea that you should move out of state to greener pastures?

Meh, I like it here.

Never been much of a follower I guess. I've lived other places. Didn't find the pastures any greener.
Neither did you, by the way.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by Wilton2ParkAve

Ron Howards property is located entirely in Greenwich CT.

Originally Posted by Stratford, Ct. Resident

So you're saying that the mansion isn't located at Lake and Edgar in Armonk?

^Bump.

[dazzleman]

Surveys like this often tend to overstate levels of dissatisfaction. I do like living in this state.

However, I think we here in Connecticut do have a certain level of denial about the problems of our state. We continuously tell ourselves how enlightened we are, how much better we are than everybody else, and we have a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" attitude to people who have genuine problems with the state.

The fact is that this is a great state to live in if you're rich. It has beautiful residential sections and homes, second to none, for the people who can afford them. I am relatively well off and love living here. But even I could potentially be forced to leave in retirement due to the high cost of living here, with escalating property taxes being one of the biggest issues.

But this is a very hard state for people who are starting out, and people who are middle class. The greatly celebrated soaring of real estate values in the past 40 years has displaced a lot of people who can no longer afford to live where they grew up. We have effectively forced them out of the state.

Then we have some of the highest taxes in the country, and the share taken by government seems to be continuing to grow. When the income tax was introduced, it was supposed to solve the state's fiscal problems into eternity. Instead, it has been increased several times, and the politicians have more than spent all the increases. We have the highest per capita debt level in the country.

The other major problem is transportation on the coastal corridor. We don't seem to have the will to address this problem, and it's an economic hindrance.

We can go on patting ourselves on the back about how enlightened we are (which is not really true in practice) and scorn the people who have found it difficult to make it here, but that's all just a form of kidding ourselves. If we were really as smart as we think we are, we would open a real debate on how to make the state more friendly to the middle class, how to add jobs other than hedge fund jobs imported from NYC, and how to improve our transportation infrastructure so that people can get around better. It's not a Democratic/Republican issue; it's something that people need to work on jointly. We can't do well out into the future if we can't retain our young people, or attract more of them from elsewhere.