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Are there any cities in the states that are:
small ...say < 100,000 people ... no skyskrapers in sight please
walkable ... family of 5 could get along without a car
family amennities... museums, ymca, library, movie theatre etc.
And preferably
-are out of the FL heat and humidity! something totally different like the NW or a place with fall colors would be nice.
-has a diverse demographic
-a place where southerners would fit in...liberal and laid back
-affordable... rent at $1000/month or a $150k mortgage ... at this price we could manage on one or one and half incomes and that'd be great.
-dog friendly... we'll likely rent and we're not leaving behind our big dog! In Tampa renting with a big dog is tough.
-Open minded ... my husband will be a stay-at-home dad for a couple years and I wouldn't want the neighbors judging him as who knows what!
We're looking for an urban COMMUNITY more so than city of which to rais our kids. We currently live with one car and it's tough, we'd much rather get rid of the one car we have along with the commutes & costs than get a second car. As for jobs...I teach math at a community college and my husband would likely work at at museum, zoo, or similar educational non-profit type place. If not he'd fall back on teaching middle school science. But he'd like to stay home for the next 2 years until our youngest is in preschool. Being teachers we can probably find work in most places, we're just looking for ideas on where to focus our search.
Last edited by CMor2Day; 07-10-2011 at 10:57 PM..
Reason: spelling
Ithaca, NY has a fairly good transit system but as with all the nice places to live you should have a job before you come as you are competing in the job market with the other halves of couples one of whom might be a grad student or postdoc at Cornell University. It is in the hilly Finger Lakes region of NY state, several hours northwest of NY City. Most likely renting with a big dog is tough anywhere, but Ithaca does have reasonable transit out into the near countryside where such places are at least possible. It's a well discussed place in the New York State sub-forum on this site.
If you're willing to drive a little bit, you should look at Northfield, MN (about 20k people, so quite small). It's about 30-60 minutes south of the Twin Cities and it's a double college town (St. Olaf College and Carleton College). It has a fantastic little downtown area with lots of fun coffee shops and restaurants and shops. Jesse James failed to rob a bank in Northfield in the 1800s and now that's become a quirky little part of the city's culture. They celebrate "Defeat of Jesse James Days" every year in the fall (reenactments, parades, a carnival, etc). Unfortunately, their movie theater closed recently, but (a) the next closest is not that far away, and (b) I wouldn't be surprised if a new one opens before too long. Also some of the nicest people I've met are from Northfield.
Thanks for your help! I hadn't thought about upstate NY. We lived just outside of Baltimore and the competitiveness was a bit much for us so we had kind of dismissed north eastern states for that reason. But from what I read in the NY forum it looks like the people in Ithaca are more on the relaxed side - which is a big plus for us. It also has a walkscore of 70! Which is awesome. Thanks for the new territory to look into!
@SAEwx_46...Ann Arbor looks like another good one, its walkscore is 59. I'll have to look and see how affordable it is in the heart of the city. A college town where the college students and faculty is accepted - yes, such as those suggested (another ex would be Sarasota with Ringling School of Art & New College, they love their colleges) but there are many college town with big rifts between the locals and those the college has brought to town - two examples that come to mind are Univ of FL in Gainsville and Tenn Tech in Cookeville. Those places are not progressive at all despite the college presence. While college towns in general are a good place to start, I am not sure what data I can look at that would help differentiate those two types of college towns. Any ideas? Maybe if the college has a football team? TTU and UF are big on FB, just reaching for some generalizations... while Cornell and Ringling don't have FB and are well intigrated into the towns?
@Steel03...the twin cities were at the top of our list as family friendly walkable cities, (plus my husband has a connection at the Science Center in St. Paul) so Northfield might be a good option to have all those resources within reach and not live in such a metro, unfortunately he's the one dependant on public transportation!
Thank you & I hope to hear about more places that are walkable and family friendly!
Cara
Boulder, CO fits all of your criteria to a T but one: affordability. However, the surrounding communities of Boulder are far more affordable and still have a "Boulderish" type of feel. In fact, I know several Boulderites who moved to these areas simply because of the affordability. I also know a couple of families who live completely car-free in a couple of these areas, which is pretty cool.
*Louisville, Superior, Lafayette, maybe even Broomfield or Longmont are the surrounding towns that come to mind.
WOW, families living car-free? I honeslty thought that was teetering on a pipe dream unless we lived in a huge metropolitan area. Thanks. Is Boulder so big & tall that you feel boxed-in by the buildings? nevermind.. I saw that Boulder has a pop of 93,000... the impression I had was that it was much bigger...
Portland, Maine might work. 65,000 in the city, walkable, safe, decent schools, enough to do for kids, etc. Naturally, it's a beautiful area. Coming from most of Florida, it may appear expensive, but compared to the rest of the Northeast, it's not bad.
Ithaca, NY has a fairly good transit system but as with all the nice places to live you should have a job before you come as you are competing in the job market with the other halves of couples one of whom might be a grad student or postdoc at Cornell University. It is in the hilly Finger Lakes region of NY state, several hours northwest of NY City. Most likely renting with a big dog is tough anywhere, but Ithaca does have reasonable transit out into the near countryside where such places are at least possible. It's a well discussed place in the New York State sub-forum on this site.
You beat me to it. Ithaca is a great choice. Some other places in Upstate NY that might work are: Plattsburgh, Oswego, Oneonta, Glens Falls and perhaps Cortland, Saratoga Springs, Auburn, Geneva and Canandaigua. I'm probably forgetting some others as well.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 07-11-2011 at 02:51 PM..
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