Good big town/small city for me? (real estate, 2013)
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Personally I have grown up in Boston, it's lovely here and will always be home but a change is in order. I like smaller cities/big towns personally. Unlike many of you on this site and many millennials and people my age (I'm 21) I'm so not feeling this whole 'back to the cities thing'. I really don't get why small places packed with people (aka density and a "vibrant urban core" lol) are appealing. I've lived in a MA 3 decker (pronounce 3 decka..look it up) my whole life and I've yearned for space. I don't wanna be in a cornfield surrounded by no one, or in a generic gated McMansion development but a yard and easy parking sounds MUCH better to me than paying thousands to live in a small space (or having roommates) and choosing to sit on a bus or train and smell everyone's BO and farts and have to deal with crazy homeless people when you can sit in your own car if you could afford it (and if you can afford $1200 rent you can afford $700 rent and a $200 car payment plus gas and insurance). I guess cause I've lived through it my whole life it's nothing special. People want what they don't have (for people living in cities and urbanized areas many of us dream of owning a home with a yard and someone growing up in a suburban home dreams of the city). Too each his own I guess.
Career wise I would like to either get into real estate (I worked for a realtor as a secretary for years until she recently died and now I'm out a job) or eventually open a small business (my parents own a dry cleaners and I know the biz). I have no college degree and I don't plan on it. No desire to spend years working for a piece of paper. If I want to learn something I can buy a book for much cheaper or do extensive research at the library for free.
I want a smaller city...no bigger than 100k people and no smaller than 25k. 50-80k is perfect. It needs to be its own place and not a sattelite city/exurb. This is important: IT CANT BE A COLLEGE TOWN. Otherwise I would move to Bloomington Indiana which I loved. It should have a young population and be the kind of place with young families and some singles, not a retirement town and not an economically depressed place that people leave the day they finish High School. I would like if it was a little bit quirky and attracted alternative kind of people, however personally my leanings politically are slightly to the right so I would like a place where on the state and federal level my vote matters and it's not a complete one party state (for example: here in MA my vote never matters because it's guaranteed never vote for my party on the presidential level, rarely on the federal legislative level and a republican governor is a fluke. It doesn't need to be a solid red state, but some balance would be nice because if both parties have a chance and no guarantees win they usually try harder to be affective politicians and get reelected lol.) I DO NOT WANT TO ARGUE ABOUT POLITICS WE ARE ENTITLED TO OUR PREFERENCES, I'm actually gay so don't try to call me bigoted for being GOP ok?
So basically in short: a smaller city/large town, not dominated by a college (it can have a college but no 'college towns') in a state that has 2 party balanced politics, somewhere with a slightly kitschy or alternative vibe, and not a retirement spot or somewhere bleeding young people. Also a good economy.
Location wise I'm open to anywhere in the eastern or central time zones, weather isn't a big factor.
Oh please guys, I'm not trying to have a debate about anything. I'm not interested in commentary on my wants/needs/beliefs...just answer the question if you can and if not then please refrain. I'm not into online debating.
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PS: I know about Asheville already and it's under consideration so you needn't mention it.
How about Columbus, Indiana. It has a lot of interesting architecture in addition to the alternative vibe and is in your size range. Also, I've heard that at least one of the places right across the Ohio River from Louisville is like that, too (New Albany?), and with the way that Louisville seems to be getting a lot of jobs lately, and companies moving there, there would be a need for more realtors and dry cleaners. I think that any of the places in Ohio with an alternative vibe are either college towns or too small to fit your criteria. I think there would be a lot of places in Michigan and Wisconsin that would fit your criteria, but I'm not familiar enough to know where specifically.
Holland MI may be a small city to consider. It is more to the right due to the Dutch Reformed influence. As of 2013, it became a part of the Grand Rapids metro, but prior to that, it was the main city of its own metro. It does have Hope College, but it is affiliated with the Dutch a Reformed Church.
Kalamazoo is another Michigan city that comes to mind. It does have Western Michigan University, but I wouldn't say that it dominates the whole city.
Bloomington IL, which is where State Farm Insurance is headquartered may be another city to look into. Twin City Normal has Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University is a small college in Bloomington. This Bloomington has about 78,000 people(Normal has about 55,000).
Terre Haute IN is the home of Indiana State University, a couple of small private colleges and a community college, but I don't know if it has a college town atmosphere. It is a small city of about 60,000. Muncie, another small Indiana city(about 70,000), seems to be similar in that regard as it is home to Ball State University, but I don't think it has that dominate college town vibe.
Roanoke VA is another small city that comes to mind.
Holland MI may be a small city to consider. It is more to the right due to the Dutch Reformed influence. As of 2013, it became a part of the Grand Rapids metro, but prior to that, it was the main city of its own metro. It does have Hope College, but it is affiliated with the Dutch a Reformed Church.
Not to rain on your parade but Holland is quite possibly the most conservative city in the state of Michigan.
Check out Frederick, Maryland. It's a small standalone city of 67K about an hour northwest of Washington DC. It has a thriving historic downtown area and has seen growth from young professionals looking for more affordable housing as well as a significant artsy population moving there for it's restored historic homes/apartments. From a political standpoint I would place it smack in the center and is probably exactly what you're looking for.
Not to rain on your parade but Holland is quite possibly the most conservative city in the state of Michigan.
I know, but it fits pretty much everything else. In spite of its rep, there are still advocates as well. It is going to be tough to fulfill all of the criteria anyway.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 01-30-2015 at 06:00 AM..
Not to rain on your parade but Holland is quite possibly the most conservative city in the state of Michigan.
Holland is surprisingly diverse and isn't nearly as conservative as it used to be. I worked there for two years and found it to be much less stereotypical than people think it is. If that doesn't work for the OP, Grand Rapids itself may not be a bad option.
Holland is surprisingly diverse and isn't nearly as conservative as it used to be. I worked there for two years and found it to be much less stereotypical than people think it is. If that doesn't work for the OP, Grand Rapids itself may not be a bad option.
I always found that overtly conservative reputation odd because of Holland's close proximity to Saugatuck and Douglas which are quite liberal, and many who work in in either town live in Holland.
Lancaster, PA has something of an arts scene without the far left liberalish hippie stuff, it has a college (Franklin & Marshall) but small and not dominant. The surrounding county is very conservative, not so much the city but Lancaster PA Hotel | Lancaster Arts Hotel In Pennsylvania did have Fox News on in the breakfast nook when I stayed there, rather than CNN or MSNBC or local TV.
It is day-trip close to larger metros (Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, NYC), and should you miss the fart smelling train there is frequent Amtrak service to Phila/NYC connecting on to Boston. The predominant city limits housing stock is row homes with yards (especially on a typical millennial budget) although there are detached homes too.
It's not bleeding young people, but the flip side to that seems to be that most are said to have met their friends in high school and keep their clique for life.
I always found that overtly conservative reputation odd because of Holland's close proximity to Saugatuck and Douglas which are quite liberal, and many who work in in either town live in Holland.
Well Saugatuck and Douglas' big thing is that they are a weekend getaway spot for the upper middle class of Chicago and to a lesser extent Detroit. But there is a quite sizeable gay contingent obviously that lives there. Proximity to Holland is more ironic and coincidental. Don't get me wrong their are portions of Ottawa county that would set in place the social structure of the puritans. But the city of Holland and its immediate suburban communities are more mixed. I briefly dated a guy who ran for Holland city council in 2013 and I met the other council members he was friends with, 5 of the 9 people who sit on the council were pretty extreme leftists. I always thought that was an ironic bit of trivia given the cities reputation.
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