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I like NYC, but I would say that I'm generally done here. I don't really have anything else I'm looking to accomplish that specifically requires that I be in NYC. While I enjoy living in a lively, happening city, I also prefer warmer weather and down the line would prefer a place that if not warmer, at least has better and easier access to nature and outdoor activities.
I need a couple more years here to build up my work experience, but I'll likely have a kid or two in the upcoming years and would prefer to live elsewhere. Preferably somewhere that still has a nice urban feel to it, but that's also in a beautiful location. Proximity to family comes into play as well...
I've lived in Dallas for three years now and heading back home to NYC in the next few months. We really took for granted things in NYC like public transportation, sidewalks, street life, and diversity. Moving here made me realize that I hate driving and that it feels very lonely walking for blocks and not seeing another pedestrian. There's also a pretty big problem with the homeless here in Dallas, lots of homeless taking synthetic marijuana and ODing. Part of why we chose Dallas was because of the mild winters but the summers here are so long and so oppressive that I would rather deal with the crappy winters in NYC than go through another summer in Dallas. Overall, I don't regret moving here (if anything it made me more appreciative of NYC) but I am glad to be leaving.
I was pretty much done maybe 2 months after moving here, but not exactly for the same reasons most people dislike this place.
Some of the cons of this region I can tolerate alright include:
- Lack of fun things to do (I just need an Internet connection and 80% of my entertainment is satisfied, a la 80/20 rule.)
- Isolation. No matter where I live, I'll get sick of being in the same place all the time so it's bound to happen, so I travel. I traveled a lot even when I lived in LA and continue to do so after moving here.
- Extreme temperatures. Sure, temperatures can vary a lot day to day but they generally don't get REALLY cold here. Temperatures rarely stay below freezing for an extended period (like more than 24 hours.) I can generally tolerate the heat better though, especially since the humidity is rarely high.
- Bad drivers. It's a lot easier to deal with bad drivers who drive too slow or take all of their time (like here) than bad drivers who are very aggressive and unpredictable (like on the east coast) though I'd still prefer driving on the west coast myself.
But the things that really make life unbearable are:
- Very poor level of service at most businesses. They know you don't have any alternatives within a 4 hour drive so they do as little as possible while charging as much as possible. Almost every service and good here, except Housing and Gas, are more expensive than in San Francisco, NYC, or even maybe Paris.
- Very religious: the vast majority of people here are religious to the point where it's no longer taboo to leave religion out in normal conversations with people you just met. Praying in non-religious meetings or even in public.. really? Welcome to the 21st Century, Midland!
- Everything looks brown here. The ground, the grass, the roads. I'm actually enjoying it more now the days are shorter because the sun is often nearly down by the time I finish work, so I don't have to see much brown afterwards.
I occasionally get tired of living in the same place, but the thing is, I wouldn't be able to live anywhere else in the world as cheaply as I live here in Austin, TX at the address of where I have lived since March of 2001. My land and mobile home is paid for. That makes a big difference, especially in Austin where rent is not cheap. All I have to pay is yearly property taxes, yearly auto license tags, insurance, and utilities. So I don't think about living anywhere else. It's cheaper to visit than to relocate, and being retired, I can visit most anytime.
I generally get tired of a city and move after 5-10 years. I do like Nashville it is an awesome place to live. The other places I would consider over here is Colorado and California. The quality of life is pretty good here and the cost of living is low compared to living on the East Coast but higher than Cincinnati. Nashville can get boring, I have seen and done it it all but the people are amazing here, very caring and outgoing people who make living here much more enjoyable than the rate race of NYC and Boston where everyone has to one up every other person.
That's how I was living in Miami, which is where I grew up. Nowhere in the US mainland is further from mainstream America than Miami. Now I'm stuck in a Fort Lauderdale airport overnight wanting to be back in Minnesota already lol.
I just escaped. I was MISERABLE in Upper Michigan. We had moved there for my husband's job. Just got to Milwaukee two weeks ago and LOVE it!
I couldn't take the isolation, the basic vanilla-ness. The 'everyone is from here and everyone is related', the 'who needs an education, we'll just work at the mill', the Trump country. I couldn't bare the thought of raising my kids in such a closed-minded community.
I missed all the things an urban area offers. Concerts, sporting events, museums, activities for my kids, public transportation, large airport, etc. etc. Now I can walk to an excellent grocery store in under 10 mins. My kids can walk to school, out for ice cream, pizza, the beach or almost anywhere else we need to go. I love that my kids' classmates are a mix of several races, nationalities, religions and cultures. And of course I found a job here almost instantly which pays nearly double what I made in MI.
For the record, my sister-in-law lives in Johnson City and I was not impressed when we visited.
I haven't really been 'done' with the 2 places I've lived, CO Springs and Denver. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely things I don't like about either city, but there's always been plenty of positives to balance things out.
There are probably other places in the US that I would like better, but 1. I'm not sure where exactly I'd want to end up and if I'd be trading one set of problems for another set I didn't foresee and 2. I think it's harder to justify the pain of moving to a better place when your decently content where your at compared to moving to a decent place from a pretty lousy one.
I detested living in Westchester County, NY. Besides not having the type of job where I could commute by anything other than car- hence traffic nightmares and congestions, the ridiculous police-state that it was (throwing parking tickets on vehicles at will for the most ludicrous so-called "offenses"), priciness, the awful food, zero social life- no where to just hang and get work done- nothing but the same delis, dry cleaners, bad imitation "NY Pizza" pizzerias, and worst of all some of the most miserable, pretentious, rudest, and wretched human beings I've ever encountered. I took the initiative to get out once I found myself not being so personable and pleasant. Never would want to step foot in that hell-hole again.
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