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The Bend, OR thread has a great list going of the disadvantages of living there. People still absolutely love the area, but since no place is perfect, it is nice to put some of the negatives out there for those considering a move.
Visited Greenville last week and fell in love! This has moved up to our top spot for retirement in four years.
I'd love it if some of you could objectively point out some of the negatives that you see.
Here are the things I can think of as only a one time visitor:
1. Smokers. Wow! I've haven't seen that many people smoke since the 70's. It seemed like every other person was smoking.
2. Some sidewalks are in disrepair. Thinking about this in terms of retirement, I can see this being an issue as we age. Roots from trees were causing some sidewalks to buckle. We were staying on Camperdown Way and some of the sidewalks and curbing were crumbling on our walks into downtown.
3. Not the greatest atmosphere for a liberal...or a vegan.
what could we do about no. 1 and no. 3 on your list? ban smoking? deport smokers? forcibly import liberals and vegans? how do you know it is not a great atmosphere for liberals and vegans based on one brief visit.
i have never seen that many smokers here. most restaurants don't allow smoking and it is even banned in the downtown restaurants.
if you want a super liberal metro, Asheville isn't far from Greenville.
The city of Greenville, specifically downtown, North Main and Overbrook, has been liberal. Liberalism has been limited to an extent to focus on the good of Greenville. I have seen worse in the city of Asheville, North Carolina.
The Bend, OR thread has a great list going of the disadvantages of living there. People still absolutely love the area, but since no place is perfect, it is nice to put some of the negatives out there for those considering a move.
Visited Greenville last week and fell in love! This has moved up to our top spot for retirement in four years.
I'd love it if some of you could objectively point out some of the negatives that you see.
Here are the things I can think of as only a one time visitor:
1. Smokers. Wow! I've haven't seen that many people smoke since the 70's. It seemed like every other person was smoking.
2. Some sidewalks are in disrepair. Thinking about this in terms of retirement, I can see this being an issue as we age. Roots from trees were causing some sidewalks to buckle. We were staying on Camperdown Way and some of the sidewalks and curbing were crumbling on our walks into downtown.
3. Not the greatest atmosphere for a liberal...or a vegan.
For your #1, that hasn't been my experience. If you want to see a lot of smokers, try visiting major cities in Asia. Everyone over there seems to be a chain smoker.
For your #2, once you get out of the downtown area, a lot of streets have NO sidewalks in this area. Not sure where you're moving from, but the SE in general doesn't have a lot of sidewalks. Also, if the sidewalks bother you, many would argue that our local roads aren't in particularly good shape, either. We do have the Swamp Rabbit Trail, and a lot of options for hiking in the nearby mountains. Lots of options to expend energy outdoors around the area.
For your #3, if you are looking for an area where liberal politicians are going to be regularly elected, this isn't going to be it. I do think most people are tolerant of divergent views. I don't see why you think the area isn't vegan friendly. We don't have a lot of vegan specific restaurants but I frequently see multiple vegan or at least vegetarian friendly choices on local menus.
One negative I can think of is we don't get many music acts in the area. The one bar that drew smaller acts went out of business a couple of years ago and we haven't had anything move in yet to take its place. Asheville is much smaller but gets a bigger draw of musical acts. Most of the big acts play in Charlotte and Atlanta but both of those are a 2 hour drive.
I like to spend time outdoors so the area is great for my interests. I think there are far more positives than negatives in the Greenville area.
it is not true Greenville doesn't get a lot of music acts, especially big acts. I post big name artists all the time in the festival / events thread at the top of the forum. Bon Jovi is coming soon to kick off their new tour here, Garth Brooks is doing 3 shows, ZZ Top is coming, Greg Allman of the Allman Brothers did a show at Peace Center recently, Black Keys, Mumford and Sons, Train, Darius Rucker have recently done shows at the Heritage Park amphitheater.
I would go further on No. 3 and say it can be outright hostile towards liberals here.
My wife and I have had to deal with hostile work environments at more than one company, from ridicule to blatant racism towards our President, personal insults, etc. We've both had bosses rant about liberals and Obama during meetings, repeating fact-free internet-driven mythology along the way. Obama's coming for your guns and your gardens (yes, an employer spent 10 minutes of a meeting going on about how Obama, the president with an organic garden at the White House, is working to make home gardening illegal). Obama is creating his personal army in Texas, and won't step down after his 2nd term. Hillary kills people. etc.
A coworker told me to enjoy eternity in hell.
Another simply stopped all communication with me. He had asked me about Jesus, I told him I wasn't a believer, and that was literally the last time he spoke to me. Wouldn't even answer my internal phone calls. I'd have to leave a VM, and he would write a short, terse email response.
We had a brick thrown at our house during the '08 election (we had an Obama sign out front), and a Buddha vandalized on our front porch.
There's open mocking and fairly outrageous commentary at social events, too.
Two neighbors joked to us recently about how they run their Suburbans in their driveways all day to celebrate Earth Day, followed by a crazy rant about liberals creating global warming to make Al Gore wealthy, or something...
It's best to keep your mouth shut, and quietly find sanity among your friends and peers. That's my suggestion.
Or retire in Asheville, or Hendersonville.
And yes, we were shocked by the level of smoking, as well as obesity, when we first moved here.
Don't think being a vegan is a problem; a few of my friends are and more and more restaurants are vegan friendly, not to mention haveing a Whole Foods store here.
One big problem my son and I have is that we love to go walking, and we have NEVER been in an area with such a big dog poop problem! It is everywhere- people have multiple dogs and do not pick up! I have always loved dogs but this has made me fill with dread whenever I see one coming off the trail-especailly at Lake Conestee, due to the brilliant idea to locate the dog park there .
Don't think being a vegan is a problem; a few of my friends are and more and more restaurants are vegan friendly, not to mention haveing a Whole Foods store here.
One big problem my son and I have is that we love to go walking, and we have NEVER been in an area with such a big dog poop problem! It is everywhere- people have multiple dogs and do not pick up! I have always loved dogs but this has made me fill with dread whenever I see one coming off the trail-especailly at Lake Conestee, due to the brilliant idea to locate the dog park there .
That's so funny because one of our observations was that there wasn't any dog poop anywhere! So many don't clean up after their dog where we live now. It is a pet peeve of mine. I was so impressed to see so many dogs and no poop! I guess I just hit it on a good week.
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