Advice on commuting times/quality of life for Indy/Bloomington (Indianapolis: schools, live)
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It looks like construction on upgrading SR 37 between Martinsville and Bloomington to interstate standards is going to start next year and last through 2016, which they will probably start construction on the stretch from I-465 to Martinsville. I just mention this because that could be 6 years or so of construction headaches if you commute that stretch.
How many days a week will your wife need to be in Indy? I think Bloomington itself would be far more to your liking than Indianapolis. It has trails, buses, biking, good schools, and is walkable in many places. It's not Ann Arbor, and housing is generally more expensive than Indianapolis (there are exceptions), but the quality of life is more of what you want. It's far more liberal than Indianapolis as a whole. Kind of like a little blue oasis in a state of red.
I think you mentioned you might rent for a year or so. I would definitely recommend that route before settling a a final place.
Wow! Why is it so slow and difficult to get from near north side Indy down to Bloomington? It's like only 55 miles as the crow flies. At that rate it might almost be a faster commute from one of the northern suburbs like Carmel. Is it all about easy access to ring highway? Or is rt 37 just dreadfully slow?
Thanks to above posters tool I'm concerned that those few walkable south of Indy small towns like mooresville like might be a bit too ethnically and religiously and culturally homogeneous for us. We know that Indy is a super duper red state politically, the reddest state in the Midwest. While the majority of voting Hoosiers love that fact, that happens to not be our particular cup of tea. Let's just say that it all types to make a world.
i don't know why but this is post is particularly irksome. you are moving to an area wherein you will be employed by citizens for whom you are showing nothing but disdain.
somehow being a conservative state equals homogeneous. we're all mouth-breathing cretins whose opinions only differ when picking our favorite nascar driver. there's certainly no diversity of thought to be found within conservative circles. we just mutely march forward like saruman’s army.
i get wanting to find something like AA. i just moved here from chicago. we also wanted a good urban neighborhood with good public schools, public transportation, and local restaurants.
what i don't get is the repeated threads that essentially say, "hey...we're moving to indy for a good job, safe neighborhoods, affordable housing, low taxes, and etc. but we'd really rather not live around an actual hoosiers. can you think of somewhere we can live where everyone is like us but we can still enjoy the benefits of living in a state like yours? oh....and we're very green people but are willing to drive 4 FREAKING HOURS A DAY to avoid being around you people."
i don't know why but this is post is particularly irksome. you are moving to an area wherein you will be employed by citizens for whom you are showing nothing but disdain.
somehow being a conservative state equals homogeneous. we're all mouth-breathing cretins whose opinions only differ when picking our favorite nascar driver. there's certainly no diversity of thought to be found within conservative circles. we just mutely march forward like saruman’s army.
i get wanting to find something like AA. i just moved here from chicago. we also wanted a good urban neighborhood with good public schools, public transportation, and local restaurants.
what i don't get is the repeated threads that essentially say, "hey...we're moving to indy for a good job, safe neighborhoods, affordable housing, low taxes, and etc. but we'd really rather not live around an actual hoosiers. can you think of somewhere we can live where everyone is like us but we can still enjoy the benefits of living in a state like yours? oh....and we're very green people but are willing to drive 4 FREAKING HOURS A DAY to avoid being around you people."
How is it wrong to want to live in an area where you find more people that share your own similar interests? As a liberal that lives in Indiana, I happen to get sick of conservative ideology being thrown in my face in most parts of the state. Would you really expect a Southern Evangelical Christian to move to downtown San Francisco? I guess I just don't understand your argument.
How is it wrong to want to live in an area where you find more people that share your own similar interests? As a liberal that lives in Indiana, I happen to get sick of conservative ideology being thrown in my face in most parts of the state. Would you really expect a Southern Evangelical Christian to move to downtown San Francisco? I guess I just don't understand your argument.
The point i think he is making is that he might just find he has plenty in common with us hoosiers. I moved here 4 yrs ago from metro detroit and have plenty of friends here. Conservative and liberal friends. Same as in michigan. For the most part it seems most big ten state people are alot alike and they should come in with a open mind. I understand wanting the big college atmosphere and since they are both prof's they are used to that. But Ann Arbor life is not for everyone and has alot of what i would call phony attitude people. I have no idea which way the OP is and his family could be very down to earth. I wish them luck finding the right place for them and if they are just looking for a urban feel then i hope they find it. But if they are looking to stay with thier like minded people then they really need to grow up and get to know people of all ideas if they want to be truely educated. I tend to think its the latter based on the OP posts.
How is it wrong to want to live in an area where you find more people that share your own similar interests? As a liberal that lives in Indiana, I happen to get sick of conservative ideology being thrown in my face in most parts of the state. Would you really expect a Southern Evangelical Christian to move to downtown San Francisco? I guess I just don't understand your argument.
please note that OP didn't say it's too conservative. he said it's homogeneous for him....as if only liberal states have flavor, diversity, and various interesting points of view. once you cross into conservative land....blech. it's all the same vanilla nasty crap that must be avoided at all cost, even though the result of that vanilla crap is a safe, economically viable, and otherwise desirable place i'm locating to.
I think that some of the earlier posters might have exaggerated the commute a bit. I could certainly be wrong, but it seemed like the individuals who were citing a 2hr commute were coming into Indy and not away from it. As someone who lives in Broad Ripple and occasionally commutes to Bloomington, I can tell you that with low traffic (similar to 9:30am), it takes right around 75 minutes to get from the heart of Broad Ripple to the IU Student Union. I would certainly give myself a bit more time to account for parking, accidents, etc... but a 2hr allotment might be a bit strong. I know I am going to sound like a homer, but I believe you can find exactly what you are looking for in the BR/MK/BT area that you've already seen. Strong schools, high walkability, gorgeous homes, and similar family structures.
Out of curiosity, I just mapped the route from College and Broad Ripple Ave (basically the heart of Broad Ripple) to 7th and Woodlawn at IU on three different online mapping sites (mapquest, google, and bing). Estimated drive times ranged from 82 to 92 minutes with traffic. Add on parking and walking time (5-10 minutes?), whatever extra time will be added due to the daily and extended construction converting 37 to I-69, and a daily cushion of maybe 10 minutes to arrive early or allow for extra accidents or weather or whatnot and I'd say leaving the house an hour and 45 minutes before you had to be there seems like a pretty reasonable estimate.
I'm the OP but had to start a new ID because I had trouble logging into prior account.
I apologize if some of my comments struck a reader (or more) as small-minded. I didn't mean to get political on a query about relocating and apologize for taking anyone off track from a friendly discussion about homeownership, schools, walkability, cosmopolitanism (defined especially in terms of international diversity), and commuting.
Since someone raised the issue of my supposed small-mindedness, let me address that.
Here's the thing. My wife and I are eager to start our new jobs and new life in Indiana, but we were (and are) unnerved by things like reading that the majority of Indiana lawmakers are right now seriously pushing an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Do they have nothing more productive to do while getting paid to do the people's business?
These politicians are doing this because a vocal and powerful core of their constituents want them to, obviously. And presumably most of these politicians deeply agree with their constituents (some are probably just deeply cynical and willing to ride the rage of their constituents into re-election). My wife and I have gay friends and colleagues whom we love. Because the academy in American and Canada is, for the most place, a very socially liberal workplace in terms of sexual orientation, that means that gay people in "our world" are not afraid to just be themselves rather than being forced to "pass" as straight, live closeted lives at work and in public, or be made by colleagues to worry over their imminent eternal damnation if they act on their same-sex desires.
My wife also happens to be from Canada where, even among many of the conservative Christians we know, same-sex marriage has been the no-drama law of the nation since 2005--and opposite-sex marriages have suffered no supposed calamitous decline in value or number, despite the loss of exclusivity. We happen to both be Christians and parents of small children. If one of our children discovers that he or she is gay, we will love them and support them and their dreams until our last breaths. The thought that the majority of their fellow adult citizens in Indiana will see them (or their gay friends, or their friends with gay parents) as second-class people unworthy of the many benefits of marriage (spiritual, civil, economic, etc) really breaks our heart. And yes it gives us pause about what we're getting ourselves into. But Indiana is gaining two new religious liberals who will vote their values.
I think in time the homo-panic will ebb and hard-right Christianists in Indiana may choose to fear their unusual neighbors a bit less. And then they might welcome the miracle of love and commitment more. It's happening all around us. Folks can and do debate this point, but to us the proposed anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment in Indiana looks like writing discrimination and second-class citizenship right into the state's Constitution. What else would be the point, since opposite-sex marriages are not (empirically speaking) weakened by same-sex marriage? To us loving same-sex marriages only strengthen the meaning of our own marriage. It's not unlike how the banning of inter-racial marriage expanded the scope of marriage and its loving bonds as a legitimate part of American life.
Indiana didn't end the ban on inter-racial marriage until 1965. Compare its neighbors: Michigan repealed its black/white , anti-miscegenation laws in 1883, Illinois did so in 1874, and Ohio did so in 1887. And now it's moving in the following direction with the potential gay-marriage ban in the Constitution. What's up? Indiana has always been different from the other midwestern states, perhaps because of its less industrialized history and its rural, Southern-derived majority white population, and its predominantly conservative Protestant traditions.
But let's talk about that darn route 37, if you please! When will it be fixed and will those fixes speed things up--or just a lane and 20 more redlights!
Last edited by bilgewater; 01-15-2014 at 02:48 PM..
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