Living in north suburbs and commute to Muncie?

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by jarcolem

Ivory, no disrespect intended here, but I just can't get on board with that statement...

Pro Sports? The ability to consistently see national touring musical acts in venues ranging from stadiums to 50 seat jazz clubs? High End shopping? Ethnic Restaurants from across the globe? A world class children's museum? The IMA? The ISO? The Zoo? The Cultural Trail? A bike share? Italian Fest? Greek Fest? Irish Fest? The IMS and all that May brings with it? The excitement of hosting large scale events (Superbowl, Final Fours, GenCon, etc)? About 3,000 restaurants (both excellent local ones and many national chains)? A neighborhood like Fountain Square? A neighborhood like Mass Ave? Even a neighborhood like Broad Ripple (and please don't say Dill Street, because I'm not just talking about a concentration of bars)? Public schools on Par with Hamilton Co? Or what if they're Catholic and wanted a Catholic High School? I'm sure I could make this list longer if I wanted. Point is, metro Indy puts that all at your disposal with relative ease. Muncie does not. Muncie might have a version of some of these things (a small Children's museum, if i'm not mistaken), but it would pale in comparison to Indy's "comparable other".

True, many people don't go out on weeknights, but it is nice to have the ability to do so should the situation dictate it. For example; My daughter LOVES Disney Princesses right now. A few months back, Disney on Ice came through on like a Wednesday night. It was nothing to grab her from daycare, drive 15 minutes to Bankers Life, watch her have one of the best nights of her life, and then have her home and in bed by like 9:00. It's just one small situation, and perhaps nothing the OP would ever take advantage of, but that could not have happened in Muncie. In terms of diluting everything down to it's least common denominator, you could probably make the argument that Muncie has anything that could be found anywhere (i.e. Muncie has restaurants, and bars, and so does anywhere), but the issue is really one of quality and volume of offerings, both of which Indy/Hamilton Co would rank almost incalculably higher than Muncie. If you had the opportunity to have a nice night out and felt like steak, would you rather go to Texas Roadhouse on McGalliard or St. Elmo's? I can't stress enough that there is NOTHING wrong with Muncie, but to say it has generally the same things as Indianapolis is, frankly, kind of absurd. You're talking about a metro of roughly 2 million vs a town with like 80,000. It's just a much different scale.

I didn't take offense....I didn't say "all", I said "most". "All" and "most" are not the same thing. What I should have said, is "most anything in the world a person ***needs***, can be found in Muncie".
I was mainly talking about restaraunts and bars and stores, bowling alleys, good medical care, walking trails, gyms, box stores, Lowe's, Best Buy, WalMart, car lots, movie theaters, etc. The kind of stores and business that people visit several times during the week.

I know Indianapolis has more fun entertaining things to do than Muncie. Entertainment is not a necessity. I've said for a long time that Indianapolis is Muncie on steroids.

If my job was in Muncie, and I had season tickets to the Colts and Pacer games, if I went to music venues at least once or twice a week, and go out to eat in a fancy restaurant every week, if I went out 3 or 4 nights a week partying and having fun, it would make sense to move to Indianapolis.

But the reality would be, I maybe go to 1, 2 or 3 Colt games a season, go to a Pacers games maybe 4 times during a season, might go to a music concert two or 3 times a year, go to the zoo once or twice a year.

If my job is in Muncie, it's just to easy to get to Indy from Muncie that it's hard to justify moving to Indianapolis for the entertainment benefits, no more than I would use them. It's an easy 45 minutes to an hour drive to Indianapolis as long as there is no wrecks on the highway or no weather disaster events.

[Serious Conversation]

It really boils down to what that person wants on a daily basis. With that said, if they're living in Hamilton County, it's still a haul back to downtown if they want to go to events down there.