23 year old man looking to move to madison temporarily (Dakota: low income, sublets)

[kavemanrj]

Hello, my name is Kevin. I am looking to move to Madison, Wisconsin from Arizona. I would like some advice on the best place to rent and any general advice that might be helpful of the area. I am moving by myself so I would be completely new to the area and I always like to have friends. If I can make any friends from the Madison area here on this site I would love to talk and have someone that knows the area. You may ask, " why Madison?" but that is what I want to do. I want to know if it would be a good place to make friends because I will need a few after I lose all of the ones I now enjoy. It all sounds odd but it is true. Anyway, I want to move to Madison because I hear that people are friendly there. please help. Any advice is better than none.

[Chelito23]

People are friendly, but it is hard to crack the superficial friendliness and break into a circle of friends. That is actually one of the worst things about Madison, it is actually hard to make friends unless you are involved in the Hippie/political/eco friendly movements. The rest of the people are basically college students in their own world and then "families"....so if you aren't in one of these niches, it is very limiting, but not impossible. I strongly urge you to visit just to see for yourself how the people are beforehand to make sure they are what you expect.

If you are comming regardless, I would say rent a room in a shared apartment and hopefully meet someone that way initially and then you could be in a position where you can relocate to a better location depending on the job you get.

You could live anywhere in the city. In general, cheap rents indicate a bad neighborhood. Madison is nice overall but there are larger areas on the south side that have higher populations of people with low income and increased crime rates. There are also several problematic apartment complexes spread out around the city and the only way to know which ones to avoid are the "cheapest" ones...

Good luck, please visit and share any specifics of your plan for more specific advise.

[DustyButtons]

Originally Posted by Chelito23

People are friendly, but it is hard to crack the superficial friendliness and break into a circle of friends. That is actually one of the worst things about Madison

i have definitely found this to be true as well. madison is really great for a lot of reasons, but moving here without a built-in social construct like school can make it hard.

there are a couple of threads here about the different "vibes" of the east and west sides, but what kind of vibe are you looking for in a neighborhood? young student-y (near campus)? grad student-y (east isthmus, like willy area or atwood area)? med student-y (near west side)? more chain stores and restaurants (west side)? more independent shops and pubs (east side)?

i live in the willy street area and while i have heard it branded "hippie" i don't consider myself to have that label and i love it here. i can walk to everything i want: grocery store, bars, restaurants, about a 20-30 minute walk (15 minute bike ride and 10 on the bus) to the capital...lots of young, hip people live around here. granted there may be a bit more of an "alternative" vibe here in the neighborhood, but i like living in such a vibrant area. you're also sandwiched between the lakes if you live on the isthmus so one is never a far walk or bike ride away.

take a peek at some of the other postings on here about neighborhoods. i like Chelito23s idea of renting a room in a house with other people at first. you're young enough that that is still enjoyable right? ;P it's also a better way to get cheap rent in a nicer place. since there is quite a large student population, there always seem to be sublets and rooms for rent. craiglist and padmapper.com are both good resources.

[cityrover]

after having spent a few days in wi including the madison area, you are destined to die alone unless you were born there. and by there i mean on a farm that everybody else knows.

can i say it's worse than mn? perhaps.

[Chelito23]

Well that is a little over the top. The bottom line is, every place is what you make it to be. Wisconsin may be a hard place to get to know people and break the ice but it certainly isn't impossible either. It is more a matter of how easily someone is able to adapt to different cultural and bahviornal styles in this part of the country.

If someone moves to WI from another area and thinks that the locals are wrong or need to adapt, they will probablly be lonelier on average and have to look to other newbies for friendship...which isn't a bad thing, but that is how it happens a lot in this part of the country.

Knowing this beforehand can save people a lot of strife and culture shock after the move...but painting the area with a depressing image rally exagerates and distorts what won't be an overly serious issue for most people, especially if they can identify with government/politics/ex-hippie/university types.

[Ragnar]

There are plenty of people living in Madison who are not from WI, but I haven't run into too many from the Southwest up here. Perhaps it's the circles in which I roll, but most folks I encounter tend to be from the midwest/Colorado or other countries. So culturally either very similar to Madison or very dissimilar.

You could try living near campus, but you may find that the college scene is not really for you anymore. I was 23 when I moved to Madison and worked near campus. I tried hanging with folks around campus but I quickly found that unless I was around graduate students or other young professionals, I generally didn't fit because I was in a totally different stage of life. Maybe you will adjust differently, but for me it was abundantly clear that it was time for me to move on from the college scene. That was freeing and sorta scary for me all at the same time! But I'm happy to say that I'm from PA and haven't had trouble making friends in Madison.

[kavemanrj]

Thank you for the help guys. I really appreciate it. All I need is a place to stay for a few months in Madison then I would like to move to Toronto, Canada. I am useally a pretty friendly person and I love meeting new people. I couldn't imagine the Madison area being a terrible area to make friends but I am open to advise. I could imagine the college scene being dramatic but not the rest of all Madison. I have never lived in someone else's apartment but I am open to try. I need to move to Madison though as I am using it as a step stone to Toronto. I will look on Craigslist and the other sites for an apartment to stay in but I am quite new to it. I am currently located in North Dakota but will move to Madison from Arizona. Thanks for everyone's input and I will continue to check for new input.