[Ellwood]

Originally Posted by harpoonalt

If I move south, I can afford to pay someone to cut the grass!

Absolutely and I think the best advice for you, you should pack up and move south. Let others who plan to move or live in VT make up their own minds, rather than accept others opinions. What appeals to one doesn't necessarily appeal to another.

PS Our friends who live in SC have to "sweep" the yard for snakes before their grandchildren go out play.

[harpoonalt]

Originally Posted by Ellwood

Absolutely and I think the best advice for you, you should pack up and move south. Let others who plan to move or live in VT make up their own minds, rather than accept others opinions. What appeals to one doesn't necessarily appeal to another.

PS Our friends who live in SC have to "sweep" the yard for snakes before their grandchildren go out play.

I think people deserve to hear the good and bad of somewhere. Vermont isn't all sunshine and roses nor is it the worst state ever as some have portrayed. It could be better and for it's future, needs to change to make a better life for ALL its' residents. If your house has no insulation and drafty windows, do you tell the kids to like it or get out? Or do you stop, listen to the comments and think about what you can do to make it better.
I've defended VT when it deserves defending, but can you honestly say that things couldn't get better? And who makes a major decision like moving to another state without doing some research?

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by Ellwood

Let others who plan to move or live in VT make up their own minds, rather than accept others opinions.

Why the censorship? Aren't they capable of making up their own minds while hearing conflicting opinions?

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Well, actually I'm one of the potential newcomers who looked at City Data to investigate Vermont while I was living in Illinois. We moved here almost 2 years ago. The City Data forum was helpful to me only in the sense that it gave a different feeling about Vermont than about other states. As far as real facts go, due diligence requires checking them out somewhere other than a forum. The city-data.com/city section was useful for that. Threads like this one wouldn't have been very useful to me. I like Vermont a lot and somehow seem to end up defending it here.

I remember your posts--I believe that you were from Evanston, and were also considering Portland, ME?

Interesting that you wound up in Middlebury..

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by MassVt

I remember your posts--I believe that you were from Evanston, and were also considering Portland, ME?

Interesting that you wound up in Middlebury..

Portland, ME was on the list at one point, along with Portland, OR, but my final list included Asheville, NC, Bangor, ME, Brunswick, ME, Burlington, VT, Hanover, NH, and Northampton, MA, along with Middlebury. We're very happy with Middlebury and hope to stay here until we croak. This suits me perfectly, which is not necessarily a recommendation to anyone else. We don't have most of the problems referred to on this thread, which is why I butt in occasionally.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Portland, ME was on the list at one point, along with Portland, OR, but my final list included Asheville, NC, Bangor, ME, Brunswick, ME, Burlington, VT, Hanover, NH, and Northampton, MA, along with Middlebury. We're very happy with Middlebury and hope to stay here until we croak. This suits me perfectly, which is not necessarily a recommendation to anyone else. We don't have most of the problems referred to on this thread, which is why I butt in occasionally.

I know that this is a VT thread, but what exactly was wrong with Evanston? I'm a Chicago buff, and I am curious, since I have considered moving to the Evanston area..

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by MassVt

I know that this is a VT thread, but what exactly was wrong with Evanston? I'm a Chicago buff, and I am curious, since I have considered moving to the Evanston area..

There's nothing wrong with Evanston if you like urban areas. I don't. I also got very tired of the Midwest after living there for 40 years. Culturally Chicago isn't bad, but it doesn't have as much to offer as Manhattan. In retrospect I liked Highland Park and Lake Forest north of Evanston a little better because they were less crowded, but they were snobbier. Evanston is more liberal, and that's why we tried living there for a few years. However, the atmosphere in Evanston isn't much of an improvement. It's about as expensive as the fancier towns. Northwestern is a very highly ranked university, but most of the students seem like ambitious pre-professionals, and there wasn't much of an intellectual atmosphere that I could detect. But Evanston is an OK place to raise kids because it has a more diverse population than the towns to the north.

In the context of all the complaining here, if you want to live in a good neighborhood in Evanston in a small 3-bedroom house on a 1/8 acre lot, be prepared to pay $500,000-$600,000 and $10,000 in property tax. Most of Vermont is a bargain in comparison.

[68vette]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

In the context of all the complaining here, if you want to live in a good neighborhood in Evanston in a small 3-bedroom house on a 1/8 acre lot, be prepared to pay $500,000-$600,000 and $10,000 in property tax. Most of Vermont is a bargain in comparison.

This is very true, but you also need to take incomes into consideration. I'm from Fairfield county, CT. At least at the time I was there, it was the most expensive county in the country to live in, but it was also the wealthiest county in the country. I'm not 100% positive, but I would venture to say Evanston has higher incomes than most of Vermont.

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by 68vette

This is very true, but you also need to take incomes into consideration. I'm from Fairfield county, CT. At least at the time I was there, it was the most expensive county in the country to live in, but it was also the wealthiest county in the country. I'm not 100% positive, but I would venture to say Evanston has higher incomes than most of Vermont.

Yes, the incomes in Evanston are high. It's the first town north of Chicago, so it's one of the oldest suburbs and is in high demand, which drives up prices. People with low incomes often have extremely long commutes from remote suburbs, and you pay a premium for living closer to downtown Chicago.

As I've said before, there isn't enough economic activity in Vermont to make much of a comparison with urban regions. Burlington, the largest city in Vermont, would be 37th largest in Illinois. There are suburbs in Illinois 3 times larger than Burlington. The gross state product of Illinois is $650 billion; Vermont's is $26 billion.

[FrugalYankee]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Vermont has one of the lowest unemployment rates of all states, at 4.1%, while New Hampshire has a 5.7% unemployment rate. Also, since New Hampshire has more than twice the population of Vermont, it makes sense that there would be more jobs there. Both states are bad for manufacturing: Vermont is tied with New Hampshire (and Rhode Island) as the most costly states for manufacturing. Obviously if you lived in a rural part of one state and there was a city across the border, there would be more jobs across the border. The long-term demographic trends look bad for jobs in Vermont, but that's a separate issue. There may be some advantages to living in New Hampshire, but it's misleading to portray Vermont as a dying state that's being ruined by clueless bureaucrats while New Hampshire is a thriving state run by an enlightened pro-business government.

Regarding that 4.1 % unamployment rate, I just found an analysis which puts the low number in a negative light that had not occured to me.

The March unemployment numbers are not an indication of an extremely healthy Vermont labor market. Those 1,100 formerly unemployed Vermonters did not find jobs in March. They left the labor force.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...mployment-rate