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Pimp Yo State:

#41
Northern or western NJ -- There are four seasons, great schools, it's less than an hour from NYC (but it's very rural, including farms, state parks, and very nice suburban neighborhoods), not so much wind, winters have been sparse lately (but we usually get a couple of snow storms a year), BILLIONS of fireflies, and all the off-road action you could ever want.

At first glance, it seems expensive to live in NJ (houses are in the $300,000 - $400,000 range), but salaries are commensurately higher than other places, so it works out about the same. We are NOT a "free state" -- if you're a shooter, we have plenty of ranges, etc., but you cannot carry a weapon in NJ.

All in all, NJ gets a really unjustified bad rap. It's a beautiful state, once you get west of Bergen County. Oh, and there are some beautiful places in South Jersey, too, but I'm not from there, so I'll leave it to the folks from the shore area to pimp their towns.

Oh, and did I mention the beautiful shoreline in the US? Yeah, we've got that, too...

If you can deal with the corrupt government, NJ is a GREAT place to live.

Some pics of Warren County (where I went to college):

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( This is not a recent pic, but it still looks EXACTLY like this: )

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Check this link for more info:

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#42
I live in a semi-rural, but developing, area NW of Austin, TX, by about 40 miles. We live between Leander and Jonestown, in an unincorporated area called Sandy Creek, in Travis County. It is 15 minutes from Lake Travis' North Shore.

1) Nightlife -- You can have as much or as little nightlife as you like. The local places are fun, if you can handle ciggie smoke. Jonestown has the Lone Star Bar, and Lago Vista has Remington's, Deli Werks, and two new venues under construction. Austin has a jillion music venues, and there are plenty scattered around in Round Rock (The Rock Room is beautiful!) and North Austin. We play 'em all! (Austin and Round Rock have smoking ordinances. Most other places do not.)

2) Dull -- Only if one makes it so. You can go to family events in Leander, including movies in the park and outdoor family-friendly music shows. You can take your family fishing or picnicing on the lake, or hiking in the Balcones Preserve. Or you can stay home and tend the garden and watch tv. Whichever you like!

3) We have a three-year-old daughter. I'd like for her to grow up rural. -- Well, there's rural, and then there really rural. Our place has a creek, big oak trees, 1.5 acres of land (some we keep wild, some is cultivated), and good neighbors. We live in a 1,648 sf doublewide. We got the whole thing, land and house, for $70,000.

4) To avoid any politics, I'll just say that "Old-Fashioned" and traditional neighborhoods/states are fine and dandy by me.

If you want a stick-built in a subdivision with decent neighborhoods, you can expect to pay upwards of $150,0000. Or you can go further north, to Liberty Hill or Bertram. In Bertram particularly, you can still find old farm houses affordably. But the schools are not that good. Leander's are better. So are Lago Vista's. Lago is developing fast, but you can still get good deals.

Also, if you don't mind a commute, you can work in Austin. If you can find a job closer, out north, so much the better. Depends on what you do for a living. I work 15 minutes from home. :)

5) I hate the wind. On second thought, I loathe it.

Well...Texas has a lot of wind. And if the wind ain't blowin', that's cause its real, real hot. Our summers are hot...mid-July through mid-September being the worst of it.

6) Snow would be nice, just not 8 feet of it in 2 hours.

We get snow once a year, if we're lucky. But when we do, its awesome, because *everything* shuts down. No school or work for a day or two. A mini-vacation! We will sled on anything that will slide, since we don't have actual sleds. Trashcan lids are a favorite, as are cardboard boxes and boogie boards left over from the previous summer.

7) Fireflies are a huge plus.

If you stay out of the subdivisions, you'll have lots of fireflies. In the subdivisions, they clear-cut the creek beds, and they don't allow enough undergrowth for the fireflies to live. But out where we live, the creek is still natural, and everyone keeps at least a part of their property natural, so they'll have the lovely fireflies.

9) Off-road motorcycles, snowmobiling & 4x4ing is a MUST.

You can do off-road and 4x4 around here...there are places close where you can go. But for snowmobiling...Honey, you'll have to vacation in New Mexico or Colorado. Many snow-loving Texans do exactly that.

Edit: 8) Good schools for the kidlet cuz I dun learnt nuthin, obviously

Leander and Lago Vista both have good schools. I wish I'd put mine in Lago's, though. Smaller district, less of the zero-tolerance b.s.

It is beautiful here, wind notwithstanding. Hills, lakes, trees, wildlife. And near enough to the city to find work and be able to get things and have places to go out. Lots of work for bass players, too. ;)

Cherie :)
 
#44
wilser said:
I currently live in fairfax, but it sounds to me like your ideal place would be:

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA
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+1

I lived in Charlotteville for 4 years while I went to college at UVa. A lot of my freinds stuck around after graduating, and I kind of wish I had done the same. My brother just moved back there after living in San Francisco.

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#45
1) Nightlife is not important.
2) In fact it can be down-right dull as far as I'm concerned.
3) We have a three-year-old daughter. I'd like for her to grow up rural.
4) To avoid any politics, I'll just say that "Old-Fashioned" and traditional neighborhoods/states are fine and dandy by me.
5) I hate the wind. On second thought, I loathe it.
6) Snow would be nice, just not 8 feet of it in 2 hours.
7) Fireflies are a huge plus.
9) Off-road motorcycles, snowmobiling & 4x4ing is a MUST.

1) there is night life, just not on par with NY or Chicago. (Bars close at 2am)


3) It depends on where you go. I grew up in Grand Rapids (Big small town) My wife is from northern LP Very Rural.

4) lots and lots of Dutch Christian Reformed folks. And some parts of town I won't go to after dark.

5) In land it's not too bad wind wise, but the beach is always windy. They say in Michigan you are never more than six miles from a lake, river, or stream. We have more coastline than any other state in the union.

6) We average 6 feet of snowfall a year. (Not all at once) It does get to be about -12 a couple of days a year.

7) oh yeah, lots of fire flies.

9) all that stuff, in season.

Not a lot of sunlight, but we do have access to 20% of all the fresh water in the world.

All in all, I like it. Except for that whole unemployment rate thing.

C'mon out. We'll party!!
 
#46
I live in a small town outside of Omaha, Nebraska called Papillion. Money magazine rated it one of the top 20 places (it was like #11 I think?) to live.

OctoberMooN said:
1) Nightlife is not important.
2) In fact it can be down-right dull as far as I'm concerned.
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Things deffinately move at a slower pace here. Not like "Down south slow" but no ones killing each other trying to get ahead. There are things to do if you head into Omaha, but for the most part it's pretty chill. There's a ton of money in this town so it's always very clean and safe. We've got all the amenities of a larger town with all the 'small town' charm I guess you'd call it. Living expenses are very reasonable...especially compared to what you're used to.

OctoberMooN said:
3) We have a three-year-old daughter. I'd like for her to grow up rural.
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To the North is Omaha, but to the south is all dirt road and farm land. Property values are starting to get really hot, but it's still managable. $150k will get you a beautiful home. $250k will get you a large beautiful home. A couple hundred will also get you a couple acres. The wide open rural spaces are something that my wife and I love.

OctoberMooN said:
4) To avoid any politics, I'll just say that "Old-Fashioned" and traditional neighborhoods/states are fine and dandy by me.
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It's a very conservative area/state.

OctoberMooN said:
5) I hate the wind. On second thought, I loathe it.
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Only time that's an issue is during spring "tornado" time. :smug:

OctoberMooN said:
6) Snow would be nice, just not 8 feet of it in 2 hours.
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Then you would have hated this past winter. We get the extreme of all weather conditions here, but it's only once every 4 or 5 years that we get any kind of silly snow fall amounts.

OctoberMooN said:
7) Fireflies are a huge plus.
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Got 'em. That's actually one of the things I love about sitting on my back deck in the summer time. The farm across the street from my house looks like a firefly orgy during the summer.

OctoberMooN said:
8) Good schools for the kidlet cuz I dun learnt nuthin, obviously!
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Check.

OctoberMooN said:
9) Off-road motorcycles, snowmobiling & 4x4ing is a MUST.
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Like I said, there are a ton of open spaces to the south of town. In fact, there's a small field that I used to take my old hotrodded Bronco for some 4x4ing. What a blast :D
 
#49
Some links for my area:

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http://www.jonestown.org/ (I love Jonestown. We play there, eat there, our favorite ice house/beer joint is there...we live just off Nameless Road. Very cool homes, old-fashioned neighborhoods. If I bought a regular house, it'd be in Jonestown.)

http://www.lagovista.org/ (I have a lot of friends in Lago, and I work in Lago. It is a beautiful town. More expensive than Jonestown, but very nice.)

Lake Travis is in a chain of lakes called The Highland Lakes. Beautiful country, lots of things to do!

http://www.highlandlakes.net/

My region: Aw dangit, that link didn't work. Here's another: This one works: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Water authority and state parks:

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Texas has, like, eleventy-jillion parks and other places for outdoor stuff.

And its real purdy, too!

Cherie :)

P.S. Oh yeah! I almost forgot. You'd be right up the road from that city a few miles to the south that is teeming with live music. ;)
 
#53
ADbassman said:
Missouri:

1)Nightlife - Maybe in Saint Louis or Kansas City. Even then, not much to speak of.
2)Dull - Check.
3)Rural - Check.
4)Old-Fashioned - Kinda, moreso in the rural areas.
5)Wind - Not too windy
6)Snow - We tend to get a fair amount of snow, but the apocolyptic levels are few and far between.
7)Fireflies - Check.
8)???
9)Off roading thingies - I see more of this in the rural areas. We get snow, but I usually don't see many snow mobiles out. I live in a more urban area though.
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He speaks the truth. I am 35 miles or so south of St.Louis, and there is a nightlife, kinda, I guess, but I have to be drug into that sewer, kicking and screaming. K.C. is just as F'ed up. I spend most of my time in the woods, on the river, or in the music room. There's a lot of RURAL beauty in this state, that's why I'm still here. Never heard of Marceline so it's probably fanfreakintastic.
 
#54
I'll focus on Simsbury, the town I grew up in, but I can talk about Connecticut in general.


1) Nightlife is not important.

Nightlife would usually revolve around the bar/club scenes in the cities of Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Norwalk, etc. Nothing too special, although we do have Toad's Place in New Haven which gets some pretty good shows.

2) In fact it can be down-right dull as far as I'm concerned.

There's a reason my town is nicknamed "Simsboring". A lot of teens hate it here because there is nothing much to do. Most stores close at 9 pm, no sale of alcohol after 8 or on sundays (state law),

3) We have a three-year-old daughter. I'd like for her to grow up rural.

My town is a nice mix of suburb/rural. We have some very nice homes, a few farms, a town center which is very rich in Colonial history, and not many sidewalks. Population is about 24,000, so not too big, not too small.

The rest of CT is pretty varied. To the northwest you have the Litchfield hills, which is VERY rural, in the north-central area you have towns like Simsbury, Avon, and Granby, which are a nice mix of suburban and rural, with Hartford as the metro anchor. Eastern side of the state close to Rhode Island is also fairly rural, with Willimantic as the anchor city.

Southwest CT is known as "the Gold Coast" or "Litchfield County", the only area in the state that is referred to by county. CT does not officially recognize counties as a form of government, so there are no sheriffs/county executives etc, everything is administered either at the state or the local level. Litchfield County is one of the wealthiest areas of the country, and is considered to be more of a suburb of NYC than a part of New England. Very, very affluent, old money area with tons of mansions, yachts, and country clubs.

Southcentral CT has New Haven and its surrounding communities, with working class towns like West Haven, as well as a few small affluent communities.

Southeastern CT on the shoreline are mostly fishing/sea-going towns like Old Saybrook and Lyme, and contains the Native American reservations and the casinos.


4) To avoid any politics, I'll just say that "Old-Fashioned" and traditional neighborhoods/states are fine and dandy by me.

Connecticut is considered a Democratic state, although the rural areas are definitely very Republican. Generally, I find the state as a whole to be pretty moderate, politically speaking. Socioeconomically speaking, CT is pretty divided. The cities are very poor and rundown, while the smaller communities are generally very affluent.

5) I hate the wind. On second thought, I loathe it.

Not too much wind up where I live. More windy in the southern part of the state though, but that could just be because my college is built on a hill.

6) Snow would be nice, just not 8 feet of it in 2 hours.

Depends, some years we get a lot, some almost none at all. In general though, it usually snows between a few inches to a foot in most storms.

7) Fireflies are a huge plus.

Quite a lot in the summertime.

9) Off-road motorcycles, snowmobiling & 4x4ing is a MUST.

A lot of the rural towns have open fields that just sprawl on for miles. One of my buddies is an avid ATV/dirtbike enthusiast and goes quite often.
 
#56
bassturtle said:
Anyone here from Asheville NC? I love where I live, but if I was going anywhere else, it'd be Asheville. It's a beautiful looking area and the acoustic music scene seems awesome.
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Hit Wolfbass up, he's in Ashvegas. Very hip place, but also a bit "eclectic", if you follow me (mind you, I like that...).

I'm going to put in a word for another part of NC, the Piedmont Triad area.

Nightlife: Some, if you want to find it, enough to keep you busy in bar bands, but not crazy stuff like the "big cities".

Dull: Not mind-numbingly so. You can be interested if you like, plenty of "culture" (there are 5 major colleges/universities IN Greensboro), but plenty of stuff to do 'round the house too if you're a stay-at-home.

Rural: Go 15 minutes outside Greensboro and it's rolling hills, trees, and the occasional farm. My boss lives on about 15 acres not 20 minutes from the shop, nothing but farms and large acre "estates" around him. They don't farm, but they do keep horses. Plenty of "rural" here, without being podunk.

"Old-Fashioned"?: Uh...remember who the US Senator from NC used to be? :D

Wind: Just enough to be pleasant most of the time, but not stifling lack thereof. Rarely we get gusty days, but they never get "Santa Ana"-like.

Snow: I've been told that once every 5-10 years they get a pretty good hit, but in the two winters I've been here, nothing to be concerned about, maybe 2-3 inches in a day a few times. Now, the one ice storm we had two winters ago, that SUCKED, but it was gone by the afternoon.

Fireflies: Yup, we got 'em. My first experience with them was right here in NC. Beautiful critters.

Offroad activites: Yup, plenty of opportunity for that. I lean more toward bicycling, but definitely lots of motorized off-roading here as well.

Bonuses:

The beaches are incredible (but windy, ask the Wright brothers!), and just 2-3 hours away to the east.

The mountains are AMAZING and just 2-3 hours to the west.

Traffic??? What is that? (I moved here from Orlando, this place is commuter's DREAM). I've never taken more than 15 minutes to get ANYWHERE in Greensboro since I moved here. Never. :D

Oh, and the best part - Greensboro, NC is the home of Roscoe Guitars.

:hyper:
 
#57
saratoga springs, new york.

amazing town....one of the most fun summer locations i ahve ever encountered. only a 3 hour drive to nyc. beautiful countryside outside of the actual city fo saratoga. we get about 2 feet of snow tops in the winter. a short drive to albany...the capital of ny. just a beautiful place to live and to raise children(or for children to be raised in my experience as a 22 year old).
 
#59
Alright, Olympia, WA.

You're placed in the middle of Portland, OR and Seattle, WA. So if you want a night life, they're in a stones throw from your home.

Great public schools. The weather sucks, but hey, if you don't mind rain, it's great! We get a great summer here, about 80, really no humidity.

Rock Candy Mountain is about 10 minutes away, tons of dirtbiking/atv-ing, etc. We also have Crystal mountain, and we're close enough to canada to call it good.

Our downtown is a nice place, filled with small businesses, coffeeshops, and neat buildings.

Barely any wind.

Rarely snows however, but you do have Crystal Mountain, so there we go. You also have White Pass, Stevens Pass, etc all within a few hours.
 

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