I’m an engineering manager at a fully remote US company with long-term plans to stay (and even if not, no desire to return to the office regularly). I don’t drive but like to walk to the supermarket and restaurants. My wife doesn’t like living in a big city, so we’re in the burbs within walking distance of a little “downtown” area.
It’s a bit of an unhappy medium because the homes we want still cost $1M, yet it’s a long and limited walk. Plus we’re ready for something new. We’d likely both be happier in a town, living just off some Main Street with 20 or so shops. The city is great but honestly I don’t need more than a good diner, a supermarket, and a friendly bar. Nice to haves are a pleasant climate (not too cold), an airport within an hour or so, and decent public schools.
I’m asking here because I hear so much about NYC/SF tech workers being set loose by remote work and leaving. I’ve experienced this with colleagues relocating to SC, Lancaster PA, small towns in Maryland… etc.
Any ideas on whether this mid-sized town dream exists, ideas for cities, and/or how we’d go about finding it?
The one town you mention, Lancaster, PA, is a model of the type.
However, a lot of people move to college towns and don't realize/remember what college kids are like... they will be noisy at night, sometimes destroy property, throw parties, do stupid pranks... it isn't for everybody
I live in a college town -- mid sized city in the shadow of a major university in the Midwest. It has everything the OP wants, walking distance to supermarket and shops, easy to get around by bike, enough of an economy thanks to the university and hospitals.
College towns often have plenty of live music coming through with regularity, art, people with more open minds? (I don't mean to start a debate with the last point, just my preference perhaps.)
Lawrence works too because you're 30 or 45 minutes from a big city (Kansas City) so you can get your REI or IKEA on if you need to.
Lincoln, Nebraska is another near me (although I have not lived there) that is within 45 minutes of Omaha.
Had lunch in Iowa City and it looked comparable. An afternoon in Columbia, Missouri and it looked appealing as well.
Living ~1hr from ATL was also a luxury - you fly direct everywhere on Delta.
Columbia is also nice, but a little more spread out. Ames IA, Tulsa, Champaign-Urbana, Ann Arbor…
Another college town I like is Eugene, or Ellensberg. Flagstaff maybe? Depends on your climate, look for colleges with maybe 10k-ish students? Another one that I can't stand because of the weather is Champagne Urbana. 10 minute drive out from town, and you're in farmland.
Another benefit is access to cultural benefits that wouldn’t normally be available, like great libraries and concerts and orchestras (often free). Check out Pullman, WA as another example.
This is pretty much the only answer for the US. Small independent towns have ceased to exist because they have no reason to. But the legacy of land grant universities across the US has left plenty of towns like Gainesville, Ames, Athens, Boulder, Asheville, Chattanooga, Eugene, Laramie, College Station, etc. etc. that are fantastic places to live and have strong real estate markets.
Not sure that the real estate is going to be all that cheap, though.
It's true that housing isn't cheap. The difference is what you get for the cost. What I paid for my house in Ann Arbor would buy a house in Austin—but it would be a run-down, dated, small house without much in walking distance and a "who knows?" school assignment. Here in a "nicer college town," we live on more than an acre just outside town, still have top notch schools, and my wife's commute to her job at the hospital is only 10 minutes. (Far from the partying students mentioned earlier.)
Housing values are also a little more stable—a sudden tech downturn could strand you underwater in that Austin house. It takes a lot more to sap demand for housing in a university community, especially one with a big teaching hospital system. Add to that the value of a town having a demonstrated track record of caring about its schools. That doesn't grow on trees.
I guess, yes: housing prices are high. Certainly when you compare to towns like the one where I grew up. But if you compare to urban areas and high-end suburbs, then the value-for-money trade is way better, even in really nice college towns.
FWIW, I loved Iowa City when we were looking, and that probably would have been an even better money-for-value trade. Wife is a medical resident, so we were picking based on more than just lifestyle, and landed in Michigan.
Not a college town but also in California are Sacramento, Ventura, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly but I wouldn’t say college town), and San Diego (UCSD but not a college town). The latter three are beach towns if you like temperate climate. Sac doesn’t get too cold but it does get very hot. All have nice downtowns (depending on what you want) and don’t require a car.
You’ll have CA high taxes and real estate probably cost double or triple what it would in the mid-West but a fraction of LA or Bay Area.
State College PA is a college town.
Lancaster is just a nice small city with a few colleges in it.
Lancaster is much larger than either, though different cities have varying land areas they count. Lancaster is also the seat of its same named county.
I look at 'college town' as defining somewhere where school(s) are located, and the population count of 18-24 makes up almost 50% of the population. Newark, DE (University of Delaware) and Bloomsburg, PA (Bloomsburg U) seem to fit that better.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster,_Pennsylvania#Econom...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_College,_Pennsylvania#Ec...
In contrast: Lancaster City has ~60,000 population, F&M employs ~1100 [0] and F&M has 2400 students. That accounts for 5% of the population during the school year and <2% of the population permanently.
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/school/franklin-&-marshall-college/
So even if there are schools there the feel is more young adult than college student.
But yeah, what poor college students trying to get a start on life and grad students making pocket change really need is some 400k/year tech workers to flood into their town, say “wow! Only 2500 a month!” and make it impossible to live anywhere.
Also, dorms are insanely expensive. And wanting to be near noisy, drunk, high college kids as an unaffiliated adult is honestly just weird.
Moving somewhere because you like the scenery, the food, whatever is fine. Moving there because there’s a college while you’re 15 years out of college is just strange.
Another thing to keep in mind is that, on average, students living on campus have higher GPAs, are less likely to drop out, are more likely to finish on time, feel a greater sense of social belonging, and are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities. Those benefits need to be factored in as well. There have been a number of studies about this, here's a summary of one of them: https://studentlife.uoregon.edu/student-success-and-housing-....
When it comes to meal plans, if you have your own kitchen then yes, you definitely CAN eat cheaper, but I don't know many college students who actually spend much time planning their meals, buying in bulk, and actually cooking the majority of their meals from scratch. Realistically they end up eating a lot of frozen dinners and eating out - especially for lunch when they're on campus anyway. When I look at the school I went to, their unlimited meal plan ends up costing about $9/meal on average, which is a lot, but that's 3 hot meals a day, all you can eat, and you don't have to spend time buying the ingredients, cooking the food, and cleaning up after yourself.
The ones that don't kill themselves, sure. There's also a higher rate of suicide, alcoholism, reported sexual assaults by both sexes, drug use, etc. but those statistics don't make it to pamphlets for obvious reasons. Living on-campus is more of an amplifier of opportunities and failures. It expands the range of scenarios; it doesn't raise the floor for everyone. If you're already successful and can handle yourself, you'll benefit from the proximity of those opportunities while residing on or close too a college campus. If you're an emotional wreck or don't know your own values (which describes many people in college), then anything aside from sheer force of will would won't be of much help and living on campus may interfere with that.
You're right about cooking, at least in my experience, but you have to take a first step sometime. I grew up in the 90s with two working parents who kept different hours, and didn't learn to cook until my late 20s. But I think people's priorities are shifting, especially now that wfh is more normal.
That's news to me. The university charged me three times as much as I ended up paying off campus later (in a much better location).
15 years ago, dorm costs were >$1100/mo, and rent was $550 where I lived, 10 minutes from the university.
My observation, fwiw, is that the American small town, self-sufficient and independent from a neighboring city, is a dying breed.
Not all small towns will die the same way or on the same schedule. But here are some things to think about.
- Is there a tourist draw? Do short-term rentals address this opportunity? Every vacation rental is a unit unavailable to the local salaried population and where we live this cannibalizes the fabric of the small town.
- Is the local industry durable? That could be a university, it could be timber, it could be a BMW factory 90 minutes away, it could be a fishing fleet. Where we live the local industry will be eradicated in our lifetime due to climate change. And the state university system is retracting, not growing.
- Do the local schools suffer under-enrollment? Where we live they do not, but neighboring towns have so many retirees and houses turned into short-term rentals that the schools are threatened.
In short, the internet means there are no undiscovered places, and the economics can undermine what makes a place special in the first place. Add to that some places are going to be significantly impacted by global warming.
Today we live in a sort of paradise but we are aware that it may not be our forever home, if such a thing exists.
Some are, some aren't. I'm more than willing to share my story but I did my research before I left Austin for the Hill Country and couldn't be happier.
I researched every town and county between Brenham and Junction for about 18 months, studying publicly available data as well as traveling to the towns to see them for myself. I tried to introduce myself to the locals, asking them about the town and their businesses. Sometimes I would call the sheriff's office or school district to ask them questions about the community. I would walk into rural hospitals and start talking to staff about their facility and services they offered.
I moved to San Saba in 2018 and then bought a second house in Lampasas in 2021. These towns are northwest of Austin, at the northern tip of what's known as the Texas Hill Country.
San Saba is more remote, more pristine. The population density is three people per square mile and there are two traffic lights in the entire county. The downtown has been revitalized over the past decade and the local ISP is very forward-thinking, offering gigabit fiber.
Lampasas is closer to Austin (an hour away), has a hospital and definitely has bit more bustle than San Saba, but nothing like the congestion one experiences in Austin.
The people out here are incredibly neighborly and hospitable, with a live-and-let-live ethos. They do not like to be preached at or lectured by outsiders, so respecting their way of doing things is of paramount importance. I've been very successful by attending city council meetings, joining volunteer organizations, teaching classes myself in the library on weekends, things like that. Figuring out how things work and contributing as best I can without being too loud about it. People will appreciate you if you can do that.
It's important that one be fairly self-sufficient when moving to an area like where I live. For example, I had to tear my house apart in San Saba to fix some structural issues caused by water penetration leading to rotten wood in the structure. Working with the contractors was definitely a learning experience and something I never want to do again. But you have to be able to figure out things like that if you live out here.
The peace and quiet, the pristine environment, the quality of life, the low crime and great community, these are all things I wouldn't trade for a spotted hog. It's not for everyone, but after living in Austin for 24 years, I much prefer it here now.
The water situation is important, but that's part of one's research responsibilities. That's why I struck Llano from my list, for example. Their municipal water supply is the Llano River, which did dry up during the 2011 drought.
However, San Saba has the San Saba-Ellenburger aquifer underfoot which will never be stressed at current draw rates from the 6000 people who live in San Saba County. And the Hickory Water Conservation District which covers 55% of the county prevents that water from being removed from the district. San Saba is like the Garden of Eden in Texas due to the abundant and secure water resources. Drought literally doesn't affect us.
These are all things which are discoverable using publicly available data.
Honestly... It's kind of great. The people are nice, the scenery is gorgeous, it's pretty quiet, and most everything you need is right in town. Since the community is so poor, all the housing is cheap. Nearby towns are all bought up as second homes for expats. Everything outside town is an old farm.
The worst thing about the place is it's a minimum 2 hour drive to anywhere, and having a car is mandatory to get here. But if you have everything you need, there's no need to leave. There is no Uber/Lyft/Instacart/GrubHub, don't expect any startups here. Cell service outside of towns is mostly nonexistent. Also know that none of your old friends will ever visit because it's way too inconvenient.
The only things I miss are "big city" things and more people around into the same things I'm into. And an international airport would be nice, but it's not like I was flying around the world every weekend before.
My town actually has an E.R. and urgent care. We have a CVS in town too (my town has a lot of stuff!!). There are also medical taxis (there are no regular taxis here) and private hire ambulances that'll take you if you need a different hospital.
Typically you get the number of the closest general doc to you, and make good friends with your neighbors, so somebody can drive you to a hospital right away if you cut your leg off in the middle of the night. Could be a long way off or right around the corner, it depends.
The biggest thing I never anticipated? Car parts. My brakes went and rather than bring it to the local mechanics I tried to fix it myself. Walk into town takes about 40 minutes, getting the right parts took weeks.
Power also went in the spring due to freezing rain bringing down trees. Cell signal went, along with power and internet, and my water well's pump is electric; heat is propane but the damn heater's thermostat went, probably electric too. So being prepared to be off-grid once a year is useful.
Have you ever tried to find the rear brake caliper housing assembly bolt for a 2nd gen Scion xB? Not the slide pins or bracket bolts, the housing assembly that holds the whole caliper onto the wheel. Nobody sells it, you have to get it from a dealership, who's 2 hours away and ships via USPS (there is no way to get there without a car). They then screw up which part it is because nobody ever orders this bolt and the parts diagrams don't label it well. So you wait for a different part to be shipped again. All after getting the normal brake parts shipped and trying to install them which took a week on its own. So about 3+ weeks.
(If you have a second car you could maybe go around hardware stores looking for an identical bolt, but even then the steel and threads may be different, as different bolts have different torque specs due to whether that bolt's threads are supposed to stretch or not in order to bind. These bolts are very low torque even though they are for a caliper assembly)
Something to think hard about before you embark on your small town life journey.
For starters, the number of times that myself or either of my former or current spouses has felt the need to seek out a vendor of medications at 0300 has been...zero. That said, and I don't mean to be trite, you deal with it by living like you live 2 hours from an ER. Know your first aid, make doubly sure to keep those fingers away from that table saw (and even that won't likely kill you before you get to the ER). That, and just don't obsess over it. People have lived far away from emergency medical care for many years. Sometimes they die as a result. Sometimes people die driving to the ER that's right down the street. But me and my house, just because a hospital could be close to home doesn't mean it has to be.
(Says the guy smack in the middle of Redmond, WA within a long walk to the ER...or a five minute drive. That hasn't always been the case, however.)
we have SMHS hospital which is a superspeciality/emergency, around 3 Km away is JVC hospital which also has an emergency and another 5 Km away is soura hospital which is the biggest hospital in the area, again, has emergency wards.
then we have some smaller, privately owned hospitals in the city itself so that is where people get treated.
I say that because I know when I met my wife (who was used to the Chinese medical system) she was used to a hospital being the be-all end-all of medical care and very frustrated with the level of service she received... until I introduced her to the clinics and other places she should have been going to have most things treated.
If you're taking yourself to a hospital here without some sort of referral from a doctor you're generally entering through the emergency department which is set up to treat emergencies. Things that will kill you in short order. If I go in for "medication" and it isn't a situation like "I've run out of my life-saving medication and I need a dose to get me through to morning." I'm probably just gonna spend the night sitting in the waiting room. Likely longer. It'd be like putting a P5 ticket in for a team whose responsibility is dealing with P1/P2 tickets. You're gonna be waiting a while for the other higher priority issues to slow down long enough for them to catch up and run out of things to do. If you're lucky they might sneak you in sooner just to avoid blowing the P5 SLA, but even that will only happen if they're _mostly_ caught up on P1/P2 issues.
If it's immediately life-threatening, I call an ambulance. They're about 5-10 minutes away. Not the best, but that means I can get someone with a moderate amount of medical training focused on "keeping you alive" to me in about 10 minutes. If it can't wait until morning but isn't going to kill me in the next hour, I can drive or be driven the 45 minutes to the hospital.
Anything else (like getting medication to treat a condition) I'd just wait until morning and see a normal doctor at the closer clinic. They can provide basic diagnosis and treatment, and there's a pharmacy nearby that can dispense any medications they prescribe.
Be healthy. Also be able to survive a 60 minute wait and ambulance ride to the nearest hospital. I'm totally serious, unfortunately. Locals tend to look healthier for a reason.
And if so, why not get it from a pharmacy?
Where is that, just curious? I can't think of any place with three major hospitals within a mile or less?
In Oakland: Kaiser and Summit ERs are about half a mile from each other and UCSF Children's Hospital is about 1.5 miles away.
Lower Manhattan: Mt Sinai Beth Israel and Bellevue are about a mile away and there's a VA hospital with an ER next to Bellevue.
In Chicago: UI and county are 0.6 miles away by car and Rush is on the other side about 0.4 miles away. UI actually calls this the "Illinois Medical District".
In Seattle: Swedish First Hill and Virginia Mason are 0.4 miles apart. Kindred's right there too but doesn't have an emergency department. UW Harborview does have an ED and is 0.4 miles in the other direction.
Did you just happen to know all of these hospitals... then you used Google Maps to show distance? You are like the Ken Jennings of hospitals!
Houston has the largest medical center in the world with ~10 including Texas Children's Hospital, the largest children's hospital in the world (or at least it was a couple of years ago).
3 of the 4 are Harvard Medical School affiliated and our outstanding hospitals.
There are 10 regions of NY State. According to NYCers, literally the entire state outside of the Hudson Valley is "upstate" - you could live an hour from Cleveland,OH or an hour from Montreal,BC , and both are "upstate". So it helps to be more specific when suggesting a place in NY.
Pros
ConsAnother native Carolinian chiming in here (from NC, but similar).
These people are friendly if you "pass" as one of them. Be white, wear a trucker cap, don't dress up too fancy, use a southern accent (or at least, don't talk too pretty), don't be gay, don't say a damn thing about politics or religion. Don't drive a Prius or something. You're good to go. If you are careful enough they might even occasionally start confiding in you, and expect you to agree with them, about their casually racist views. If you reach this point, you can get by with just not saying anything, and the conversation will usually evolve to other less difficult matters.
You can violate these rules, of course, but you need to be able to "pass" by compensating in other ways. So if you do wear a suit and drive a Tesla, you could make up for it if you have a good southern accent or go to church or proudly espouse your conservative values in some other way (carry a sidearm, maybe).
Also, my people will sometimes act nice to you even if they hate you. If you're here a while you will learn to recognize it. Southern "hospitality" is incredibly superficial - there's a thin veneer. If you don't look too closely, and you don't care too much about what they really think of you (because really, they're mostly harmless - unless you need something from them), you will be OK.
... unless you have kids. Please don't send kids to public schools in the rural white south if you or they are even vaguely progressive.
"Bless your heart"
From my point of view you just described the left.
Dressing in a suit and tie is not a rarity in the south or rural areas. Being gay isn't some attribute that qualifies for special treatment just because of your sexual preference. Politics also isn't some defining feature, and is WAY too publicized in today's culture. Why does it matter what someone's political view points are? Does that make them less than you, and are they really racist or is it because you don't agree? Because conservatives think democrats are racist for implying POCs aren't capable of doing things themselves. Maybe southern hospitality is superficial in some southerners but at least its some kind of hospitality, have you been to any major city? They'll let you bleed out before calling for help.
I really do want to emphasize how polite rural people can be to your face while shit talking you behind your back, though. The idyllic and friendly "country folk" lifestyle is really bullshit. I grew up in such a community and we would smile and "yes sir" all day long to people's faces then talk total trash about them the second they walk away.
If you don't look too close and you don't care to make friends with them, you won't notice. Some fancy city liberal who moves in and minds their own business is unlikely to have any direct conflict, while still eliciting a massive amount of gossip and vitriol "under the hood."
An introverted HN programmer, working from home and staying out of the way, may only ever notice the good. But if you really want to be "part of" a community like this - as in, having real friends there - you will see a different side of things.
That's what they mean, I'd assume.
In Seattle there was an attitude called K.B.O. which stands for Keep the Bastards Out. It mostly means when talking to outsiders, you should complain about the rain so they don't get any ideas about moving there.
We need to develop a KBO for the Carolinas. Greenville has an absolutely disgusting downtown, with an ugly gross river going through it and a rickety pedestrian bridge that is bound to kill someone. The tech industry is absolutely drying up and I'm getting ready to become a hog farmer.
Big /s
You might still be a liberal but the type of liberal that lives in, say rural New England is vastly different than a California liberal. They are going to be much more practical. Demonizing cars like you might in a big city makes no sense in a place that will never get public transportation. Social services, especially things like public housing aren’t high on list of needs or wants. Public (K-12) education is a majority of tax dollars, for cultural reasons and a stigma against people who are uneducated. And so on. Different parts of the USA will have totally different value systems.
But yes, right on, 20 or so shops, walkable downtown with houses an easy walk away, a few good restaurants (including a great diner! :) and at least two friendly bars. Good internet connection if you're in town. I don't get in my car for weeks at a time---and that's probably your hardest item, because anywhere between "pretty small town" and "sizeable city with good public transit" living without a car (in the US) is going to be very very difficult. (Even in a place like Farmville, you don't need the car around town but you'll need it to get out of town.)
ETA: I see from your profile you're in DC now. Come visit! We're only 3 hours away ;)
One thing I would suggest is that if you're moving, bear in mind that climate change is making some previously pleasant places much more unpleasant. Look at recent years of fire data, flood data, air quality from smoke, drought, heat, etc.
And finally, make sure the place you're moving to is going to have ample, clean fresh water, and no other environmental problems looming. Don't move to Vegas. Don't move to Salt Lake City. Don't move anywhere that is going to lose power if Lake Mead or Lake Powell dry up.
You can search EWG for your prospective towns. Be aware that many, many towns in the US have way higher PFAS / PFOA / etc. than you probably want. Many have very high levels of other contaminants as well. Some whole-house filters can filter that out but they're expensive.
Here's the EWG report for a sample California town: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=CA0110009
Search "town name + superfund". Search "town name" + "pollution". Search "town name" + {various natural disasters}. Search "town name" + "smoke". Search "town name" + "smell". Search "town name" + "water."
Go visit everywhere that's on your short list. Ask people about the town.
Good luck!
Of course, but you should figure out what specifically you're looking for beyond what you've described.
Do you care about tax implications? Are you planning to rent or own a home? Do you have friends or family in any of these areas?
If you haven't traveled much I'd recommend doing it.
This is the most accurate map breaking down regions in the United States in my opinion: https://i.redd.it/q79o3qo8zz991.png
Just for reference, here is a 'cleaner' version that most people like: https://i.redd.it/y4pxyq5eslh51.png
> ... and/or how we’d go about finding it
Others in this thread have some good search ideas but personally I'd start at the top and narrow it down from there.
If you go to https://www.naco.org/ and click on `county explorer` you can filter the map on a county level across a bunch of different dimensions.
I'd definitely limit your choice to places with high internet speeds, good education, growing population, high scoring infrastructure, etc.
Just keep pruning down until you find a few you think you'd like.
> ideas for cities
I could list dozens but maybe check out: Beaver, PA; Mason, MI; Wilson, NC; College Station, TX; Macomb, IL
Assuming your wife is willing to drive some then: Longview, WA; Castle Dale, UT; Wisconsin Rapids, WI;
How much do you care about: - climate - schools - transportation - proximity to a big city - red state / blue state / purple state - time zone Etc etc etc.
Be more specific in thinking about the details of what you want, along as many dimensions as possible.
Not so for Muleshoe, Texas.
If you're from the east coast, you might find the perfect physical scene in Oregon. But be prepared that west coasters are different from you, potentially in important ways that affect your ability to find a sense of belonging. Ditto if you're from California and looking at Georgia. Northerners and southerners, of course, look sideways at each other for lots of political and cultural reasons, but there are plenty of reasons to feel like you do or don't belong in a culture that aren't historically, culturally, or racially charged.
Most functioning communities consider themselves to have "good schools." Do you share their bar for that? "Good" for what?
Important questions. Climate isn't he only thing that varies by region. If you don't know the regional culture in an area that interests you, go stay a while.
(I've lived in the Pacific Northwest, both urban and rural California, both urban and rural Texas, Chicago, and New England, and spent substantial time in NYC and the Deep South. Trust me. It's not all the same.)
> But be prepared that west coasters are different from you, potentially in important ways that affect your ability to find a sense of belonging.
Can you elaborate on this point?
Dress and Appearance - follows suit. The west coast has very little sense of "dressing for the occasion." Things like neck tattoos and large earrings are more common. I've been to things like polo matches and crew races on the east coast. Showing those pictures to friends in the west sometimes prompts outright laughter. They can't be _serious_, can they?
Conversation - east coasters name drop constantly. Especially rich ones, who feel they have lots of names to drop. But all of them, really. West coasters are more inclined to discuss land and the environment at length. (Politically, sure. But mostly just... experientially.) Lots of outdoor hobbies, yes. But more than that, too. My wife has a running joke that every time she encounters my family in a new place, at least one conversation ensues about which way is North, and how we know. She can't really play, doesn't see a reason to figure it out, and presumes that naturally all civilized places have their roads on a grid anyway. (Chicago native.)
This is, of course, an exercise in stereotyping. There are exceptions everywhere. But culture is also real and self-reinforcing, so the exceptions are just that—exceptions, not fully-baked countercultures, especially in small towns. There's a sliver of New York in San Francisco. But there isn't a sliver of New York in Bakersfield, just a few random guys wondering why they can't, for the life of them, get a decent bagel.
I also don't mean to say there's some rank list of better and worse cultures. I've definitely been places I wouldn't want to go back to (howdy, west Texas) but that's subjective, to a point at least.
Totally fair about the selection for east coast blue bloods, though. Here's my subjectivity: I left my home in Idaho at age 15 and went to one of New England's oldest boarding schools. (and I've been hopscotching these regional lines ever since.) I've spent other time on the east coast, too, but that definitely formed my early notions of it.
While I don't entirely disagree, and this is just my observations, if you pick the neighborhood/town with the best schools within the larger metro area, you tend to get a decent amount of transplants living there. It is the average/below average towns that have the people who have always lived there.
You say that you just need a bar and a supermarket, but you've probably never lived in, like, Brady, TX or Cuba, NM. Stuff gets small fast, though those are cheap places to live. You can buy amazing houses in defunct oilfeild towns like Pampa, TX. But really, if you have a heart attack there you're in for about an hour drive to get to definitive care.
What you would do is load all of the data as layers in QGIS, then, probably starting with house listings that met your criteria, select all homes that were within X miles/meters to stuff like
- grocery store
- hospital
- lake
- bar
- climbing spot/bike trails/hiking
- etc etc etc what ever you want for criteria
Hardest part would be hunting down all the data and some geocoding would probably be involved (there would probably be several data sources that you would have to convert from list of addresses to lat/long points) but there are enough free geocoding services out there that this wouldn’t be tough at all.
All in all could probably be done in an afternoon or two for someone familiar with tech but a newbie to QGIS
Where exactly did you end up?
Ended up buying a house in one of those towns that we had passed through on vacation. Within walking distance of everything we need. It's much cheaper than the big city, or even a suburb near a big city.
There are restaurants and bars sure, I would ask myself if you actually need 'shopping'
Personally I highly prefer to buy only HQ products which I can look into from my couch other than buying whatever the store has in stock.
From what I know similar concepts are getting more usual in surrounding countries as well. It's honestly my favourite way to shop, I just take my pony mofa and drive to 2-3 fridges.
The entire town felt propped up by the existence of a single military base.
So not sure how valid that map is anymore.
I'm currently living in Carson City, it has some walkable (older) areas of town but not great. You could try Walla Walla, WA or Baker City, OR.
I found one that seemed too good to be true. a 220,000 sqft metal warehouse and office complex on 17 acres. I thought the price was a typo at $375k.The agent assured me that the price was correct, and I flew out to see the place.
It was in a little town called Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
I offered about 3/4 what they were asking, and they accepted the offer.
Fast forward 2 1/2 years, and I've had nothing but problems. Break in after break in. Can't work through the red tape with the city so my warehouse sits empty. It feels like they are actively working against myself and other entrepreneurs I talk to. At least 2 others who bought buildings and tried to open businesses left after getting nowhere.
Maybe I'm daft, but I ended up buying about 75 more properties here... all surprisingly cheap.
The town is killing me though. I haven't seen my kids very much lately - I don't think it's safe enough for them. I'm probably going to be moving back to Utah in the next couple of months because it's just too much out here.
Clearly something is very wrong with the local government and population.
Is this how local residents feel? I find this sentiment rather confusing. Rural places tend to be distrustful of central government. Meaning, they are happy to be ignored by “the rest of the country” since those outsiders don’t share their values.
It takes a lot of outreach to get anyone to trust the system, if they have a flexible enough situation to go. Most people just don't see education being a solution, so they aren't going to jump out on a shaky limb in the hopes it might catch them. Better the devil you know.
This hasn’t really been true for a while. Much of the quasi-libertarian stuff comes out of the conservative intellectual crowd, think tanks, lobbying groups etc. Some of it was also a holdover from the Reagan era, which was the last big right-wing populist movement, before Trump showed up.
It’s the anti-immigration, pro-manufacturing stuff that really comes out of rural areas. Stuff that creates jobs and cuts down on wage-dilution. If the Trump years were about anything, they were about the right collectively deciding they wanted an industrial policy and pro-labor (not pro-union, mind you) policy, instead of warmed over economic libertarianism.
The absence of data != no activity.
> White (non-Hispanic) 7,284 17.66%
> Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 31,744 76.95%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Bluff,_Arkansas#Demograph...
Pine Bluff had 29 homicides in 2021. Pine Bluff had 23 murders in 2020 - a rate of 56.5 murders per 100,000 people. The national average was 6.5 murders per 100,000 people in 2020.
As of July 29, in 2022 there have been 17 homicides reported in Pine Bluff.
You have the kind of money to casually buy up all this real estate, but you still went bargain-hunting for a warehouse? This reads like some kind of LARP or joke.
Buying the others was honestly WAY, WAY, WAY cheaper than you'd expect. I almost didn't feel like I had a choice it was so cheap. Spent about $130k at a tax auction to get them all.
It almost feels like land is the only thing they can't steal around here.
(Clay Davis has entered the chat)
Have you considered selling?
You might try Jonesboro, Fort Smith, or Hot Springs if you're looking for cheap nearby places. North Little Rock or someplace in NW Arkansas too would have more nearby amenities, albeit at higher (though still quite affordable nationally) prices.
I'm guessing the town wants him to do very basic stuff to get the property up to code, and he doesn't want to. Anther person pointed out in a comment that comment chain OPs twitter had posts about about holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration. To me it sounds like OP knew absolutely nothing about commercial real-estate, absolutely nothing about local laws, and plopped down a bunch of money on a property without doing some homework.
You do realize between his comments here, and a cursory look at his Twitter, he's told about 57 tall tales too many, right? If it was such a bad experience, why did he go on to buy an alleged SEVENTY-FIVE more properties there for starters?
Because the bulk, if not all, of this is probably entirely made up.
I mean, the guy claims he's developed a fusion reactor, all by himself apparently, for crying out loud. https://twitter.com/pontifier/status/1488959967235219458
https://www.actdatascout.com/RealProperty/Arkansas/Jefferson
And see the property I bought and what I paid for it.
You can find out more about my fusion reactor at http://www.DDproFusion.com
My YouTube has tons of videos of my experiences here. http://YouTube.com/pontifier
I even started recording all my interactions with city zoning at https://murfie.com/dist/list.html
You can accuse me of being a lot of things... Oblivious, overoptimistic, naive... maybe even incompetent or delusional. But I am not a liar.
I can back up everything with evidence.
Stranger than fiction
It looks like he wants to but the city won't let him. e.g. https://twitter.com/pontifier/status/1534754382885052417
Dealing with the government on things like this can be EXTREMELY frustrating especially if you're not used to running in those circles. Its a lot of things to learn and the people involved assume you know everything and when you get difficult they have a million ways to make your life more annoying.
I literally already have a city water connection and it's costing me a hundred bucks a month just to sit there unused because I can't get the permits to fix the plumbing... So what would you do in that situation?
You got a great bargain, now these expenses are the price of doing business.
Im not offering advice... but I see this often.
My biggest fear/hope about that is that my life could suddenly become boring once the cameras started rolling. I'm not sure which one would be worse.
Did you buy the warehouse sight unseen? Did you do any research on the local community and crime rates?
Cheap land is cheap for a reason. It sounds like you found out the reason that land was so cheap.
If you think about this from the perspective of the city council, there was this big warehouse that they thought was perfect for a company like Amazon, which would have given them hundreds of jobs. Instead, a random rich guy buys it and employs nobody.
I see nothing wrong with the fact that he's having trouble doing what he wants, he probably isn't coming close to remotely following proper procedure and clearly lacks experience, as he stated that he could barely even afford the first property - a 220k square foot warehouse he bought with apparently no business and no experience owning warehouses.
Given it's a town of 40k people, I doubt there's rampant corruption and more OP just doesn't have any idea how anything works at all. If any of his statements are true, this guy needs to stop what he's doing and learn how to adult.
If you're going to refurb a giant warehouse to be a fireworks storage facility, that's different from building a daycare, which is different from "run an internet company and makerspace", etc.
Given his history includes free-energy crap (his own fusion reactor design) and running for Mayor of Provo, UT on a platform of disincorporating the city, I would guess the problem is that this guy is a libertarian and thus thinks rules don't apply to him.
Personally the most interesting question I haven’t seen asked is how he searched for cheap properties.
[1] https://youtu.be/EwievpEnXrE
[2] https://youtube.com/c/AndrewCamarata
Just before I closed on the warehouse, I reached out to the Megabots people to see if they wanted to move Megabots here, but didn't get a reply. The overhead cranes and large open interior spaces give opportunities not available anywhere else.
I literally had living spaces for artist and entrepreneurs on my original proposal, and I was hoping that it would become a destination makerspace where big names could come and access the amazing workshop I was planning to set up.
I was also planning to build a permanent robot combat arena here too, kind of like what they built in Norwalk.
My full proposal is here: https://www.murfie.com/dist/serendipic.pdf
I mean, is it unreasonable for the city to expect new drawings/specs for a new use of a building that has been unmaintained for at least 15 years? The fact that the property was sold for such a cheap price basically implies that the new owner should expect to invest a substantial amount of money to get everything up to code.
> Fenley said he selected the site because it was “the largest cheapest building in the country.” When he searched the commercial real estate website LoopNet for properties over 65,000 square feet and sorted by price, he thought the price tag of roughly $300,000 was a typo. The 17-acre industrial property was once home to steel manufacturer Varco Pruden but has stood vacant for at least 15 years and “fallen into disrepair,” according to the city’s Planning Commision.
> Pine Bluff City Attorney Althea Scott told the Cap Times by email that the Planning Commission had approved Fenley’s plans for the site in June, contingent on compliance with building and fire codes. But, she wrote, “the applicable codes can only be determined once Mr. Fenley has submitted the requisite engineer/architectural drawing(s) which identifies the anticipated use and occupancy of the structure. To date, required drawings have not been received.”
> Fenley told the Cap Times that such drawings would cost “tens of thousands of dollars,” and his communications with the city have led him to believe that he would need to bring the entire structure into compliance with current building codes before he could use any of it.
Additional context about Murfie; seems like it was sold for a huge discount: nearly a million CDs sold for less than $10,000. No wonder u/pontifier saw an entrepreneurial opportunity:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/5/21121594/crossies-murfie-m...
> Finally, after about a month, Murfie’s investors agreed to sell. Fenley purchased Murfie for only $6,000 plus $2,000 for Murfie’s attorney’s fees, according to the agreement obtained by The Verge. In total, he says the endeavor has cost him about $25,000 so far.
> Murfie’s 930,000 discs are still sitting in its Wisconsin warehouse. No one’s been inside since the landlord changed the locks some time ago, but Fenley says he’ll have access “shortly.”
You know this now, but most crime databases have Pine Bluff as one of the most crime-riddles metros in the country. It rates a "1" on a scale of 100, with 100 being best (safest). Bummer.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ar/pine-bluff/crime
Is there a tool that can do that, or did you piece together data from multiple sources?
I've heard most of the commercial real estate that's publicly listed is just the deals that the pros have already passed on.
Or go a level above local government and get some bigger guns?
Having grown up in a small idyllic town, there was beauty in the slow struggle to live there.
OP would do well to try and learn the culture before seeking to change it. There’s value beyond “cheaper houses” and “craft beer” in these places.
Coincidentally the novel/film Winter’s Bone author portrayed this area, north Arkansas and southern Missouri.
https://stownpodcast.org/
How does one do this in such a way that it's welcomed by people who already make their home there?
(I can imagine a lot of ways this could go work out badly, but don't immediately know a good approach.)
Directly or not. If you're a rich person moving into a poor town, the only way to not piss off the locals is to make them richer. If you can make the whole town richer, you'll be welcomed. Whatever portion of the locals that you don't make richer will hate you. If you don't want to piss off the locals, and you don't want to employ the locals, this is a very expensive plan.
Small town starts to tax a family for the commercial water line in a general store that closed in the 60's, that happens to be on the property, because, small town. Family has visions of a B&B, vineyard, wedding venue. Everything down the drain in the end, because lawyers are expensive.
Still there to this day: worn out stencil on the window of the 'general store'. "Sorry, we closed in 1968".
The tax was imposed to get the family out of the town, and it worked - the family is not rich. In the end, they had to sell their family home (which had been in the family since the 1930's) and leave (which they did).
They were taxed out because the family is notoriously progressive, and the town is very much the opposite. There was cultural friction. Keep in mind that this was 20 years ago. These were very polite 60's era hippies, all college-edumacated and everything - and the (very small, very tight) town didn't want them in it.
The town hall imposed a (crazy) tax, and they had to leave.
Depending on where you are, some value preserving a local culture over 'getting richer'.
If you have the money and influence to "gentrify" somewhere... just build a new planned community in the middle of nowhere. The US has plenty of nowhere.
Because people are leaving in droves, only old people there are dying off, kids moved to better places, and the economy is dead?
> If you have the money and influence to "gentrify" somewhere... just build a new planned community in the middle of nowhere. The US has plenty of nowhere.
Seems like a waste of resources. The US has had countless migrations within its borders during its existence. Why should we force people not to settle in places with dire economic circumstances and almost no future without outside influx?
Not necessarily. You could buy a house that's empty.
What active behavior are we actually talking about? Making the place nicer? I feel like there's got to be actual some breathing room between "savior of the murder capital Pine Bluff" and "big bad real estate investor gentrifying people out of their homes."
So unlike places with very high rents but also where it seems like 3/4 of all buildings are rented out, most people in Pine Bluff would be objectively better off if rents doubled overnight with corresponding increases to the economy and local services.
To be blunt, if you're renting you have no claim to the property or lodging beyond the term of the lease. That's the entire point. I do believe human beings have a right to housing, but you do not have the right to live in someone else's house if they don't want you there.
[0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/pinebluffcityarkansas
Nobody gets removed, they just have to leave. It's a subtle distinction but that's how it happens. Poor people don't own anything. Their furniture is mostly stacks of junk that is so bad that it would be hard or impossible to get someone to accept it for free (this is very nearly a tautology, since the poor person got this furniture for free to begin with, and it's was so bad when they got it that nobody else would give anything for it). They rent. At some point property values are high enough the landlord (or his heir) decides to sell. At the end of the lease, the property is no longer for rent. That's the end of it. However, keep in mind that poor people tend to move every few years regardless. They are right on the edge of falling out of the population of working people who are self sufficient, so it is very common that they end up being evicted, abusing drugs or alcohol (even if just for awhile), or just having too many kids to be able to afford childcare so they can keep working to support themselves. Properties no longer being for rent in some neighborhood has almost no effect on any given poor person who lived in that neighborhood as they are one step above transient anyway.
This isn't an apology, it's just a more accurate description of what happens, I've seen it first hand from the low prestige side of things when I was young.
And while an accurate depiction of how this affects the people who were barely hanging on in the first place, there is a later step, where people who /have/ been renting all their lives in one area find themselves unable to continue to pay rent. You're not necessarily a homeowner if you're not at constant risk of homelessness.
I've seen this while squatting; our neighbours were people who had lived in the same community for 70 years, and their option once the landlord had decided to tear the building down and replace it with "luxury apartments" was far away from everyone they had known all their lives. There were several similar stories in the area.
I think if you make renting someone an apartment a lifelong obligation to provide them with housing at approximately that cost then only a fool would ever rent out an apartment. The supply of apartments to rent would go to approximately 0. One strange consequence of this would be that the price of housing would plummet as a result as all the landlords left the market. When you went to buy a condo, instead of competing with landlords and money launderers you would only be bidding against other people who want to live in the apartment. I saw this first hand at the GHI housing co-op in Maryland, buying a unit there was dramatically below market cost because they did not allow anyone to live in units apart from owners.
As for thinking from an economic perspective, I think anything else is doomed to fail. Unless we think about how people will behave to maximize their own outcomes in some system we risk making things much worse (even if we do think it through we still risk making things much worse, but at least we will have more confidence that we are doing the right thing). Socialist states are a great example of this, they plow ahead on the moral high ground (at least in their moral system) and manage to make their citizens poorer.
Sounds like a sure plan to get your tires slashed, if not your head bashed.
Hard pass no matter what the price.
Taken on I62 on the drive into Harrison.
1. https://twitter.com/pontifier/status/1559001472746098693?s=2...
2. https://twitter.com/oriwa_/status/1559042188608405505?s=21&t...
and
https://twitter.com/pontifier/status/1538230779658002432?s=2...
3. https://www.bensforbars.com
This is a perfect example of someone telling the truth in such a way to completely mischaracterize what really happened.
I’m sorry that you didn’t like my factual summary of events, but I provided direct references that were very easy to click on and read more about and I’m glad that you availed yourself to those resources.
You obviously feel very strongly about pontifier and his past, given the amount of time you spent digging into his background, what is the point you are actually trying to make here? Be as direct as possible, please :)
I did not spend much time “digging into his background”, I clicked a link and read a few posts.
Why do you care? Be as direct as possible, please :)
:-(
So, we always want to help - I mean, FFS - people who develop tech/sw/hw/etc are actually looking at giving the fruits of their efforts out to the world, social support is no different...
But at times quick to help without judging the requestor past (HELLO PAC contributions :-))
As for the weird threat of embarrassment… what? I literally just asked if he used the same username on both websites.
As for why I asked, I’ll answer again: his post on HN had a different tone from his posts on the bird site, and I wanted to know if they gave context to his post or were unrelated. For example, I do not own “braingenious” on twitter, and I wouldn’t want someone to mix me up with whoever that is.
I initially found this thread because someone mentioned it on Twitter. Spoiler: I did not go out of my way to gain any information.
As for how this relates to politics, I’ll refer to his own recent post about local politics affecting his project.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32474436
This has been a courtesy post because you have not answered “Why do you care?” and have failed to be direct. I will not engage with you any further.
Always a losing strategy in my experience.
I invite you to not read questions directed at people other than you if you find them to be obnoxious.
No, why would I?
the guy confronted him and held him there until the authorities arrived.
are you implying people should not protect their livelihood and let trespassers loot even if they could stop them?
why should those property owners who are fully in the right morally and legally do that when the trespassers are flagrantly breaking the law?
Seems no different than crime stoppers, it's usually just a reward for information leading to an arrest, it's not an actual bounty. It's not excluding that, but he's most likely hoping someone who knows the person who stole it will rat for the money.
And I think you'll have to provide examples of the "terrible outcomes caused by private vigilanteism".
None of this negates anything I said previously.
I feel for this guy. He is getting screwed by a high-violence region. But his approach to solving this problem makes the world worse, not better.
A criminal came to his private property and attempted to steal. He was able to keep the person there - for less than ten minutes - until that person was arrested. Presumably that person is in jail now or at least on probation.
Please explain how just letting this person steal leaves the world better than having him get punished for his actions. When victims of crime shrug their shoulders and just say "aw shucks" it incentivizes more crime, which makes the world objectively worse.
What is the alternative? Paying people to track down criminals is how law enforcement works almost everywhere.
did i get that right
At the same time, he is trying to build a fusion generator, a science museum, an industrial space, and a few internet businesses that seem to need a secure facility. The planning commission probably has no idea what to do with him, and it doesn't sound like he is employing very many people from the local community. If I were on that city council, I would also be skeptical of the rich guy who bought a warehouse to play around but not actually run any serious business.
Between that and the tweet whining about how hard email is to set up (!) this dude isn't qualified to run a Subway franchise, certainly not multiple internet companies.
- Yup, the free energy fonts and conspiratorial claims about video of his fusion reactor being suppressed
- It looks like he bought a bunch of people's property for pennies on the dollar, then raised funds from those same people to return their goods to them, then had them trucked across the country in shipping containers to be dropped at this derelict 'warehouse'.
- He claims to be solo creating a viable fusion reactor, which appears to be one of the umpteen intended uses of this warehouse
- Wonders why the town council isn't trying to help him, when in one of his own tweets admits that he didn't even bother to attend the meeting that was going to hear his issue.
- Thinks snipers are stealing from him.
- Apparently held a man at gunpoint
- Alleges, openly on the internet, that he's storing all sorts of valuable equipment and music media at this warehouse while admitting he isn't even in the state a good chunk of the time
- Tried to run for mayor of Provo, UT (population 117k) so he could "disincorporate the city"
- the whole benforbars thing
- Complaining about the inability to install minecraft on anything other than a linux machine (?)
- Various email/server complaints
Yeahhhh
It feels like looking at myself in a fun-house mirror. There are probably huge pieces of these events that I'm not communicating well, or at all.
Thank you for your comment. I'll try to be better at communicating the meanings I intend.
Why can't I use it? Because the city won't let me.
I'm not the only one. This guy, Garland Trice, had his building demolished by the city because he failed to repair it. Why did he fail to repair it? Because the city would not give him permits.
It's SO RIDICULOUS here!
They've closed down the movie theater because they wanted to bring in their own theater. They drove a crypto mining facility away. They ran a tire recycler out of town...
If I hired 50 people, what would they do with no place to work?
Politics in small towns is about relationships. You need to build them if you want to build anything else. There's a reason you got this building for a deep discount: it's going to cost you a lot of time to get anything done. You didn't pay a lot of money for this building, and that was for a reason: you're going to have to pay in other resources.
Alternatively, if you're going to yell, you need to back it up with some persuasion. In this case, legal threats from actual lawyers (no pulling a C&D letter off the internet and changing a few things - you need your threats to be legit). That is going to get expensive very quickly, but it may work - small towns don't have a lot of legal resources and neither do their residents. The guy whose building got demolished for not doing disallowed repairs probably has a big payout waiting if he sues.
...
We can get a sense of where people like to live based on where they are leaving and where they are going. Of the five fastest-growing cities in America by absolute numbers, one is governed by a Democrat, one by an Independent, and three by Republicans:
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/fastest-...
Of the top 10 fastest-growing states, 7 out of 10 are governed by Republicans:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/these-are...
http://www.whovotesformayor.org/compare
explain why people think progressive mayors are crazy.
A small percentage of mostly older people vote for most mayors.
If more people vote, younger views get represented.
Seems like one of the best things he could do to improve his town, is to encourage people to vote and be represented.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-i...
Edit: I know it breaks etiquette to complain about downvotes, but this comment is not just material fact, it's my everyday lived reality. It's not safe to walk outside at night anymore on my block thanks to underfunded police and permissive progressive judges. I hear gunshots that I never heard before. The open drug use problem's getting worse, and schools have gotten way more dangerous for kids. Someone got stabbed on my street this weekend. The political cause and effect are clear. If that annoys you, bite me.
Because if you really just want a home, a supermarket, a few local restaurants, a bar, a few shops, and an airport within an hour drive, some New Jersey areas come to mind.
But these aren't likely to be dream towns. They will have flaws. Almost certainly will has less walkability than any city you may live in, unless you live on, and never leave, the main strip. There will be less variety in foods, the bar culture you imagine may not be the bar culture that is actually there.
Housing costs are higher, but probably not the $1M you mention unless you really want to go overboard.
Walk to the store, city bus is free, great place to raise kids, bike paths and trails, and you're out of town into the woods or farm fields in 15 minutes of driving. 1 hour to the coast, or 1 hour to the mountains. University as well as HP, NuScale, and other smaller companies.
People that come here can definitely turn into lifers.
The city also has "Da vinici days" in the summer which is great.
Had a friend with parents who lived there and a mentor too.
There is a fair amount of suburb-type housing I didn't really like, but there are also little hippie areas and cool spots in the hills.
OSU also has the Open Source Lab, a notable non-profit.
Go beavs.
Pendleton has an annual round-up that's been running for 100-odd years. Not a reason to live there necessarily, but just in case anybody's in the area and hadn't heard of it.
Pendleton also has cheap housing, fiber internet, and a decent craft brewery http://prodigalsonbrewery.com/ .
https://www.makemymove.com/
I think this site will even contact cities for you that don't have incentive programs.
Another advantage of these city programs is you're part of a cohort of relocaters - so you always have people sharing the newcomer experience with you.
This doesn't seem like most small towns would work. Cars become required outside cities in my experience, and small towns mean lots of long drives for basic things.
Pretty much everything from residentials to main street is 1 mile away.
I can walk across my entire town in 30 minutes, almost fully on sidewalks, the few streets with no side walks have no traffic.
Usually there's one main road through town and it doesn't go far, neighborhoods are on each side.
Personally I've found small towns much more walkable than cities contrary to HN anecdotes.
The city with more stuff is 20 minutes away, less time then you'll sit in traffic in the city going a few miles to the same thing.
So less time commuting than in the city and I prefer the privacy of driving over public transportation. I hate people, especially crowds.
Most people aren't going to drive for just a few miles though, surely. I'd just cycle or take one of the busses that arrive every 6 minutes. Although this is purely hypothetical, because I already have access to everything I need within walking distance.
It's a bad faith argument. You've claimed that it takes much longer to get somewhere, but only when you take the inefficient route. Ok sure, you have some special needs that means you must take the car, but this is not a problem you can claim most people would face.
The bikes are the minority vs cars sitting in the roads and all the full streets / lots, but the bike riders are generally the worst offenders on the street.
Most city public transportation is sub-par quality and safety wise. I don't mind public transportation in some countries to an extent, but not in US cities.
The bus is super slow with all the stops and you can't exactly load it up with stuff, bikes are inconvenient because I'm most likely getting groceries for the next two weeks, or it's raining, etc.
You don't have to have special needs for a bike to be impractical a lot of the time.
Anyways, your idea of small towns is quite off and generalizing, we'll leave it at that.
My idea of small towns is based on well designed towns in central Europe. Almost everything you talk about here are problems from poorly planned suburbs, and have nothing to do with actual towns/cities.
> bikes are inconvenient because I'm most likely getting groceries for the next two weeks, or it's raining
If you can't realistically walk to a supermarket to buy groceries and carry them home, then your town is not a functional town. A lightweight rain jacket is very cheap.
> The bus is super slow with all the stops
The bus is faster in busy traffic, because the bus has dedicated lanes and routes that are not legal for cars to drive in. There are no personal cars allowed in our town center, you need to drive around the outside and find parking which is always less convenient than the bus.
> Most city public transportation is sub-par quality and safety wise.
Again, this sounds like a massive failing of infrastructure. I find busses are clean, cheap, and as safe as walking down the street.
I have a car, I understand they are sometimes necessary and that there are things which unfortunately are not possible without them right now. But for making short distance journeys on a day to day basis in your own town or city? That just shouldn't ever make sense.
That was one example where it would be less practical than a car, cat litter or anything heavy is not practical for a bike either. Rain or other bad weather, etc.
Either way none of this has anything to do with the small town / city comparison, either can be navigated by bikes.
Towns may even be easier to navigate by bike because there's generally one main road, a bunch of residential, and many less cars.
The programs are generally designed to bring people into rural areas, you need to pay close attention to make sure there is sufficient internet for you to work remotely. Places like Frontier top out at 1.5mbps, a little further down the road your internet might be line of sight wireless. Then inexplicably the other side of a hill might be top of the line cable internet. You can’t really trust the web sites, they need to come out and confirm an address can be serviced at the speed you need (without you paying them $10,000+ to run cable)
Oh! Your employer might need to be registered with the state so they can submit your withholdings. You should verify with your HR department which states they can support.
Which kinda leads into my suggestion--find somewhere that has at least two options for internet if you can. Confirm by calling the companies--they can usually see if they've provided service to that address before and have access to more accurate and up-to-date information than any of the web systems. Then sign up for two connections. You won't really know for sure until you use it whether the speeds are what they're selling, whether it's reliable or is going out every time it rains, etc.
Particularly if your plan involves some sort of WISP, coverage is very location dependent and you don't really know for sure until it's installed and operational whether or not they're going to provide you service. If they show up and start setting gear up and the signal's too bad, they may just pack up and yell "sorry!" out the window as they take off down the driveway.
When I moved I had bog-slow DSL and fixed LTE installed the same day to make sure I'd have internet for work the following Monday. I had to fail over from the LTE to the DSL a few times over the next few months, but it was _generally_ reliable. Once my Starlink order came through I ran three connections for another few months and finally dropped the DSL.
Personally the dual connections is a 100% requirement for me. The internet is how I make money. Missing one day of work because I have no internet would set me back enough to pay for something like 10 months of that shitty DSL. It's not the place I'm taking risks, especially when the cost to mitigate it may be spending $10-30k to have someone run a connection out or _having to sell a house and move_.
There are lots of houses downtown for less than $400K and even new "luxury" condos going up everywhere. There is a convenient train that can have you in Philly in an hour for <$20. (also goes to NY) You can be in Baltimore and DC in a few hours and you can be in the Poconos for skiing in the same time. There is the oldest continuously operating farmer's market downtown. (and tons outside the city) There is a thriving art scene (and college). There are tons of ethnic restaurants (there are a lot of relief and refugee orgs). You can be at the beach in two or three hours (depending which one). There are tons of outlets for shopping east of town if that's your thing. There is very little traffic except for 3 specific bottlenecks that you'll learn to avoid. There is a thriving tech community with several weekly meetups that discuss new tech at a local bar.
Come live with the cool kids.
(Source: I live in Lancaster and there is no place better net net)
I imagine you have other factors like distance from family, area of the country, weather, proximity to mountains/beach/parks/major metro for things to do, etc. so those should narrow down what states. Then go on a mini vacation and explore or work remotely from where you’re exploring.
Why? This sounds (especially given the two specific states named) more like an impression from partisan media than practical advice. Those two states do indeed happen to have comparatively high tax burden and metro areas with high real estate costs. But the relationship isn't well correlated. Maine and Minnesota are "high tax" states with cheap housing, and Alaska has (IIRC) the lowest tax burden but wildly higher cost of living. Similarly Miami has low tax and outrageous real estate, etc...
(Also recognize that state and local taxes make up a comparatively small share of an individual's tax burden in the US, anyway. The difference in total tax between NY and TN is something like 20% if I'm doing the math right)
I said “like” I didn’t do an analysis of 50 states and tax rates. I think it would be common sense if someone was looking to move anywhere in the US to consider taxes and avoid places that were high. Similarly consider 0 income tax states like TX, NV or FL too (I’m sure there are others, those I know off top of my noggin), all things being equal if you net an extra 5-8% per year of a Tech company Eng Mgr salary that could be $10-15k more per year.
You can find data on states by total tax burden (which, sure, is going to depend on your particular assets and flows being taxed). It's not nearly as big a differentiator as you seem to think it is (especially, again, since it's quite minor compared with your federal liabilities), and I worry about the sources that might have informed your opinion.
Nonsense. The difference can easily be 10% of gross income.
Tax burden estimates are also really bad for tech workers making mid-six figures.
Texas may take an extra $10,000 in property taxes on a million dollar house. But New York State + City will take an extra 10% of your gross income.
Sales tax varies by state and city. But if you’re a tech employee you should be both saving a significant portion of your income and living in home that costs a smaller portion of your income than most people.
The use of "easily" is maybe a bit spun, that's at the outer edge of the distribution (e.g. moving from NY to TN, Seattle to Cleveland might net you quite a bit less). But sure, that's about right. A 10% change in income is really worth an unqualified "avoid these states" recommendation to you? That seems unjustified to me.
(Especially since employers already know this. 10% is in fact more than the penalty I already "pay" simply for living outside the Bay Area myself!)
10% of a Tech company Eng Mgr salary could be 20-30k gross or more. All other factors being equal, this could be a deciding factor. Its one thing to look into, but I'm not the one looking so if I were, I would do more research than my anecdotal data and things I know currently. The other end of this is to find out from their employer if they will force a pay reduction because SF might get a "location bump" in salary.
I don't think anyone is qualified to know the tax laws of 50 states inclusive of the county/city/school taxes. Its a suggestion to the OP to factor in the tax burden of wherever they have narrowed their search. My main point was they could pick nearly anywhere in the US to get what they want, there are lots of small towns outside mid-sized cities that give you a main street feel.
What you said upthread was "Avoid high tax states like NY and CA", which is quite different advice, and I think pretty questionable.
Is CA distorted by its funky property tax cap system? If so its position in that list may not matter for anyone looking at a new purchase.
what relationship are you inferring? Some states simply have higher tax burdens than others.
The town that inspired Andy Griffith’s Mayberry is in the mountains of NC (or maybe it was VA). Stuff like that is all over the place here.
As for me, I chose a small, walkable town that isn’t too far from Greenville, SC (which is itself considered to be a small, walkable town by some folks).
You don't want to end up in a coastal city just to find yourself under 1m of water in a few years!
Until a hurricane hits
In small towns, people are very nosy, and it gets incredibly tiring after a while. People stare at you and look you up and down. Except, when it's a college town, because they're used to having strangers around.
Especially now being a real estate agent (which in itself is a story of the changes that come with small town life...), I meet lots of people of all demographics moving into our area. Many have never spent any time here, but are drawn to the pictures in the tourist magazine, so to speak. I'm already starting to see people who bought during covid lockdowns who are now having buyers remorse as they realize that maybe small town life isn't for them. All I'm saying is, do more than spend a weekend in a place before you decide to buy a house and shake up your life - I've legit seen people buy houses having basically never been here, and that's not a wise approach.
Frankly, if you really have the means and don't have family ties keeping you in a place, I'd ask: why stay in the US at all? But regardless of where you go, hone your research in quickly. Don't keep looking at every last little burg in all 50 states. Go rent an airbnb for a couple of weeks and live as though you live there - and make yourself a study of the tradeoffs you'd be making with each place.
Home of a small college and a few large obscure athletic events (Unbound Gravel and disc golf nationals). Kansas is also a very reasonable state, politically, compared to much of the midwest. Less than two hours from decent sized airports (MCI and Wichita).
Eastern Kansas in general wouldn't be a bad place for a remote worker. Many of these towns have fiber. Homes are incredibly cheap. I picked up a 120 yr old farmhouse with broadband, a few acres and several 100 yr old trees for well under 100k. There's a deep calm here I really enjoy.
One interesting choice in Kansas is the town of Humboldt. Locals got tired of seeing their town decline as many others in the state. They've taken some impressive steps towards reversing that. Revitalizing their downtown with a string of new businesses. Here's a (paywall free) Kansas City Star article on the town and their newfound success.
https://archive.ph/Bhntu
Also agree with the 'college towns' comment.
I’ve lived in more than one small town, and the airports within an hour or two drive were not decent.
Agree about defining small town — for me, that’s under 10k pop, which is extremely limiting. Places others might consider “small towns” (40k pop) I would consider cities.
> Any ideas on whether this mid-sized town dream exists...
Sure it exists.
> ...and/or how we’d go about finding it?
Sure, you need to do your research and figure that out for yourself. I researched on the internet for about 18 months and did a lot of boots-on-the-ground investigation. I eventually moved to a small town in the Texas Hill Country that I adore. Low crime, very clean and beautiful environment, low cost of living, absolutely fantastic community and gigabit fiber internet.
I then bought a second, larger home in a small town a little closer to Austin that is logistically a little more convenient and not so remote. But again, it has low crime, a local hospital, HEB grocery store, fantastic community and gigabit fiber internet.
Just do your research. It's not so hard but it will take a little time.
The peace and quiet combined with the cost of living is priceless. I couldn't be happier. I love it out here.
- travel-time, via connections like airports, train stations, motorways, etc. You will need them when you want to travel, or your spouse needs to get to an office
- weather. Now and predictions of how it will change in the future
- water levels and flood risks and how they are predicted to change over your lifetime (especially important of you like the coast, rivers, etc.)
- forest fires, draught etc might be a factor depending on your climate
- proximity to industrial or academic centers
- general social-economic situation of the place that is interesting to you
Most of this data is likely freely available from public / state sources.
If you don't know the place, rent first, buy when you are happy. Data is unlikely to provide the full picture and you need to live in a place to get a full picture of it's quirks. Make sure to use the facilities you care about to get an idea how they work in practice.
Study. You can type "Las Cruces NM climate" into Google and get a free graph. You know your interests better than any of us, and you can look at local event listings, restaurants, venues etc to see what's a good fit. Zillow will tell you about schools and crime, and airports are on the map.
When people go by word-of-mouth based on where other people went, you get a situation where everyone moves to Denver^W Austin^W Nashville, and then it isn't fun anymore. Nobody goes there, it's too crowded. Especially when the discussion is on the Internet.
Small towns that are supported by companies and agriculture have been drained dry by corporate greed. Jobs have been off-shored and taxes have been almost completely avoided. Sometimes a town is supported by a major military contractor, but they aren't terribly dependable. Some places are supported by retirees, but they aren't nearly as affordable.
So if you want to look for a stable small town, look for towns near universities, colleges, or military bases.
Is approximately equal to
> the political party of local politicians
When you think you found a good one, go visit in person and see if it meets expectations.
If you want a specific instance, check out Champaign-Urbana, IL. There's Research Park, the University of Illinois, a bunch of bars and restaurants, fun art sprinkled around town, gigabit fiber and homes are under $200K. We walk to the grocery store with our wagon and just fill it up instead of using a shopping cart. If you come visit, be sure to check out Black Dog (a barbeque joint). https://yourewelcomecu.com/
For example check out Geneva Illinois
The story behind the estate is very interesting, iirc Fabyan was obsesesd with finding hidden codes in Shakespeare, thinking he could prove Francis Bacon was the real author. By the time World War I broke out, he had gathered a library of historical cyphers and had a team of codebreakers working for him, who quickly changed course from Shakespeare to the War Department.
It's a frank lloyd wright house with a well done japanese garden right on the fox river, worth taking the tour :)
The average temperature barely gets below freezing and rarely get more than a couple inches of snow.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/urbana/climate
Geneva, IL and its neighbor to the north (St Charles) are really, really nice. But they're not a cheap places unless you are comparing them to coastal towns. Try this: make a list of all the counties in all the eastern states. Find the county seat of each one. Look at a satellite photo of the downtown area and if it seems solid, check out the street view. If that is also promising, look at real estate prices. Narrow it down to a list of 25-30 towns. And go visit them.
The only thing you need is a company in NL and keeping $4500 on your bank account. Registering a company in NL is as easy as buying milk. One visit to the Chamber of Commerce [1] and you're good.
[0] https://dutchamericanfriendship.com/
[1] https://www.kvk.nl
I liked the book but the only problem for me is that I don't live in the US, so if anyone can recommend a similarly detailed examination of climate issues for the UK, let me know!
Lancaster PA: drive from Park City Mall to the center of Lancaster City, which is the Greist Building, the tallest in the area (has many telecom antennas there) and is near the Fulton Opera House. On the map, it shows 3.5 miles as you pass by Long's Park. Unless it is in the middle of the night, you will be lucky to make it in less than 20 minutes.
We were looking at possibly relocating to a friendlier state than Texas if gay marriage were to be overturned. Thankfully, that's looking less likely, but it's still on the back of my mind a bit. We have some family in El Paso, so that would be convenient.
Main consideration would be quality of public schools. Some semblance of a social life for folks in their early 30s/parents would be nice but we could deal with that being not as great with El Paso close by. Availability of decent groceries, especially for cooking Mexican dishes, and fast internet would be pluses as well. I imagine the real estate market there is quite cheap. We'd love the climate if it's the same as El Paso.
I mean look at this gorgeous house for the same price you'd pay for a porta potty in a lot of places: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/515-W-Broa...
I also enjoyed Cloudcroft. Between all the biker bars there we found an excellent book store to peruse.
Taos/El Prado/Arroyo Hondo is a beautiful area along the Rio Grande (lookup "black rock hot spring"). There's a pub out there, off the grid, with a patio looking out to the mountains and live music broadcast from the solar powered radio station, "KTAOS"
Great schools, very progressive area (at least for MS). No homeless people leaving needles in the streets or throwing poop at me. Quite humid! 5Gb/s fiber to my house from multiple competing providers. Paid way way way below $1M (way below $500k lol) for 2500sft house with a huge yard, walking distance to the gulf of mexico (and a nice beach area) and about a mile from dozens of downtown restaurants. 10 minute drive to Biloxi and casinos and other nightlife. I have lost count of the number of people who have gone down my street on bikes or jogging (or on golf carts, which are street legal here). Gulf Islands National Seashore's entrance is less than half a mile away.
That being said, I would not have wanted to move to the gulf, and certainly not that part of it. Lake Charles got hit by multiple strong hurricanes in 2020, and I drove through a few weeks ago and they’re still covered in tarps and boarded up windows. Look at all the blue roofs on Google Maps! And then compare the distance of Lake Charles and Ocean Springs from the gulf.
Edit: To clarify, I’m sure you know this already. You can’t live there for long and not know. The above is more for the benefit of others who might read your post and not realize the extreme danger posed by rapidly developing, strong hurricanes in the gulf.
A house is just a bunch of stuff, and I have insurance up to the gills. I won't be in the house when the hurricane hits (hurricanes give you hours or days of warning, a wind driven fire might not give you any, an earthquake doesn't give you any), and I sleep a lot better knowing my kids won't burn in their beds.
And it's all at rock bottom prices.
Louisville airport is about an hour away, and since it's a major UPS hub, it's quite nicer than the population of the area would otherwise support.
Not so prevalent in a city where there's enough people to form smaller subcommunities, but in a small town you can't really do that and will need to put in effort to fit in.
Another place to expand your search are these YouTube channels, From Here to There (https://www.youtube.com/c/FromHeretoThere/videos) and The World According To Briggs (https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldAccordingToBriggs). They might help find places your aren't currently looking at.
[1] https://www.nbc29.com/2022/06/22/charlottesville-city-counci...
I just moved to Orcas Island in the PNW after living in cities (Seattle, Anchorage) for most of my adult life. I'm near the one town on the island (which is REALLY quiet outside of the 4 warmest/touristy months). ~4,500 people year round population. Weather is perfect with near zero rain for 4-6 months but a bit gray / drizzly for the rest. It's rarely cold, but decent ski hills are 2h inland.
The population (like a lot of small towns) is pretty old, but I found the small group of newer folks (lots of tech expats) to be really welcoming.
I can walk to the small airport, which has regular $180-$200 flights to Seattle (show up 10min before departure, 45min flight). Ferries are more work but sometimes you want your vehicle on the mainland for a big group of houseguests or whatnot.
I'm 15min away from getting a paddlboard into two mountain lakes-- both are popular swimming destinations for locals. I have friends pulling crabs and prawns out of the water all summer. There are zillions of islands and inlets around-- it's a playground if you're a boater. 4-5 good hikes on the islands with breathtaking views. There's one (never crowded) gym in town with a racquetball court. There's a board game meetup. A few fancy restaurants, one killer cocktail bar, a good locals dive bar. I leave my door unlocked. There's a "village green" with frequent concerts and a Saturday farmer's market. The schools and kids on this island are amazing. Ferries and small planes can get you quickly to Victoria/Vancouver Island, Vancouver (the city), and assorted other cool small/medium towns.
I'm pretty new to this, but am LOVING it. There are downsides-- not a lot of food variety in town, tough to make new friends if you aren't the kind of person who makes the effort. The gray season is long and VERY quiet, so you definitely need to budget time/$ to travel. The schools are pretty understanding about missed days in the winter because of this.
Hit me up if you (or anyone) ever wants to check it out. I'll buy you a drink and talk your ear off about it.
[1] https://nomadlist.com/
Ohio University is a pretty cool place, though slightly secluded.
https://www.saltwaternewengland.com/2022/07/new-england-prep...
Then I'd look for towns that have had the population grow in the last decade, or at least stay level, towns that are dropping in population often have issues (though if everything else about it seems right, check it out).
And then I'd visit - stay at a hotel for a week and see what it's like, if it seems good consider a longer stay. I would visit in the "worst" part of the year, not the best! So if you're looking at Duluth you'd visit in the winter, not in spring or fall.
Forget eating out. We just moved from a city of 2.5M to a town of 1500, the next biggest town over has 3000. The thing we miss the most is the variety of food, especially Asian food. However that's all we miss and the benefits are many.
Like I said, it’s hot there over the summer, and it’s the red middle of a blue state, but the people are very kind. They have an absolutely wonderful coffee shop downtown, a tiny brewery and pub across the street, a couple nice super markets (not so walkable), and some gas station/markets that are very walkable. We lived five minutes from downtown in a neighborhood. We paid $215k for our house, in 2015, so I’d imagine that price has gone up quite a bit, but it’s definitely affordable.
I grew up in the Thurston County area in the 80s, and went to school at TESC, a hippie liberal arts college I remember the downtown as being charming, with lots of hip cafes, bars, and restaurants. I've considered moving back there myself. That said, in recent years epidemics of homelessness and drug addiction have taken a bit of a toll on the city, but I still think it's worth checking out.
Everyone is thinking like you during the pandemic when remote work was the norm. That pushed up housing prices in weird places, like Boise, and other places like Sedona. Places that are small, typically tourist places, but very nice and pretty. The lack of housing has pushed up prices to ridiculous levels, but once the market corrects, it'll be a different world.
I think if it's to live in, just do it. Save market-timing for a second home/investment/flip - and even then be opportunistic in an observed dip rather than waiting for it to happen.
Unless you mean having bought there 4m ago would suck? Well, sure, but this 'advice' is only for a home, where you live, not an investment property. And as for looking right now vs. waiting short-term for prices to drop (and paying rent meanwhile) - that's surely priced in. Suppose it could still make sense to someone personally if it put them in a better mortgage position (at the risk of a worse rate).
Some places will bottom out at 50% of current price. That means if you bought since 2016 or so your house is worth less than when you bought it.
Just remember, turkeys think everything is great, until Halloween, when they get put in the freezers for Thanksgiving. If you look at the graph of their weight from birth to death it's always going up, so it should go up forever. But on Halloween it'll go down a bit, then level out forever. ;)
One thing to keep in mind as you get older: smaller places may not have all the medical facilities you need. For example, if you get an unusual cancer or need a transplant, your family will be regularly shuttling you 2-3 hours to the nearest large city.
I think that being ~50-60 minutes south of Atlanta would be nice. It's small enough, but you can hop right up to one of the world's busiest airports and get a flight to about anywhere.
I think you'd have to elaborate on what you think a good school is and what a good climate is. It certainly gets cold for part of the year in PA and MD. It can be quite humid in the summers too. I've heard it can be tough to find a "good" public school in parts of SC (I looked at some SC and NC schools when I entertained the idea of moving there a decade ago. The scores were considerably lower than most MD and most PA were).
[1]: https://www.makemymove.com/
The economics of supporting a walkable downtown are just real tough in many places.
I think complaining about any change is just part of small town America.
If you need affordability you would need to move away from the south east. As a digital nomad ... you can!
that you fit in politically or that your values match, otherwise you could be viewed as an outside agitator.
where agriculture is feasible, preferably with as little non-local inputs as possible (i.e. water)
Towns near the Tetons. Jackson of course is crazy expensive, but the towns nearby are amazing.
And the place is more progressive that you might think - for WY
Please don't move somewhere only to introduce the same problems you're fleeing.
https://www.movemap.io/explore/us
Will be interesting to see if/how starlink changes this
Intersect that data with crime and population.
Sounds like a cool data project.
My wife and I are serious about it but there’s a pretty narrow window we’d have to hit to time it well for our kids.
Lansing, MI
Chapel Hill, NC
Wilmington, NC
*Ithaca, NY*
I did a stint in a cheap culture wasteland through covid. It may be economically cheaper but the toll it takes on your soul is real.
Just admit you hate “flyover country”.
I hate places that are devoid of culture, because they generate local societies of people who without exception are fine with it (as evidenced by their not moving away).
At least I hope they do.
If you live in a place without any of them, you can be sure it also doesn’t have any of those kinds of people as full-time residents.
Happy to have beers with anyone who comes through to check it out, though!
Honestly, it sounds like you belong in a city. A town isn't just a collection of perfect versions of the things you like from your city, and cheaper housing. That isn't going to exist. The bars will be worse. The schools will probably be worse. The stores will be further away, or else the housing "just off main street" will he more expensive. The social opportunities will be fewer. If you want to be happy with small town life, you need to find the advantages that exist only in towns and not cities: Outdoor recreation opportunities, family to be closer to, or non-social things you can do on your own with more space like gardening.
The shops being further away also isn't a big deal. You'd think it would be annoying, but your habits quickly adapt. After running out of milk a couple of times, you learn to keep a can of evaporated milk in the cupboard. If you're out of eggs, you either have porridge for breakfast, defrost some frozen egg whites, or if it's really important you drive into town. It's not practically a problem.
From what I understand, the real things people struggle with are dealing with being alone, and learning how to have a social life with the different rules and constraints. My mum claims that when a new family moves to town, she can tell if they're going to leave by whether they leave the light on out the front of their house: the ones who're uncomfortable with darkness will go back, the others will stay. It's harder to maintain friendships unless you're organised, so clubs and groups are important to keep you socially active. Even your neighbours are further away and you don't have as many of them, so having a good relationship with them becomes more important than with neighbours in the city. In a small enough town you know everyone you see.
all i'm trying to say is the idea of "this is my local now, i'd better like it" isn't the way you have to think in a city. it's not a big deal to some people, but it is to others. all the trade-offs don't have to be a problem, it's all easy to work around, but if you're used to the convenience of a city then just the whole idea of having to work around inconvenience can be a larger adjustment than you think. for somebody considering moving out of a city it's good to be aware of that.
I'm not sure what social role bars play in a small US town. When I was over there I went into a few in some smallish west coast towns, but tourists don't get a full understanding of a culture, and the areas I was in are so densely populated that they'd probably be very different from e.g. Idaho or Texas.
Something to understand about small town life is it's a slower paced way of living than most people are used to. There's not much to do out here if you can't entertain yourself. People will come visit and ask what there is to do around here, and I'll be like well... We can go pick fruits at the farm, or we can go shoot, or we can work on projects with the tools we have. It's a slow paced life that doesn't match everyone. Understand what you're getting into.
You'd better be sure about that. Having a favorite diner, grocer and bar and only patronizing those businesses is a world apart from having exactly one option. What do you do when the bartender/regulars decide they don't like you. Or your neighbor, for that matter. The one whose family's been there for generations and is buds with the sherrif.
IMO you should find another suburb that you and your wife like. There are major downsides to small town living you're probably not taking seriously.
Some small towns might have a stifling, backward local community. Better to let those communities just wallow in their pettiness.
As for judging where people get to live, I understand that sentiment. We certainly don't give governments that power because we love freedom. Laws also exist that try to limit discriminatory practices when people try to find housing. Unfortunately, it is near impossible to regulate how a community will respond to others.
Just something to think about, particularly if one's approaching a new town with only their personal desires in mind.
EDIT: word choice, for clarity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32465482
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32464502
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32459965
That's seriously not ok. We ban accounts that do this, and in fact have had to ask you many times in the past to stop doing this. I don't want to ban you, because you've also posted good things and it doesn't seem like you've been breaking the rules consistently. But if you don't fix this, we're going to have to.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
The poster would be bringing money into the community. They would be paying taxes; if they buy a house, there will probably be property taxes, which typically support local utilities, schools, libraries, etc. They'd be shopping at local stores. The poster asked about schools, so they probably have or will have at least one kid - so purchasing things for at least 3 people. That doesn't sound parasitic to me, it sounds more like investment.
What people are afraid of is not "parasites," it's growth changing the size and character of their community. Which I'm afraid is just the way of things, especially if the area you live in becomes desirable.
And I'd also argue that talking about someone paying taxes to support local services is not "only concerned with money," but whatever makes you feel enlightened, I guess.
On a similar note, many states would like Californians to stay in California and stop trying to Cailifornify everywhere else.