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Everything I hate about western NY is related to the government. Taxes, regulations, taxes, gun laws and taxes. Did I mention taxes?
As I drove through upstate on my way to MA, I often was in awe of the beautiful country up there. Perfect place to retire, except for one tiny detail: it's still NYS.
If I had my way, I'd move to Scotland and leave it all behind. Wife says no way.
I grew up in CT, lived in Fairfield County for nearly 40 years and couldn’t wait to get out. Unfortunately, family stuff prevents me from a clean break yet, so I’m probably 60/40 Maine/CT. Have been in Maine since 2010, plan to sell CT and buy a small condo somewhere warm - we love the Charleston area, just need to accept the threat of hurricanes.
FWIW - I have a college buddy who can afford to live pretty much anywhere, and he picked Charleston.
We’re in a small coastal village, with a lot of active lobsterman and fishermen. It’s very small-town and friendly, just about the polar opposite of Ffld Cty. We have real winter, but because we’re on the ocean it’s probably comparable to what you have on LI. So long as you’re along the coast, there are plenty of restaurants and civilized bars. Hiking, biking and decent skiing aren’t too far away, and there are great sports-car roads everywhere.
A downside is that NYC is a haul - about 6-7 hours from our place; it’s about 3 hours to Boston but for a New Yorker that might not be a plus.
You can get a lot more for your housing $ versus where you are, the problem is that everything worth buying sells before you can see it.
I forgot to mention - Maine is a “Constitutional Carry” state, so unless you are specifically prohibited because of a violent-crime conviction, you can purchase and carry a gun without a license.
There are also no traffic maps or reports past Portland, because there’s no need.
I also grew up in Fairfield County, CT (and not the "nice" part), and have zero desire to go back. Unfortunately, health issues with my parents who still live there may force me to do so for a while. Property taxes are enough to make you want to vomit.
If you're a "born and raised" New Yorker, then my gut reaction, without knowing you, is "keep your vote the hell out of Ohio; go somewhere else".
My local representative (Ohio House) has put a committee together to explore an issue I brought to his attention. I don't know if it will go anywhere, but that's pretty cool.
When I lived in Columbus proper, the city council held testimony one day over an issue that I brought to their attention; unfortunately the City is neon blue, but they at least spent substantial effort to investigate the concern of an individual citizen.
Seriously; I love a lot about this place, especially as I continue to hear more and more about the rest of the country.
We have no restrictions on firearms above and beyond federal restrictions. We are a shall-issue state currently pending legislation for constitutional carry.
With the exception of a few counties in the clevelandish area of Ohio, we have zero car inspections ever. If you want to put a top-fuel motor into your 2022 Silverado and drive it on the road, the only law the state will enforce is probably going to be for noise regulations. We don't have any "value of vehicle" related annual recurring taxes in Ohio (but we do have vehicle sales taxes). The annual registration cost is the same regardless of whether you're driving a Veyron or a Tempo.
We have effectively no animals in Ohio that want to kill you - if you read the internet, we apparently have three venomous species of snakes and two venomous species of spiders. I live on 40 wooded acres and I've lived in Ohio for 37 years, and I have yet to see any of these animal species outside of a zoo.
I live on 40 wooded acres half an hour from downtown Columbus in a 5600 square-foot home with a 3-car attached garage, a 5-car detached garage, and a 60'x120' barn. I paid $750k for the property 3 years ago. Seriously, housing costs here are stupid low compared to the rest of "populated" America. I pay about $13k/year in property taxes for the luxury.
Intel is building a giant chip fab between us and downtown Columbus that they plan to open sometime in/around 2024. They claim 3,000 new jobs with average annual salary north of $150k and tentative plans to increase the size of the plant 4-fold over the following 10-15 years. The business climate in Ohio is spectacular right now, and it doesn't appear to be swinging back in the wrong direction anytime soon.
I've found income and sales taxes to be reasonable outside of city.
Unless you live in the hoity-toity *** "we're better than you because we live in a particular snobby suburb" city, Ohio has among the friendliest populations I've ever encountered. The only place I've ever really seen friendlier people is Oklahoma (lived there for 4 months because Army). As an additional comparison, I've never encountered a population more rude and selfish than those inhabiting the city of Miami, Florida (spent several two-week stints there). Places in central Ohio to avoid at all costs: Powell, Upper Arlington, New Albany, Dublin, Bexley.
Fuel taxes are lower than they ought to be. This is good for your wallet, and the roads are all fairly comfortable, but I'm of the opinion that they really need to up taxes a bit at the pump to increase the rate of bridge replacements and the like. I do not hold a majority opinion on this.
The tax collection agencies are not evil. I have a friend with a home in South Carolina; I spent the weekend with him there. He spent half of the weekend explaining how heavily the entire lifecycle of everything he does is over-regulated and over-taxed.
Liquor control is a thing, but it's not stupid. I can buy my booze at the grocery store instead of finding a state-run beverage store. Liquor prices are controlled, so you don't have to pay 5x retail for a bottle of something considered "fancy" or "rare" - unfortunately that means "price controls are a thing", so while you're not going to pay $4,500 for a bottle of pappy van winkle 23-year, you're simply not likely to find it in the first place.
All public establishments, buildings, etc., are non-smoking. I've been to a state recently that this was not the case, and it was absolutely awful. I forgot how awful it was back before Ohio instituted that law.
School districts are slowly voting in school-district taxes here and there - these are in addition to property taxes which are where school district taxes are traditionally pulled. School district taxes are an income-based tax instead of a property-value based tax. It's beneficial where populations are growing rapidly because of how school districts receive their portion of property taxes, but it still irks me just a little bit. Our current school district income tax rate is .75% - this is on top of city, state, and local income taxes.
We still have small-city traffic, even though we don't have anything even remotely resembling a decent public transportation system. Legislators seem hip to continue kicking that can.
You're unlikely to get a non-stop flight to any city that isn't an airline hub city.
We have a growing Somali population; they tend to stick to clustered communities outside of downtown. Since most of them are still first and second generation, they tend to lay low, work and keep steady jobs, and not be a source of trouble, but the ones who don't drive vehicles for a living are awful drivers, and they don't value taking care of their homes. I'm skeptical in my expectations for the third generation. /racism
Our highway speed enforcement isn't nearly as bad as our reputation from days gone by (except within the limits of the aforementioned snobby ****-cities).
So with all that being said, Ohio seems to me to be a pretty awesome place to live, so take your blue-state vote somewhere else.
We have a growing Somali population; they tend to stick to clustered communities outside of downtown. Since most of them are still first and second generation, they tend to lay low, work and keep steady jobs, and not be a source of trouble, but the ones who don't drive vehicles for a living are awful drivers, and they don't value taking care of their homes. I'm skeptical in my expectations for the third generation. /racism
I used to frequently visit the Richmond area, have a lot of fond memories there. I have heard some not great stories about VA law enforcement, though I've never dealt with them personally (seemed like there was a trooper posted up in every corner). I don't think I'd mind living there.
It's really not a terrible place. A lot of people who visit seem to really like the Richmond area. It's a relatively small city so traffic isn't insane. I think I just don't see anything special about it having been here for a while. I've lived downtown and enjoyed the environment for a bit until I realized that parking space was a higher priority for me, so I moved back to the suburbs in the metro area. I work in the "nice" part of the metro area and it is pretty nice, but starting to get fairly congested. They are cramming people in everywhere.
Virginia does have some pretty strict laws regarding vehicles/driving. Anything over 80 MPH is considered wreckless driving and can be jailtime. There was an automotive journalist that experienced that a few years back and did a weekend in jail for it IIRC. It used to be 20 over the limit was wreckless, but now they made it a hard benchmark at 80. With some areas having a speed limit of 70 it's a tight window.
The County I work for (Henrico) and the County I live in (Chesterfield) are both fairly strict on speeding, but they only have the resources to do radar on the busiest rush hour routes. I'm at work by 6 AM and have the roads to myself for the most part, but my wife commutes on a very well used route and she passes cops doing radar pretty frequently. On the weekends I barely see any cops around.
If your car is blatantly loud and slammed to the ground you'll most likely get ticketed. I've gotten three "modified exhaust" tickets in my life but it was in a very flashy car that obviously looked modified with a "JDM N1 style" exhaust (aka fart can). My current cars are just as modified, but visually less flashy with exhaust closer to the OEM look and I've never had a problem. My old truck also had a loud muffler on it and no police officer ever seemed to care.
Northern VA and the Tidewater area do emissions testing, but Richmond does not. So that's a plus.
State safety inspections are whatever, they aren't the strictest but also not the most lenient. Some things they look at are just plain goofy, but I'm sure that's similar everywhere that has inspections.
Overall I think it's a decent area to live, but just doesn't seem as exciting as other places. There's stuff to do, but it's also a small market city so there aren't many major events attracted to coming here.
Unless you live in the hoity-toity *** "we're better than you because we live in a particular snobby suburb" city, Ohio has among the friendliest populations I've ever encountered.
We have a growing Somali population; they tend to stick to clustered communities outside of downtown. Since most of them are still first and second generation, they tend to lay low, work and keep steady jobs, and not be a source of trouble, but the ones who don't drive vehicles for a living are awful drivers, and they don't value taking care of their homes. I'm skeptical in my expectations for the third generation. /racism
As long as you're white, amirite?
Try being less of a human piece of trash. I'm gonna guess your parents raised you this way though based on your entire post, so, **** you and your family.
Try being less of a human piece of trash. I'm gonna guess your parents raised you this way though based on your entire post, so, **** you and your family.
Aww, you're cute. Tell me more about how you've grown up in my shoes.
Edit: additional context
Me: "Stay away from the snobby rich white neighborhoods."
Also me: "Here's data from my experience of over a decade of home ownership within a burgeoning Somali micro-community before eventually selling that home to a proud new Somali family of said micro-community."
I'm here to provide my information, not to weigh my information against well-indoctrinated opinions of how a certain demographic thinks I ought to act and speak.
Having lived in Michigan (Detroit, BTW), the only things I fear about Ohio are The Buckeyes and drivers on I-75. Other than that, Ohio is cool by me.
PS - If you're looking for snobby white (and sometimes Black) neighborhoods, come visit Atlanta. We've got some here that will rival any in the nation.
Wow, I didn't expect so many Fairfield County folks representing. Raised in Redding twenty plus years ago. Those narrow roads are what got me interested in cars that handle well, though now I go back and think damn, these carriage tracks are way, way too dangerous to drive at speed without risking killing pedestrians, bicyclists, or myself.
I lived in Redding, central NY (near Utica), Baltimore, New York, the San Fernando Valley, and now the Bay Area.
I dearly miss New York. I lived in a medium-sized studio on Broadway in Chinatown. It had a killer view of the skyline, was close to every worthwhile subway line, and would have made a great pied-a-terre if I could have also afforded a weekend house with massive garage outside the city. I owned a WRX wagon for a year or so, thinking I'd build a Factory Five 818 out of it, and paid an astronomical sum to park it in a garage on the west side. What a waste of money!
That said, I can't see myself ever moving somewhere with worse weather than where I am now. I can drive top-down most of the year. There's plenty of sun, which really helps with my SAD. Beach, mountains, race tracks, they're all a reasonable drive away.
I discount the idea that CA is not for everyone - if you leave LA/SF Bay, there's a wide gamut of people, politics, and social structures that you don't see when your favorite cable channel is getting its panties in a twist over the liberal city enclaves. Based on my unofficial view of vehicles outside of the metro areas, smog laws aren't as hard to bypass if you're a local in a remote area. Gun laws are probably not as flexible, but is anyone really going to hassle you about the features on a gun that you keep and shoot only on your large, remote property, and you don't announce what you're doing on social media, etc? Sure, ammo purchasing is still screwy, you can't get a modern handgun without a law-enforcement connection...so yeah, that's no fun. But it does mean more money for car parts, right?
Tennessee is alright. We have weather seasons and our most prominent natural disaster are tornadoes, but the further east you go its less of an issue. We really don't talk about the western part of the state much because its basically a flat river basin. All the cool parts are middle and east. Feel free to move here, but everyone else already is, so our low cost of living is shot to hell and just like the rest of the nation you can't afford housing.
Wow, I didn't expect so many Fairfield County folks representing. Raised in Redding twenty plus years ago. Those narrow roads are what got me interested in cars that handle well, though now I go back and think damn, these carriage tracks are way, way too dangerous to drive at speed without risking killing pedestrians, bicyclists, or myself.
Pretty sure trying to merge onto the Merritt Parkway is what got me started in drag racing. Grew up in Stratford, worked in Bridgeport and Hamden for a short while.
You should come to the Vancouver, WA area. We have like 5k black people in the entire county, the only Red county along the entire West Coast (touching the ocean), and we vehemently oppose anything Portland does.
I discount the idea that CA is not for everyone - if you leave LA/SF Bay, there's a wide gamut of people, politics, and social structures that you don't see when your favorite cable channel is getting its panties in a twist over the liberal city enclaves. Based on my unofficial view of vehicles outside of the metro areas, smog laws aren't as hard to bypass if you're a local in a remote area. Gun laws are probably not as flexible, but is anyone really going to hassle you about the features on a gun that you keep and shoot only on your large, remote property, and you don't announce what you're doing on social media, etc? Sure, ammo purchasing is still screwy, you can't get a modern handgun without a law-enforcement connection...so yeah, that's no fun. But it does mean more money for car parts, right?
Yes there are lots of people who find creative ways around smog laws, but gun laws are different. You're not going to go to prison for a year if you've made an enemy and he turns you in for having a generic aftermarket cat in your otherwise-legal 97 Miata, the same cannot be said of any number of minor violations of arbitrary gun laws.
If shooting sports are important to you, you don't want to live here. Car mods are a hassle, but livable, lots of people find workarounds. OTOH, if you're a software guy then from a career perspective the SF bay area is at least twice as good a place to be as anywhere else in the world.
02-22-2022, 04:24 PM
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