What's Good Or Bad About Where You Live?

I love living in a relatively small city (approx 45,000) because I can get anywhere in town in 10 minutes. I love that I live right on the edge of town where it is relatively quiet. I love, love, love that our whole downtown areas is on the historic register so people can't come in and change the buildings willy nilly. Most things I need on a regular basis are accessible here as we have the requisite Meijer, Kohl, Walmart, etc.

Downtown is full of nice little restaurants and small breweries. We have an historic theater that has been open for 104 years running. We have a beautiful and very active park system - lots of beautiful hiking trails, a depression era farm that has all kinds of wonderful programs (sausage making, sheep shearing, etc. - it is also the venue for my book club). Ohio Wesleyan has many programs that are very good and free all year around including the Central Ohio Symphony doing a free 4th of July concert each year after the parade. Speaking of parades, we have lots of fun parades including a yearly horse parade through the center of town2017.horse.parade.5.jpg.

The little Brown Jug horse race is here (if you don't know this race, you must not follow the trifecta. Our race is the last race in the Triple Crown of Harness racing and brings an estimated 50-60,000 people to town for jug week every year). One of the Ironman events is held here each summer (I volunteer at that even and meet so many great folks from all over the U.S.). And on and on and on. . . our little city has a lot to offer.

What I do not like is there is no dance to speak of in town. The closest place to dance is Columbus (not talking about jumping up and down in a bar - talking about either ballroom, swing, cajun, or contra dance). That wouldn't be so bad if the traffic there weren't murder and if I felt safe driving alone through some of the areas of Columbus I would need to pass through - which I don't. And I HATE, HATE, HATE being cold in the winter. But, our summers are beautiful.
 

Very nice....We didn't live in Columbus, but we did live in Olmsted Ohio....That would be North of you.....We only lived there 2 & a half years....
We came back home when Husband was going back to our State. to work
..(It was very very cold in the winter.) The School buss didn't care if there
was snow, they still would come to get the kids...So hubby had to shovel every morning to get the kid'a off to school and we had to get the
car out of the drive way …… We did have nice neighbor's....I have to say, my son loved it there....
 
We have about 21,000 in the Village where I live. I’m close to everything including Providence the Capital of RI, I do dislike the winters here but I absolutely love it other than that, no complaints! 😊
 

I live downtown in a small city with a population in 2017 of 6,718. After having lived most of my life in the country or suburbs, moving downtown was an adventure for me. I love it!

What I love about it:

I do not need to own a vehicle and that was a very big plus. I have a pretty low income so it was really not affordable unless I drove one that was broken down all the time. Then I would not be able to afford the repairs.
I have 4 parks within one block of my apartment.
Library and county office buildings are across the street.
Post office is 2 blocks away.
TOPS (grocery store) is about 3 blocks away.
You get the idea........I am downtown. When they have activities (and they do, many during the summer and fall) I can go back and forth from my apartment.

What I do not like:

Yes, there are some things I miss. Like hearing the birds you hear when you have trees and yards. Possibly the apartments at the front of the building hear them but I only hear crows.
Being able to go outside and pick wild plants for my pet rabbit. I have to go for a ride out to the country to do that.
I can't think of anything else right now.
 
Biggest city in Maine. Convenience galore all walking. Bus stops every other block. DeMillio floating restaurant, freedom trail, 3 blocks away Post Office either way, library new, CVS, rite aide, Walgreens, banks.

Museum, coffee shops cafe movie theater, ballroom dancing etc, yoga, gyms. Hockey, ballpark, east promenade fourth of July events.

Peaks Island Inn. Casablanca Ferry dinner cruise, whale watch, many wharves, hotels galore..transportation train, taxis, cruise ships port.

Bad: snow and cold....most is cleared almost as quick...just tired of hibernating. Too long at the faire.... parking expensive. Cruise ships port, not wanted here lately.
 
The good thing about where I live is that it is Florida. It's also the bad thing about it. But I live in as close to the 'back of beyond' as is possible in the state. Love the quiet and wildlife.
 
I live in Kansas. There's a saying here..."wait 5 min. & the weather will change." Our weather is all over the place. Our meteorologists get paid to lie to us because 9 times out of 10 the weather forecast is wrong. It's either too cold, too hot, too humid, too snowy, or too wet to get out and do much anymore. It's a pain in the neck.
 
I know one doesn't need to reveal where they live but I don't mind. I live in downtown San Jose and generally love it here.

The Good
  • Great weather (very few too hot days and none too cold)
  • Very diverse nationalities (lots of great "ethnic" restaurants and other specialist restaurants)
  • Five wine regions within a 1 hour drive, another 10 within a 3 hour drive
  • Nice mountains around with decent hiking and climbing
  • San Francisco is less than an hour away (without traffic, see the bad below)
  • Lots of job opportunities
  • A great library within walking distance along with decent restaurants, art centers, etc...
The Bad
  • The traffic is horrible, trying to get anywhere during the commute hours (6:30 to 10:30 and 2:30 to 6:30) can be very aggravating.
  • They haven't figured out how to make downtown a vibrant place (Not sure what the problem is overall, it's expensive and difficult to start a small business here and not many people really come downtown on the weekends. I think this will change once Google opens their campus down here.)
  • Large homeless population - Since our weather is so good we have a lot of homeless people here and they haven't been able to come up with a good way to help the volume we have.
  • Expensive - We're lucky to have gotten into a house here back in the mid 2000's. We wouldn't be able to rent here easily.
 

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