i am sick of NY

[Pilgrim]

OK, I'll stop shilling for Colorado now....don't want to kill Skate Rat's thread....

[SKATE RAT]

thanks guys. some great ideas. i really liked Tennessee. there is some weird conection between Memphis Tn & Portland Or. for some reason people move back and forth. NC is beautiful and worth considering. the bay area is awesome and would be my first choice if it were a lil bit cheaper. maybe something close. i kinda like Richmond as i have some friends there it's close to DC, Philly etc.
i'm also considering leaving the US. maybe Australia?
it'll be at least a year before i do anything but i know i want to try something other than NYC. the cost of living is too damn high, all i do is work and i'm still broke. plus i'm sick of everything being so crowded.

[drbassman]

thanks guys. some great ideas. i really liked Tennessee. there is some weird conection between Memphis Tn & Portland Or. for some reason people move back and forth. NC is beautiful and worth considering. the bay area is awesome and would be my first choice if it were a lil bit cheaper. maybe something close. i kinda like Richmond as i have some friends there it's close to DC, Philly etc.
i'm also considering leaving the US. maybe Australia?
it'll be at least a year before i do anything but i know i want to try something other than NYC. the cost of living is too damn high, all i do is work and i'm still broke. plus i'm sick of everything being so crowded.

Amen!  I hear ya, I could never survive in NYC.  Good luck, I hope you can make something happen and work out the way you want.

[godofthunder]

  Bill and I were just talking about this the other day, NYS does have its disadvantages. Upstate NY is a beautiful place to live and raise a family. The winters can be brutal but the rest of the year is great, no Tornados or Hurricanes, no real earth quake activity either. Property values are good you can get a lot of house for very little compared to the rest of the country. The suburban schools for the most part are good. Taxes are wicked high and they make it just plain hard to do biz here. If we were younger we would consider moving but we have built lives, businesses and have family here. Good luck with your search, but before you bail on NY completely maybe take a look at Upstate.

[drbassman]

Good points Scott.  I can promise you there are a lot more rednecks out here than there are in NYC!  Overall, we are not as "sophisticated" here in the forgotten west.  Contrary to what people in NYC think, we don't have dairy cows roaming the streets.

I live out in the country where there are lots of farms, fields and wildlife.  I have 5 acres and a nice house.  I couldn't have that anywhere downstate. An urban center, Rochester, with culture and lots of stuff to do is 20 minutes away.  The Canadian border is only 1 hour away and Toronto is every bit as much fun as NYC and a heck of a lot cleaner and safer.

So, we are trying to live with the warts and console ourselves with the fact we have a wonderful life and friends in spite of it all!  Man, I hate the 100+ inches of snow we typically have though.................

[godofthunder]

 If all winters were like this year it would a almost perfect place ( gov. and taxes aside) to live. I had the snow blower out twice this year that was it, what a gift!

[mc2NY]

Not many places in the U.S. that have the same late nite hours as NYC and the music/arts scene, if you like to gig. New Orleans is one of them. Finally back to being liveable after Katrina. You can find work. Rents have gone up since Katrina but you can still find affordable places. The people are really cool and laid back.
Great food.

Downside is it gets hot and humid July-mid Sept but beats the hell out of NY weather. Always some festival going on. The "murder rate" is supposedly the highest in the U.S. but that is almost exclusively black-on-black drug murders only in those sections, sort of like the Bronx/Harlem. Rarely anything like that in any area you would be living in.

I am a NYC native and moved to New Orleans a year before Katrina and had to move back after that. In the process of moving back. Still have my house there. Have been doing the back and forth thing the last several years.

There are also still a lot of gutted/repairable Katrina houses you can buy dirt cheap if you are handy and want to fix them up.

My bud who watches my place for me is a sax player from Connecticut....living his dream....plays in six different bands and gigs pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day.

[godofthunder]

"plays in six different bands and gigs pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day." That ain't gunna happen in upstate NY !

[TBird1958]

"plays in six different bands and gigs pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day."

I don't even have sex with myself that often 

[Dave W]

Every place has pluses and minuses. You have to figure out what's most important to you.

[mc2NY]

"plays in six different bands and gigs pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day."

Yeah.....that's a sax player and keyboard player thang. In demand bastards.

Fortunately, the real band members usually get more T&A

[gweimer]

Yeah.....that's a sax player and keyboard player thang. In demand bastards.

Fortunately, the real band members usually get more T&A

and STD...

[Aussie Mark]

i'm also considering leaving the US. maybe Australia?

That's not necessarily easy, unless you work in an occupation that is on the "skills in demand" list (and have a totally clean criminal record)  What do you do for a crust?

[Dave W]

That's not necessarily easy, unless you work in an occupation that is on the "skills in demand" list (and have a totally clean criminal record)  What do you do for a crust?

Yes, Australia has never allowed criminals to settle there.    

[Aussie Mark]

Yes, Australia has never allowed criminals to settle there.    

We learned our lesson, although it took us 100 years to work that out