For the Americans, a question

[Reign in Acai]

f
staying away from public transport if I can, has made my stress level go down so much ...

I miss using public transportation to an extent. The occassional 3 mile walk through the barrio at 11pm, when all connecting lines are out of service is quite invigorating. It keeps you on your toes knowing that some filthy illegal could hit you up at any moment with a shank.

 

[MFJ]

i'll choose who I have to deal with ...

cheers to that!

well, i'm lucky because i live in a rich, white part of connecticut. my immediate area is basically full of houses that were constructed in the 1700's and 1800's. It's a great place to live, but in either direction you go, you'll end up in some of the shittiest places ever. Hartford... Willimantic (known as Willirico by locals here), etc... terrible. just terrible.

 

[lurch70]

man ... speaking of scary areas ... some weeks ago I decided to go through this area of Brooklyn that always intrigued me, East Williamsburgh, super religious Hasidic Jew town ... and I am not exagerating I was most scared and depressed throught the journey ... never felt so unwelcome, always stared down ... it was weird man.

had a girlfriend some years ago that lived in Harlem ... and even there at 2 am I felt ok ... but this Jew area. If you are in NY, you have to experience it for yourself.

 

[Reign in Acai]

So is riding the Subway in NY anything like how it was depicted as on Seinfeld?

 

[dorian gray]

This is one of the best threads I've ever read here.
I'll comment later if I can think of anything as funny as what's been posted thus far.

 

[J.]

live in middle class/upper middle class/stuck up rich neighborhood north of houston.

the uneducated, trashy element is nearly zero in the immediate area. but a drive a few miles north into Conroe, and it's like a ghetto. lots of illegal spics and blacks. same to the south of the woodlands.

thing is, the spoiled brats around here either think they are to good to act like civilized people or want to be like the ghetto scum.

but it is nice living in a quiet area where all the neighbors respect eachother. hell, we even have street barbecues and get togethers.

 

[Mormagil]

i just mind my own business. maybe it's easier for me because i don't run into as many crappy people as you guys do, but i doubt i could find as much fault with people if i tried. i guess i'm just utterly free of pesky superiority complexes

 

[neal]

Davis has a fair share of yuppie new-age organic-only stuck-up types, but its also full of college kids (many of them wealthy and from LA) and a fair amount of hippies/weirdos. also tons of Asians who absolutely cannot fucking drive or ride a bicycle safely. overall it's very middle class with some richer areas and the 'bad' parts of town still very safe....

but i work in Sacramento, and that city definitely has its share of 'unrefined' citizens.

 

[Necromunchkin]

The nice thing about Arizona is that it establishes proof that no matter your income or race, you can still be an ignorant, useless fucktard. The only discerable difference is they tend to drive H2s rather than lowriders, but rich white ignorant fucks listen to pretty much the same music as poor black and/or hispanic ignorant fucks. This place is as refined unfiltered moonshine brewed in the back of a doublewide.

 

[Mormagil]

yeah you definitely get spoiled in davis, but i've been in some shitty places and even then i don't find myself bothered by people who are poor or dirty or loud. if they're downright rude that's another story, but that doesn't seem to be the main focus of this thread.

as for the asians, i'd say they probably do a lot better on bikes than it looks because they come from countries that have like 50 billion bikes in the street at any given time. when they come within 6 inches of colliding headfirst with a moving bus they're not being reckless or stupid, they're probably showing off their finesse, like the blue angels or something.

 

[General Zod]

I'm a bit sheltered. I work in Princeton, NJ and live on the outskirts of Princeton. The development I live in kind of separates us from the larger community, which itself is nice, and gives us a kind of neighborly feel. It's mostly upper-middle class, 30/40 somethings with young kids. So, I have very few issues with the people I cross paths with on a daily basis. Currently, there are a handful of houses for sale. I'm hopeful they will be purchased by female porn stars.

Zod

 

[EVERLOSTINDEADETERNITY]

The stupidest most backward people live n New Mexico. Anyone who has moved here will tell you.

 

[MFJ]

yeah new Mexico fucking sucks. it really, truly sucks.

 

[dorian gray]

What about Sante Fe? I heard it was all artsy and expensive, like a large Sedona.

 

[Guthrum]

I won't complain about New Mexico. The couple of times I've visited my sister and her husband there, it was nice. Hard to breathe because the air is so dry, but still nice.

 

[JayKeeley]

It's mostly upper-middle class, 30/40 somethings with young kids.

That's what we yearn for. Without sounding snobby, most of the 30 somethings around us aren't exactly from a similar background as us. Most grew up in this neighborhood and have never left. We met one couple once who said they had moved here from a "long way away, all the way from Long Island", I was quite literally stunned that Long Island qualified as 'far away'.

I think what happens is that the price of real estate in the tri-state is so shockingly high, people can't afford to move and so they stay put for generations. Meanwhile, when noobies like us move in, we end up surrounded by a bunch of townies who have all shared the same community for the last umpteen years and don't really have any real aspirations in life.

I need to get away from that "dead end town" mentality and move to somewhere new, vibrant, filled with younger people, all working, all productive to society, well read, etc.

EDIT: cue jokes about moving to Compton, South Central, Camden, Detroit...etc.

 

[Nate The Great]

Having lived in the midwest (Kansas) most of my life, having visited the East Coast (DC area), and having lived in a fairly upscale area on the California Coast, here is my expert opinion of people in the different areas. Oh . . . I'm also an expert on the South since I have an aunt from NC.

East Coast - Easily the loudest of the bunch. They don't know when to shut up, but they tend to be more loyal to their friends than West Coasterners.

South - Laid back to the point of laziness at times. VERY set in their ways. Religion is VERY important, but they don't try to kill you for being different. They drink tea with sugar in it.

Midwest - A mixture of East Coast loyalty, West Coast laid back attitude, and Southern religious fanaticizm. People in the Midwest tend to have no true identity.

West Coast - The cliched laid back Californian is pretty accurate for the most part. However, they tend to be WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY too worried about what's "right" and what's "wrong". Take all the police brutality cases in LA for example. Only in California would the bad guys be made to look like victims 90% of the time.

 

[Nate The Great]

That's what we yearn for. Without sounding snobby, most of the 30 somethings around us aren't exactly from a similar background as us. Most grew up in this neighborhood and have never left. We met one couple once who said they had moved here from a "long way away, all the way from Long Island", I was quite literally stunned that Long Island qualified as 'far away'.

I think what happens is that the price of real estate in the tri-state is so shockingly high, people can't afford to move and so they stay put for generations. Meanwhile, when noobies like us move in, we end up surrounded by a bunch of townies who have all shared the same community for the last umpteen years and don't really have any real aspirations in life.

I need to get away from that "dead end town" mentality and move to somewhere new, vibrant, filled with younger people, all working, all productive to society, well read, etc.

EDIT: cue jokes about moving to Compton, South Central, Camden, Detroit...etc.

You seriously need to look at the SF bay area.

 

[General Zod]

I need to get away from that "dead end town" mentality and move to somewhere new, vibrant, filled with younger people, all working, all productive to society, well read, etc.

Well, there's always houses for sale in my neighborhood. All the schools are brand spanking new and apparently rated pretty high. There's two train stations within 15 minutes of my house. I'm under an hour from the city, Philly and the shore. And an hour or less from four major airports. It would seem that they intend to reroute one of the major highways near me, to completely create a Palmer Square (Princeton) town center/shopping environment. Now is probably a great time to buy, because houses are down off their inflated boom prices. However, a real estate agent was telling me, that once they separate our school's ratings from Trenton's, our housing values should jump back up. The only downfall, taxes. We pay about $9K a year.

Zod

 

[lurch70]

I need to get away from that "dead end town" mentality and move to somewhere new, vibrant, filled with younger people, all working, all productive to society, well read, etc.

EDIT: cue jokes about moving to Compton, South Central, Camden, Detroit...etc.

well, I can tell you that the pretty much every place bordering the East River in Queens and Brooklyn is what you are looking for ...

Long Island City, where my office is, is super booming ... full of energy, late 20's early 30's folk ... some with family some not, but all productive, very communiy oriented and super social

Then you got Greenpoint, Williamsburgh, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights ... Hoboken and Jersey City on the Jersey Side ...

BUT ... get ready to plop down about $700K for a 2 bedroom apartment ... a nice and new one ...

Otherwise ... no freaking idea.