Retirement locations?

Nords

Nords

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The latest issue of "Cities Ranked & Rated" discussed at MSNBC-- http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4625179/

Disclaimer-- I'd pick a place to raise a family (good schools) before I'd worry about a job or retirement location. If you're having problems with the first, the next two won't matter. Having said that, I sure hope that Pittsburgh has figured out their budget & schools problems.

If Honolulu is #5, they're either underweighting the cost-of-living factor or they're advocating a simple lifestyle!

I recognize Corvallis from a friend who moved there in 2001. It's been high on the list for a long time; I'm surprised that all of the attention hasn't ruined the place yet...
 
NO, Pittsburgh has yet to solve their problems. The solution here in Pittsburgh is not to live within the city limits. Terrific schools can be found in most of the suburban locations.
 
Re:  Sad to see.

I got the heck outta Dodge as soon as I could, but I'm surprised to see that something like three-fourths of my high school class has settled within an hour's drive of Murrysville.

It's tough times like this when we're supposed to put on our contrarian-investor hats, buy Pittsburgh real estate, and put our property taxes to work by volunteering in the schools. Now if they could just do something about that "winter" thing...
 
I think that 75% local settlement thing is global.

Whenever I go back east to my old home town, I see nothing but familiar faces walking around, shopping, and behind the counters.

Heck until I moved out here and my parents moved out here, nobody in the family through 3 generations back had lived more than a half hour or so from the city we were all born in.

I suppose once you're married with kids, and two associated families, moving away is going to be just too much for either of you, or your kids to wanna do it.
 
Yep, beware of any town with the word "pit" in it...or any town named after "The Mine". :D
 
Yep, beware of any town with the word "pit" in it...or any town named after "The Mine". :D
Click to expand...
Hehe.. I find looking at town names pretty amusing. As someone who dislikes cars and traffic, would I really want to live in Mechanicsville? I bet there's not a vibrant Arabic community in Matamoras! As an atheist, would I choose to settle in Christiana? I'm only half joking when I say these things have an influence! (And who the heck named Scaggsville?!?)

(These are all towns in or near Maryland - for real!)
 
On my first cross country drive, near the end in Nevada we stayed in a town called Battle Mountain. Nevada being largely flat as a pancake, there was in fact a rather largish mountain-like dirt pile set behind the town off of the highway.

The "town" consisted of a small casino, a motel 6, a small restaurant, and a lot of mobile homes, trailers, and whatnot.

There were kids on motorcycles and in cars, just driving up and down the 2ish mile long "strip" of road that ran off Route 80. Back and forth. Back and forth.

When we were outside of one of the "establishments" and walking to another, we were peered at intently by the passers by.

For sophistication...I ordered a "cape codder". 5 minutes later the bartender cruised by and she asked me "what is that exactly? I asked around and nobody ever heard of it!". So I explained and she made a couple, tasted one herself, and in excitement started making them for everyone at the bar "You have to try this! Its good!".

For airplane navigational purposes, many of these small nevada "towns" had huge letters painted on hills and "mountains". On the hill behind Battle Mountain was a gigantic "B M". That pretty much summed it up. :p

On my second drive across country, I stopped short in Salt Lake City and drove straight through nevada to San Francisco the next day.
 
I bet there's not a vibrant Arabic community in Matamoras!
Click to expand...

Holly,

When I first read your post I missed the part about these towns being in Maryland, so I thought you were referring to Matamoros, the Mexican border town. It appears that the good folks in Maryland may be more hostile to female Moors.

Anyway, I looked in my Spanish dictionary, and saw that the Moorish occupation of Spain and the Crusades left a pretty big imprint on the Spanish language itself. For example, "hay moros en la costa" (there are Moors on the coast) is a way of saying "Look out". "Dale a un moro muerto un gran lanzada"(Give a dead Moor a big kick) means "kick a man when he is down". Oddly enough, in spite of these rather aggressive sayings, the Spanish word for woman, mujer, is totally different from other Romance languages, and in fact is derived from Arabic.

I think there is probably political information to be derived from this, but not by me and not on this board!

Thanks for making me think. I have passed through Matamoros several times and never even gave a thought to the gritty historical derivation of the name.

Mikey
 
Hehe.. I find looking at town names pretty amusing. As someone who dislikes cars and traffic, would I really want to live in Mechanicsville? I bet there's not a vibrant Arabic community in Matamoras! As an atheist, would I choose to settle in Christiana? I'm only half joking when I say these things have an influence! (And who the heck named Scaggsville?!?)

(These are all towns in or near Maryland - for real!)
Click to expand...

That reminds me of the town named Fishkill in upstate NY that PETA was trying to get changed to Fishsave.
 
I once lived in Kelso,WA the smelt capitol of the world - that's a fish, not the papermill smell brought by the wind from Longview.

My late father thought it beat Brooklyn,NY.
 
Anyway, I looked in my Spanish dictionary, and saw that the Moorish occupation of Spain and the Crusades left a pretty big imprint on the Spanish language itself. For example, "hay moros en la costa" (there are Moors on the coast) is a way of saying "Look out". "Dale a un moro muerto un gran lanzada"(Give a dead Moor a big kick) means "kick a man when he is down". Oddly enough, in spite of these rather aggressive sayings, the Spanish word for woman, mujer, is totally different from other Romance languages, and in fact is derived from Arabic.
Click to expand...
Languages are neat, aren't they? :) I speak Spanish, so I get an especial kick out of seeing California town names on a map. Things like Escondido (hidden), Del Mar (of the sea), Chula Vista (pretty view), Soledad (solitude), Palo Alto (tall pole), Vacaville (cow town). And then we get really funny ones like the Tetons... :D
 
Wow, I always thought vacaville was named after Charles Vaca. Or perhaps there was a tribe of vaca's that lived there at one time.

Another myth busted. :)
 
And then we get really funny ones like the Tetons...
Click to expand...

Whenever I visit Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park - (going this month), I think the explorers spent a little too long in the wilderness to come up with this name :)
 
I once lived in Kelso,WA the smelt capitol of the world - that's a fish, not the papermill smell brought by the wind from Longview.
Click to expand...

I always thought Kelso was the speed trap capitol of the world (or at least of Washington State.)
 
Yes - They were listed by triple A for years. The police made about half or less than the lumbermills paid - AND every traffic ticket fine was split 50/50 with the judge. Now that's an incentive plan. And the State Patrol went after them in the early days of I-5 for trying to make money off the freeway traffic.
 
My wife and I (before we were married) spent a couple of hours in the Kelso jail in 1975. I don't know about speed traps, but we weren't treated with hospitality even though we had committed no crime. They just didn't like people hitchiking on their on-ramp and decided to push us around a little. Maybe I should save this story for the "Brushes with the Law" thread.
 
Anyone who has the guts to hitchhike should be rewarded, not punished. I'm almost 60, and my hitchhiking days are not done. You have to put some trust in your fellow man, otherwise all is lost.................

John Galt
 
Beater vehicle days(93-99) required a pair of white fisherman's boots for hitch hiking when the 'unplanned' breakdown occurred. Boots identified one as a 'local'.
 
John Galt,
Are you one of those that still think Pittsburgh is a dirty, smelly mill town ?
Ray
 
Well now, John, you haven't seen Pittsburgh in over 30 years. The steel mills are long gone, the air quality is excellent and the city is beautiful. Watch a Pirate or Steeler game sometime and you'll see what I mean when the cameras pan the city.
Ray
 
It's true I have not seen Pittsburgh in a long time.
I have a bias against big cities in general, and northern
big cities in particular. People sometimes say to me
"Isn't it nice to live so near Chicago?" What nice?
The only plus I see is it makes my property worth more
as the urban tide heads my way. I NEVER go into Chicago and have no desire to do so. Some smaller
northern cities I can tolerate. Milwaukee for example.

John Galt
 
Some smaller
northern cities I can tolerate.   Milwaukee for example.
Click to expand...

Milwaukee. Really? That was one of the most depressing cities I've been in and that includes third world countries. Now, I was there over 15 years ago so perhaps it has changed. At that time it was dirty, dangerous (bars over most windows), and ugly. If I was to chose a US city to retire in (and I won't be) then there are plenty of others that would come before it.
 
Just to set the record straight, I am not a big
booster for MIlwaukee. I said I could tolerate it.
I'm just not a "city guy". In the past, I used to tell
people "You can't get too far out to suit me!"
Still pretty true. I like good weather, attractive surroundings, good company and "semi--upscale"
ambiance, as long as it can be found outside of
the city limits.

John Galt
 
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