Now that my long-winded political rant is waiting to be approved by a moderator, I'll take on this piece (in a hopefully less-ranty-more-honest-y tone):
Quote:
Originally Posted by ManchestrMorgue
So, for those of you that reside in the USA, I would be really interested in hearing you views on what it is like to live there (please include which part of the USA that you live in). Things like: what do you do for recreation; what are people's attitudes like; what are society's priorities; how easy/hard is it to get along financially; what are your communities like; and anything else that defines the place you live.
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I live in Central Massachusetts. I typically say "I live near Boston" for simplicity's sake, but I'm actually about an hour, hour and a half outside of Boston. The town I grew up in (40 minutes West of where I live now) was by no means small with its 40,000 people. I now live (and have lived for the past 5 years) in Maynard, MA, a town of about 10,000 people. Both of these towns were both mill towns in the past, so they are definitely at the lower end of the economic spectrum, though I wouldn't necessarily call them "poor." I'd say that there's a fair amount of crime in Maynard, particularly around where I live (I see police cars circling or casing a nearby apartment about once a week or so). There's a lot of diversity here, mostly African American and Hispanic. The high school where I grew up in was incredibly diverse - African American, large Hispanic population, large Asian population - A lot of my friends were definitely racist, which was odd to the naive me, who was brought up by incredibly liberal and "colorblind" parents (when I had a crush on a black kid in high school, I was shocked when my best friend at the time told me, "My father always says that there's a difference between Black People and Niggers.") - I think it's fair to say that there were gangs and racial tensions, though I was really removed from it. I was lucky that my parents could afford to take me and my friends on vacation (every year we went to New York City to see a Broadway show, and we would do daytrips into Boston for plays, concerts, and museums), but it wasn't something that all of my friends could afford. For recreation we mostly went to the movies, the mall, Friendly's (LOL).
I was lucky enough in that my parents could pay for me to go to college at Colby, a small and expensive Liberal Arts school in Maine - Most of the kids in my graduating class went to Umass, the State University, or Fitchburg State College and still had to take out loans. At Colby I had a HUGE culture shock; it was definitely a rich WASP school, far removed from the racial and economic diversity that I experienced in high school. A lot more preppies with popped collars and really expensive cars... It was mostly a sheltered and conservative school, though oddly enough the minoritive groups had the loudest voices (and were incredibly angry - The Gay Kids were angry and accused Colby of being Homophobic... The Black and Hispanic Kids were angry and accused Colby of being Racist) - It was bizarre because for the first time in my life it made me feel self conscious as a white female - Was I racist just for being white?? O, my bleeding heart!!
Anyhoo - It was a strange experience and not always a good one - When I think to how universities are portrayed in movies, Colby aligns in that we had the Rich White Preppy Kids, but there was no Greek Life (no fraternities)... Sports were the frats, if you will... It was definitely a Sports school... Despite its high ranking, I was always disappointed in the intellect of my classmates...
As for RIGHT NOW in Maynard, Mass, it's a great little place with fantastic restaurants (Thai, Indian, Korean, Bistro) and there are places where you can go hiking just a short drive away (not that I hike enough!)... Boston is close enough so that I can go in to see plays or go out to a nice dinner, but we only do that on special occasions... I'd say that Boston is really a cultural mecca, similar to how Fortunato described Chicago - A great music scene, definitely a lot of fantastic art (the Museum of Fine Art is one of my favorite museums), indie movie places, and incredible restaurants... Boston's a great cultural hub and I would say it's a younger, hipster city, due to the amount of colleges in its midst (Harvard, Boston University, Boston College, MIT, etc.)... I remember thinking of it as a "big college town" in comparison to places like New York, which is another cultural hub, but seemed more corporate-leaning or artsy-leaning, depending where you were.
In terms of leisure, the boyfriend and I spend WAAAAY TOO MUCH TIME on our asses watching TV... If we go out, it'll be to dinner, to the movies, or on vacation when we can - We will either drive to a place where we can go camping in the middle of nowhere, or something more extravagant. My preference for camping is in New Hampshire of Maine, which can be a 2 - 6-hour drive, depending on where you're headed.
In terms of cost of homes, as it's been mentioned, Massachusetts is a pretty expensive place to live (not as expensive as Long Island, though)... We're currently looking for 3+ bedroom houses under the $250,000 range... The few that we've found range in 1500 - 3000 square feet... Property taxes in the area are about $5,000/year for the homes that we're looking at... This is the first time that I've researched homes and, so, having no frame of reference, this is all expensive to me... Maynard is the "cheaper" town around me; the towns surrounding Maynard are incredibly wealthy.
We are very comfortable financially; both of us have well-paying jobs in the high tech industry. I think that I could budget a LOT better than I do (buying a house makes me nervous because I know realistically I'll have to cut out my frivolous spending), but I think that it's definitely doable for us... We're just not going to get involved in a house loan that we can't afford... What's truly abominable is that banks will give you a MASSIVE loan knowing that you can't afford it... It's utterly unethical and definitely something that we need to keep in mind as we start looking at getting pre-approved.
That might have been TMI, but, well, there it is. ;)