Larry

I would like to hear from travelers who moved to a town after visiting it (and liking it) and then finding out it really was the pits.

(It happened to me when I moved to suburaban Washington DC. It is nothing more than one strip center after another with the coldest people on earth).

Tell me your story.

Bill

I moved to New Mexico thinking it would be so nice. Nothing but dust storms and people that do not know english.

JTA

Larry, where exactly in suburban D.C. did you move? From your description, it sounds like southern Maryland. The locals down there can come off pretty chilly. I live in Gaithersburg,MD, north west of D.C. in Montgomery County. I've been in the area for 16 years now (relocated from Jacksonville, FL). I suppose I must like it to stay this long!

Chris

Larry, where in "suburaban" DC are you? It's a huge area with some absolutely charming neighborhoods. And there are some strip mall areas, too. How and why did you choose your location if it's so bad??

me

Indianapolis. Great if you grew up there. But a tough place to move into as a newcomer.

state

It's all in where you choose. I moved to a southwest suburb of Chicago, and thought is was lackluster and overpriced. Then I moved to downtown Chicago, and I will never leave! Within the same area there can even be a huge variance.

Larry

I live in Manassas, VA 25 miles west of Washington DC. One strip mall after another. Any trees that were once here were cut down to build fast food places. Can you say ugly!

Roger

Larry, blame a developer named John "Til" Hazel. A Harvard grad, he came up with northern Virginia's master plan three decades or more ago. The man has no soul; he just wants to build. If it were in his power, all of northern Virgina would be a morass of buildings and roads. He is an evil man. He buys off politicians of both parties in northern Virginia. He's like Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.

dave

If you liked D.C. why in the world would you move to Manassas? Try Arlington, a great county with some soul.

JTA

Ah, Manassas...that explains it. The place has no soul (except for the battlefields). Arlington is very nice, but also very expensive. In recent years, Gaithersburg has been ranked very high as a great place to live and work. My husband and I each work within 5 miles of our home, which I bought in 1993 and carry a low mortgage payment on. Home prices are starting to rise now, though as people are discovering the town.

Carrie

I moved to Chicago almost 2 years ago and couldn't hate it more and will be looking to move this summer. I grew up in Marietta, Georgia <a suburb of Atlanta> went to college at Cincinnati, and moved backed to downtown Atlanta. Obviously a big city doesn't bother me, that is not the problem. I however visited Chicago a couple of times both in the summer and loved it. Walking along the lake was great and I really like the zoo. Moved here in October, bought a small condo just off Lake Shore Drive and when winter came, I hated it! I know Chicago is different than Atlanta but I had lived in Cicinnati for 4 years in college and it snows there so I was not foreign to snow and thought Chicago would be the same. The difference is Chicago snow doesn't melt. When it snows, that same ucky gray dirty slushy snow lays there for weeks! It is snowing today!!! I also stupidly didn't realize winter in Chicago begins in Novemeber <or even before> and runs through April practically, you can get snow at any time during those long 6 months. That is not for me. I am also one who likes to hop in my own car everywhere I go, I don't want to be dependent on a bus or train and have to walk 5-6 blocks to a stop. Atlanta is a large city but you are not dependent on walking or public transportation like here. <traffic is another story though> Another problem I have are the lack of big box convenience stores here. To me it is inconvenient to go to a grocery, then a pharmacy, then a discount store. Even though those big box stores and strip malls of Atlanta may not be pretty, I still miss the Super Walmarts where I could have one stop shopping and plenty of parking.

Chicago is a nice city <in the summer> and has some wonderful things to offer like the lake, upscale shopping, nice museums, and good restaurants, but it is not for me and not at all what I expected.

JTA

Carrie, come to Gaithersburg! Plenty of shopping close by, a small-town feel with all the conveniences of D.C. within a 20 minutes' drive. Also, our winters are relatively brief and this year especially, fairly mild.

Roger

Larry, I'd be a little leery about some of the advice you're getting. I've lived in DC forever and know a few things. Arlington has charming neighborhoods but in most of the schools English is a second language. Much of Arlington resembles Chihuahua-North. Arlington's caucasian community is all liberal, a Virginia mirror-image of Takoma Park in MD. It is also very expensive. Southern Maryland retains a lot of its southern ways except for the way over-built Waldorf area. Waldorf is wall-to-wall strip malls and fast food for MILES. Gaithersburg is TOO planned and kind of ugly. The best place to live in the DC area within commuting time is probably over the Bay Bridge on the MD eastern shore. Prices for houses are reasonable, except on the water. Local Taxes are low. A lot of wide-open spaces. It is neighborly and almost clannish. Thirty families run all the businesses. We are currently fighting a super Walmart at present. If the super Walmart gets built, Kent Island will be destroyed forever.

Howard

Houston Texas, nothing but strip malls for as long as you can see.

Nancy

Charlotte. No soul. Congestion & over-development. WAY over-rated. Horrible. Get me out of here!!!

jenna

I moved to Lebanon New Hampshire with my husband. It was for his job. Never have I seen a place closer to the proverbial "God's Country" but in terms of culture, it had done. I come from a big city, and there was nothing but white people for miles and miles and miles, I'm white, and I found that exhausting. Nothing, and I mean, nothing was going on in that place and I went stir crazy with the winters.
The toothpaste, yes, the toothpaste in the local K-Mart was expired on several occasions. The local Subway ran out of bread twice, How do you do that? Pizza places closed at seven and there was no 24 hour anything for two hours in any direction. I am happy to say that we have moved far away from Lebanon NH and have no intentions of ever going back to that state again.

Jenna

Huh?

Jenna! Lebanon, home of Dartmouth College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center? You weren't looking, honey.

xxx3

Dartmouth is in Hanover, not Lebanon. Just a few miles in physical distance, but much farther in atmosphere!

Arabella

Interesting thread. I agree with Carrie and disagree with Nancy. Like Carrie, I really enjoyed Chicago's all-too-short summers, but found the winters way too long and dismal. I moved to Charlotte, have found it's rich "soul" and absolutely love it here.

Lynn

How is it that so many people can spend so much money and effort preparing to move to places about which they can't bother to spend five minutes researching the weather?

How can someone move to Seattle and be surprised by all the rain? (Thread from yesterday).
How can someone move to Chicago and be surprised by the cold, wind and long winter? These are SIGNATURE features of these towns!

Now there's really no way someone could know in advance that they'd go stir crazy in a town like Lebanon NH having never lived in a small town. Something research won't definitively indicate.

Some stereotypes exist for a reason: there's a huge kernel of truth within the stereotype:
Chicago: cold and windy
New York City: expensive, fast paced, culturally diverse
Phoenix: hot, sprawling, no history


Maybe someone should start a thread on stereotypes for cities....things which seem obvious to most, but maybe not to all.