(05-11-2020 12:06 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 03:27 PM)TripleA Wrote:  I was born and raised in a middle-sized city. Memphis. My work took me to all the big cities in the country. NYC. LA. Chicago. Miami. Houston. Dallas. Philly. Boston. Etc. I lived in Atlanta, b/c it was southern, and convenient to fly from there.

Five years ago, retired, I moved to East Alabama, out in the country, 12 miles to almost any civilization. I should have moved long long ago. Much happier place to live. Not as many social options, but enough, and Atlanta is 2 hours away. Much lower cost of living. Friendlier people. Slower pace. No traffic. Safer.

I'm glad most people haven't figured this out, lol.

I moved to Auburn about a decade and a half ago. It was I had remembered it with a few more students. Downtown was timeless and the barber shop was right where I left it years ago.

Then some damned national magazine listed Auburn as one of the top places to retire in the country. The game day house business cranked up stronger than it had been. Jerks started buying houses to turn them into B&B's, My property assessments went up and up. The down town I knew and loved has been obliterated by outside developers and there are more damned Yankees living around me than ever before.

Now there were plenty of lovely people from Pennsylvania and Ohio here before, but they taught here and retired here and had fish fries and knew how to be good neighbors. The ones that have moved down here to retire want act like they are still in a city, are crappy neighbors moving into stable neighborhoods and immediately cutting down all of the trees in the yards and razing the older homes with charm and putting up the same damned ugly schematic homes you find in every damned city in the country. If they don't like a tree they have even been known to cut one down that was on your side of the property line.

So yeah, the last thing we need Triple A is somebody drawing attention to how nice we have it. And the amazing thing to me is first thing the newbies do after ruining a neighborhood is to quip how the new people are ruining the neighborhood. We kept our old home's charm because it fit the neighborhood and we cut down diseased trees, but replanted to keep the canopy that helps with cooling the home. But the next time one of these city dwelling, ***** about everything, loud mouths move in I may get my first arrest ever because I just don't know if I can put up with another one after the one who moved in behind our property.

For those who don't know we live on one of the prettiest residential streets near the campus. Like the buildings on campus the neighborhood had a look and a feel. And mostly older residents and retirees lived here until the development started, homes were bought and those purchasing them tore them down to put up what they hoped would be their B&B before the zoning changed. And our lots are larger than a football field, and wooded. So when one of these jerks cuts down all the trees it gaps the neighborhood.

JR, the wife and I will be moving south within a few years. I can promise you we will be one of those nice Ohio transplants you mentioned. I’m not now, nor have ever been a city dweller. Grew up in a small town (5000ish) in Southern Ohio and have for 35 years lived in a town that has now grown to about 20K. I much prefer the small town feel and pace of life. Oh yeah, also conservative in politics and to “you live your life and I’ll live mine”...

I actually like where I live now, am just sick of the crappy winter weather and will go somewhere that allows me to golf or fish for more time during the year.

(05-10-2020 03:18 PM)bullet Wrote:  https://www.city-journal.org/glory-and-risk-of-cities
Joel Kotkin on cities and health:


"The glory of cities is to serve as places of interaction between people and economies. Yet throughout history—from Roman times to the present—this advantage has also entailed exposure to deadly contagions. As Marc Riedl, a specialist in respiratory disease at UCLA, puts it: “Megacity life is an unprecedented insult to the immune system.” Today’s coronavirus pandemic reflects these patterns, concentrating, at least initially, in densely populated regions, such as Wuhan, Madrid, and around Milan. In the United States, the vast majority of cases to date are occurring in the densest, most globalized regions, such as Seattle, San Francisco, and, in particular, greater New York. Cases have been far less prevalent, so far, in the vast middle of the country—except for New Orleans and Detroit—and in rural areas, where people have less daily contact...."

The biggest difference today vs. going back to that era is the incredible change in sanitation. But today there are even mass slum cities in Asia and Africa with horrible sanitation and there hasn't been epic plagues there. That tells me a lot of those people have strong immune systems.

Of course viruses spread faster in more dense population areas.

(05-10-2020 10:25 PM)TigersOhMy Wrote:  man we moved out of the heart of Memphis to the edge of the Shelby/Fayette line a couple years ago. Still suburb-y, but man I like life out here spread out.

I grew up in that area, right off Cherry Rd. One of the first houses that built out there back in 95-96ish

(05-11-2020 04:24 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(05-11-2020 12:55 AM)TripleA Wrote:  

(05-11-2020 12:06 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 03:27 PM)TripleA Wrote:  I was born and raised in a middle-sized city. Memphis. My work took me to all the big cities in the country. NYC. LA. Chicago. Miami. Houston. Dallas. Philly. Boston. Etc. I lived in Atlanta, b/c it was southern, and convenient to fly from there.

Five years ago, retired, I moved to East Alabama, out in the country, 12 miles to almost any civilization. I should have moved long long ago. Much happier place to live. Not as many social options, but enough, and Atlanta is 2 hours away. Much lower cost of living. Friendlier people. Slower pace. No traffic. Safer.

I'm glad most people haven't figured this out, lol.

I moved to Auburn about a decade and a half ago. It was I had remembered it with a few more students. Downtown was timeless and the barber shop was right where I left it years ago.

Then some damned national magazine listed Auburn as one of the top places to retire in the country. The game day house business cranked up stronger than it had been. Jerks started buying houses to turn them into B&B's, My property assessments went up and up. The down town I knew and loved has been obliterated by outside developers and there are more damned Yankees living around me than ever before.

Now there were plenty of lovely people from Pennsylvania and Ohio here before, but they taught here and retired here and had fish fries and knew how to be good neighbors. The ones that have moved down here to retire want act like they are still in a city, are crappy neighbors moving into stable neighborhoods and immediately cutting down all of the trees in the yards and razing the older homes with charm and putting up the same damned ugly schematic homes you find in every damned city in the country. If they don't like a tree they have even been known to cut one down that was on your side of the property line.

So yeah, the last thing we need Triple A is somebody drawing attention to how nice we have it. And the amazing thing to me is first thing the newbies do after ruining a neighborhood is to quip how the new people are ruining the neighborhood. We kept our old home's charm because it fit the neighborhood and we cut down diseased trees, but replanted to keep the canopy that helps with cooling the home. But the next time one of these city dwelling, ***** about everything, loud mouths move in I may get my first arrest ever because I just don't know if I can put up with another one after the one who moved in behind our property.

For those who don't know we live on one of the prettiest residential streets near the campus. Like the buildings on campus the neighborhood had a look and a feel. And mostly older residents and retirees lived here until the development started, homes were bought and those purchasing them tore them down to put up what they hoped would be their B&B before the zoning changed. And our lots are larger than a football field, and wooded. So when one of these jerks cuts down all the trees it gaps the neighborhood.

I was happy living halfway between Opelika and Phenix City. Now I'm next door to Phenix City. I like Auburn better, though. But I'm sure it was way cooler 10 or 20 years ago.

We bought land south of Crawford (WAY out in the country), and I almost talked my wife into moving there, but I couldn't pull it off, and we wound up where we are now. If my wife had her druthers, we would move back to Atlanta, even though her whole family lives down here.

My wife and I grew up in Atlanta but now we live on the GA/AL border. Despite both of our parents wishes, we can't envision a scenario that would cause us to move back ITP. For as much as Atlanta gets crapped on because of sprawl, I think it blends the city and suburb dynamics nicely. The issue is the traffic created by not having great arterial streets and an outer perimeter that would allow thru traffic to actually bypass the city.

Exactly. Lousy and few arterials, no outer perimeter and the main freeways combined through the center of the city. Plus the crime has gotten pretty bad-everywhere, not just in the bad neighborhoods. We won't retire here.

(05-10-2020 03:58 PM)TripleA Wrote:  I left out an important point, related to health. The sky is much bluer here than in Atlanta.

I left Memphis when King Willie made his comment, "if you don't like it, move". I only moved about 20 miles into Atoka which at the time was very rural and I loved it. Unfortunately too many people have had the same idea recently. I should have moved farther away.

Girlfriend and I flew back to go to an Auburn game with my brother (Auburn alum, with a lake house at StillWaters on Lake Martin). We flew to Atlanta (actually very convenient to Auburn) and my son, who was working in Charlotte at the time, drove down and picked us up at ATL. When we landed Friday afternoon, I called him to see how he was coming along. He said, "Daddy, something is wrong with my GPS. It says I'm only 20 miles away, but it says it will take and hour and a half to get there." I said, 'Welcome to rush hour in Atlanta." He decided then and there that he could never live in Atlanta.

(05-11-2020 11:17 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Girlfriend and I flew back to go to an Auburn game with my brother (Auburn alum, with a lake house at StillWaters on Lake Martin). We flew to Atlanta (actually very convenient to Auburn) and my son, who was working in Charlotte at the time, drove down and picked us up at ATL. When we landed Friday afternoon, I called him to see how he was coming along. He said, "Daddy, something is wrong with my GPS. It says I'm only 20 miles away, but it says it will take and hour and a half to get there." I said, 'Welcome to rush hour in Atlanta." He decided then and there that he could never live in Atlanta.

I honestly don't see how people live there. My first time going to Atlanta was a meeting with a customer. I planned to be in their vicinity an hour early so I would not be late and was still 30 minutes late. Thankfully the customer found it amusing. Now when I go to visit them I drive down the night before and get a hotel room

(05-11-2020 07:27 AM)MemTigers1998 Wrote:  

(05-11-2020 07:11 AM)ArmyBlazer Wrote:  One of my ultimate goals in life is to buy about 200 acres in northeast Alabama. Somewhere deep in the Appalachian mountains foothills. My wife and I can build a small cabin and just get away from everything whenever we want.

That would be awesome although if I was doing Alabama, it'd be down around Foley. Close enough to the beach, but far enough away from everything else. I tell folks I wanna do something like that and they say "you cant keep up that much land". Its not meant to be kept up, its meant to be a natural barrier so you don't have neighbors, neighborhood associations, etc

I agree about the land. I wouldn’t be purchasing it to work it. It would be part barrier and part for me to play with since I like the outdoors. Having enough land to just go backpacking/camping on a whim sounds great.