Find me a good place to live for cycling

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by weisan

Strange...or maybe not. I was just thinking that exact same thought earlier today when I was out enjoying a very nice sunny day here in Austin riding on the local trail.

Brilliant minds think alike.. In some fashion, I guess it speaks well to the ideal of home ownership, which is still looked at as part of the American dream. Owning as opposed to renting allows participation in capital growth which is IMO not to leverage against that asset as many did during the housing bubble/crash but rather as a means of stabilizing living expenses against rising popularity in attractive neighborhoods & cities. Renters are forever at the mercy of the prevailing market.

Originally Posted by Tandem Rider

Ok, I'll play

We sold our house and are moving, partly because things are starting to "suck" here.
1. Large population of people without employment, or the possibility of future employment, has moved into the area. Bringing with them a drain on the social services provided to longer term residents experiencing a round of "hard times". Along with this has come a documented increase in drug arrests, assaults, burglaries, etc.
2. Lower performance from school system, attributable to many causes, some of which are linked directly back to #1 above.
3. Increased property taxes with no corresponding increase in services provided, ours have gone up 120% in the last 3 years.
4. Increased congestion on the roads, higher daily traffic count, guessing this is due primarily to the increase in population. Arterial road construction has not happened, we are squeezing more through the same funnels.
5. This is a perception, not empirically derived, the general attitude is much more aggressive and significantly less friendly. This opinion is shared by our friends who have lived here for a long time.

Granted, we are a large university town, therefore, having a large portion of the population as transient is inherent, but these changes are new in the last few years.

I have very little understanding of how areas go through these kind of changes. Although I lived in NYC during the 1970's and experienced the neighborhood of my boyhood home undergo wrenching changes and to put it bluntly, "white flight" that completely changed its character in less than 1 or 2 years. Most of the volatility, influx and outflow from the large rental apartment complex in the area. That really sucked but a lotta homeowners held on and today enjoy property values that recovered in step with the rest of NYC.

But as politically incorrect as it may sound, that experience always left a lasting impression on me of the sheer pathos and disgust of people that have no remorse or compunction in destroying what and where they themselves live. Goddamn animals. Ah, the NYC of the 70's that some may look back on fondly while probably never having lived it.

What you describe above sounds more like a rise in homeless which I couldn't explain as other than from economic dislocation and hardship in the area. Between income inequality and the rise in the cost of housing in many areas, there is the inevitable squeeze going on and that is some very real problems all local governments have to deal with.

BTW I Googled for homeless statistics and looked at the first hit: Poverty: 10 Cities With the Most Homeless People. NYC has the highest number of homeless in the nation. A lot of homeless kids make their way in and out of the NYC Public School system although not in the NYC public schools located in the desirable zip codes.

Originally Posted by ojingoh

I live in Seattle, don't move here, it's starting to suck.

HaHa! Define suck. If it is sitting in traffic with other Mini Coopers then maybe things aren't quite so bad. See the link above on homeless - NYC has 6 times the homeless population that Seattle does. It is what it is.