I'm going to check out Athens. Can't beat it for original music. A great bar district, funky arts mecca. REM, B52s, ... My sister spent her college career there and loved it.
I'll have to bring links.
Athens is interesting..a cousin of mine who lives in Atlanta, GA offered me unlimited free room and board recently. Athens is about an hour or so away. Hmmm...
Charlottesville, Virginia, is where johnboy is. Univ of Virginia., And I like it here, About 15,000 students in a total population of 100,000 (metro area). They are fun to be around much of the time (although we do like it in the summers when they are gone). Makes for a rich cultural life with the arts and the sports and the incredibly diverse shops and eateries we enjoy. And we have the mountains, the Blue Ridge, only 20 miles away and the climate is good (This message has been brought to you by the Cville Chamber of Commerce). And, oh yes, the UVA hospital system is great. So if you have too many beers and fall down the stairs...
But it probably isn't as cheap as other places you have considered. What would you regard as being affordable for, say, half of a duplex?
I don't know...I was basically just looking at how feasible it might be to buy something outright that you could possibly make some money with for about a hundred grand or so.
Many small and medium-sized college towns are attracting lots of retirement age people these days. They like the progressive atmosphere, and they're ready to get out of the Big City.
It's an interesting trend.
Being from Burlington, I'm very familiar with Plattsburgh, NY. When you said 'college town' I was thinking of Burlington and was going to describe it to you. Mid-size community of 40,000 people approx 100,000 in the greater Burlington area. College towns have big city culture in smaller, quaint, friendly, youthful communities. There's a ferry that runs from Ausable (about 25 miles south of Plattsburgh) to Burlington when the Lake is open and a bridge that crosses from Rousse's Point (10ish miles north of Plattsburgh) over to Vt.
When I think of Plattsburgh I think of it more as a military town than a college town because of the AFB located there. I've been out of the area for over 15 years and many military bases have closed over the years. I'm not positive the AFB is still located there.
It's a fabulous area, Kicky. The mountains and Lake Champlain are beautiful.
I am slightly familiar with Charlottesville, VA where RJB is from. I fell in love with it when I first visited there. It reminded me of Burlington, but because its further south, the winters are much more moderate. It's where I plan on moving when my children are grown and on their own.
Kicky, investigate Greenville NC.
I absolutely adored Madison, Wisconsin (and UW-Madison just took the top spot in some party school study/ survey), but being there as a student and being there later are different experiences. E.G. applied for a job there and we had mixed feelings. There are a zillion things I love about the place, but it really is more for students than grown-ups, I think. (Well, maybe that's a recommendation for you...?)
I'm liking Columbus' mix -- tons of students (not just undergrads but grad students, postdocs, etc.), tons of professors, tons of OSU-affiliated folk, but then also a real city. Madison was perhaps a little too UW and nothing but UW. Columbus has that college town flavor but has more stuff for kids, and more of a city life.
Yeah, I'm actually liking it quite a bit.
Did you ever read "Crossing to Safety", soz? Great book by Wallace Stegner. If I remember correctly the book took place in Madison.
Just thought I'd throw that in.
Athens is a wonderful city. Mad-town is, in my opinion, the best college town there is, particularly in winter when the students are gone. There is nothing like trudging through the snow around the Captial.
Just don't move to Alabama. I live in a college town here, but the positive stereotypes do not apply. There isn't **** to do except watch the Crimson Tide play football, which is actually cool, with the exception of the presence of southern fratkids.
It boggles my mind how cool Oxford, Mississippi and Athens are, and how lame it is here--we finally got a movie theater with stadium seating (woo-hoo!) and an Indian restaurant.
Ah, but the music scene is getting better. That, in my opinion, is the best thing about college towns. Music of any kind, and good too. I've been in three bands since I moved here for grad school.
I'm pretty sure I have, Gus. Don't remember it right off.
Lori Moore is faculty at UW-Madison, has written some stories and books explicitly set there, some just recognizable.
I do still love the place -- the capitol right there for everyone to frolic in and around is so great. And the Terrace. And and and...
I just tried to search for it but it was taking a while, somewhere is a thread by me called something like "Can you go home again?" written when we were waiting to see if E.G. got the Madison job, a lot that applies (being in a college town as a student vs. being in a college town later).
Supporting John of Virginia, Kicky, cause that's the only town of colleges that seems approachable. Still, I would rather live in the country and commute. Expensive, yes! and someone once referred to UVA as the land of the snobs. <smile> My husband went to Virginia Tech, but he didn't care where he lived just as long as he got to play that bass.
But I am afraid, Kicky, that trying to come to Cville with 100 grand won't get you a place at the table. While this was selected as one of the best places to live in America (I can cite the source if challenged), it ain't cheap.
A little story: Around the corner from my store is the 10th and Page neigborhood. Perhaps 6 blocks long by 3 blocks wide with modest houses built long ago and owned, I say owned, by mostly black residents. Each house sits on a double lot; ie there is the house and then there is a vacant lot adjacent. Why? Because when that area was developed in the 1930's (?, or whenever), everyone needed space for their own gardens. Subsistance urban farming.
There is a public housing project nearby, a relic of the 1970's, but the police and the neighbors seem to have gotten rid of the drug dealers and prostitutes that even in a seemingly sleepy small town lurk about. A public/private consortium is buying those "spare" lots and is building cute, really nice looking houses. For Sale as "affordable" housing.
So far, I guess, johnboy was reasonably comfortable with the concept...but then those little houses went on the market: 1100 square foot house for $220,000? 1500 sq ft for $300,000?
Johnboy may be old (well, actually, he is old and bought his house for $40,000 many years ago) and there is a certain sticker shock, perhaps. But $250,000 is "affordable" housing. How will that change the fabric of the neighborhood?
I am sorry for the long post. College towns such as Cville and Athen etc are being discovered as being really fine places for folks of all ages to live, but some of them ain't cheap, anymore.
I would suggest, Kicky, that you look at some of the undiscovered college towns, such as Greeneville SC, or Harrisonburg VA (James Madison University) or Blacksburg VA (Virginia Tech). We in UVA-land say, with our noses firmly in the air, that all dirt roads lead to Blacksburg. I haven't been there for a spell, but I hear that the choices of restaurants is no longer limited to Hardees or McDonalds.
