Where you live and how you get around.

[mac78]

So Vintage Girl has my curiosity going after she said she took the vintage stroller home on the train. I am wondering, where do you all live, and how do you get to work, go buy grocerier, get to appointments, etc.

I live in NW Ohio in a rural community of about 9000. The only way to get around here is by driving yourself or walking. We drive everywhere, to the grocery, Walmart, doctor, literally everywhere. No bus system and no train and no public transportation systems at all. There is a taxi that will pick you up from the bar or take you somewhere for $5 each way. The nearest city is 50 miles away.

Something I have always wondered....like in the BIG cities like NYC and LA, and I am sure others, when you live in big highrises and apartment buildings and have dogs......just where do you take them to go pee. Silly question I know.

[Gigi]

We have to drive everywhere- the closest store is 4 miles (Walmart)- I'd LOVE to live in a community where I could walk everywhere...

Highrisere- I think there are dog parks- and dog walkers carry little bags around

[RoseMary]

I live in a very rural area in western Arkansas, Marie. The nearest town is about 20 miles away and it is very tiny--less than 3000. No bus service or taxi service in the town. A train comes through a few times a week, but it is not a passenger train. There is one grocery store and a very small, non-Super Center Wal Mart. I have to drive an hour and a half to the 'big city', so I don't go very often. There are a lot of mom & pop type businesses and a nice old movie theater (one screen:)). While Arkansas is considered a southern state, the area where I live is more like a western area with lots of ranches and chicken houses. Needless to say, everyone drives everywhere, though a few weeks ago I did see a saddled horse tied to a post at the grocery store:D.

[shabbychick]

I live in a small city of about 104,000 about 30 miles north of Seattle, which has about 563,000 people. To the best of my knowledge, the people who live in downtown Seattle take their dogs out along the verge on city streets to pee or to nearby parks. In my city there are buses and one commuter train that goes south to Seattle and beyond. There are quite a few park and ride lots. When I'm going into downtown Seattle, I drive to the north part of the city, then park at the park & ride and take a bus downtown. Parking in downtown Seattle is a nightmare, and the bus is a much better bet. And, of course, we have ferries out to various islands.

In my own little city, I can walk about a quarter of a mile to a grocery store in a shopping complex with a couple of restaurants and various other stores. I'm only about a mile and a half from a mall, though it's not a very good one. Luckily, I'm close to several Starbucks.

I drive to work, as it's about ten miles from home, and it's far enough off the beaten path that it would take me two hours to get there by bus (whereas it's a twenty-minute drive). I walk to Fred Meyer quite often for exercise and to buy groceries, as it's about a mile from my house. While I'm not wild about my neighborhood, it's at least very convenient to shopping and close to the freeway for trips into Seattle.

[yarborough house]

My town is about 30,000 strong but growing due to the Army Base expansion south of us. We have all the normal stores- walmart, grocery, clothing stores, etc. I live in a historic district 4 blocks from downtown. We can walk to dance class, some shops, many restaurants, the theater-for plays, parks and the antique mall. Our neighborhood is a big walking area. People from other parts of town come here and park their cars to take walks with kids and pets. Most and I say Most courteous people carry bags while walking their dogs to pick up the messes.
I drive to grocery store and such to get the stuff back home. 4 kids means lots of groceries. :) But we do walk downtown to bike festivals, the train park, ice cream etc.

If we need more which we usually do - we are only 30 miles from Cary and 40 from Raleigh where we can get whatever we need.
We are only 2.5 hours from the beach in the east and the mountains in the west.

We do not have public transportation other than taxis now but out town did get a grant to build a walking trail throughout the whole county that will be over 10 miles long when done. It is pretty amazing already.

[Queenofthecastle]

I live in a mid-size Colorado town (pop about 25,000) and my house is one block behind the historic Main Street downtown area so I can walk to many neat cafes & stores.

But I do need to drive for ten minutes to get to Walmart, etc. On the way I pass by pastures with cows & horses. Not to mention the view of the mountains! For more ammenities I am less than an hour away from a large city center.

I used to live in Toronto & Vancouver and took the subway/street car/bus or skytrain every day. I HATED it! I would never go back to that. My commute to work & school was always over an hour and a half, twice a day! It was just miserable to be in a bus or underground in a subway for so long. Surrounded by concrete. Ugh.

[vintage girl]

I live in Southern California, in a mid-size town with a population of about 28,000. We are located in Riverside County, which is huge and congested. Very similar to Los Angeles. We have to drive everywhere. Only thing within walking distance is a Circle K. I take a train everyday. But I still have to drive. It is 5 miles to the train station and another 17 miles to work on the other end. I have to keep a car at the train station in Orange County, or else I would have to take 2 buses from the train station to work, and that would take another hour. My train ride is 25 minutes each way, but if I drove it would be anywhere from an 1 1/2 to 2 or more hours, to go 40 miles. My town is unique, as we do not have sidewalks, but have horsetrails instead. We are known as Horsetown USA. Southern CA is very very congested. Sometimes it can take an hour to go just 10 miles, depending on traffic and the time of day. I love taking the train, as it is far less stressful than driving and I have a lot of friends on the train, and we get a chance to gab and catch up each day:D The only downfall to the train is that it is very limited in where it travels to, and also only runs sporadically throughout the day. The last train of day leaves Orange County at 6pm. The bus service is awful. Very very slow and very congested. Some lines run every 15 minutes and some only every 1 1/2 hours. I can hardly wait until I retire and no longer have to commute. We plan on moving somewhere with no traffic and spending as little time as possible in our cars. It is also expensive to commute in Southern CA. Our average price for gas is $3.30 a gallon. I pay $170 dollars a month to ride the train. This is for a train ride that is less than 15 miles:eek:

[Breezy]

We live in a very small town of about 1300 people located in the Missouri Ozarks (Southwest Missouri).
Our house is on the main street and is about a block from the little grocery store, post office and town square.
There are several small businesses around the town square and the square itself is like a small park with a lovely gazebo and benches.
We have several churches and one grade, middle and high school plus several dining establishments.
No buses or taxi cabs. Cargo trains go by several times during the day and night - I love the sound of a train whistle so it's no problem for me.
The nearest Walmart is about 12 miles south of town and the other is 20 miles east. Springfield (the big city) is about an hour drive from here.
Our town has parades and social events throughout the year - small town living at its finest.:)

[vintage girl]

Breezy,

Your town sounds exactly like what hubs and I are looking for:) We have not decided for sure where we are going to retire, but one of the towns we are considering has less than 1000 people, and you can walk to all the amenities. Which is one restaurant, a handful of stores, thrift store, post office.

[CohenCottage]

I live in a relatively small college town that is about an hour and a half northeast of Atlanta. Because of UGA our population fluctuates with the school year. With students, we have about 100,000 residents and about 70,000 without students. My neighborhood is in town, so we can walk to downtown and on a greenway that runs along the river downtown. Unfortunately, there is a REALLY big hill between us and downtown, so it's not an easy walk. We have a good public bus system, but I never use it. There are also plenty of taxis because all of the drunk students need to get home at night :) There isn't really much traffic, but we do drive to work and to run most of our errands. The areas surrounding Athens are pretty rural, so a lot of people come into town for shopping, work, etc. We have a very high number of people living below the poverty line (one of the poorest counties in GA), but that is partially because our public services and transportation are so good that low income people come here to live. We were also voted one of the best places to retire by Money Magazine.

My neighborhood is mostly older homes and new infill. It has historically been a predominantly African American neighborhood, but it is going through the process of gentrification. Now there are lots of young couples and students in addition to the older residents.

[Carrie]

I live in a rural area of Western Ky about ten miles from the city limits. Henderson is pretty small, not sure of the exact population. It was recently designated as a city instead of a town.
I get around two ways. One is by car the other is by...you might not be ready to read this. Motorcycle.

[jabbrley]

We live in the country, 12 miles from two smaller cities....9 miles to a grocery store, 6 from the nearest gas station. We drive everywhere...
Our town is also 12 miles from us in another direction...a sweet little square sits in the middle of town where all sorts of community things go on throughout the year. LOVE IT!

[chyna]

Well I live in a smaller town outside of Billings which is the largest city in MT. As such we have no public transport, there is talk of getting a bus traveling between the two but I doubt it will happen. The way Billings is growing it will be over taking us in no time. And then we'll move farther away.:D

As such we drive every where. I used to live in Rapid City in the historic district, I loved it. Downtown is not far away at all (though I wouldn't want to walk down there), my college was a mile away and my part-time work was across the street from the school. My brother lives in Seattle and I really could see me living in such a location. The whole city inside a city impresses me.

[Rory Bremner]

I live in Wellington, my country's capital city. It has a population of around 450,000 people and is a very compact place. Due to it's topography and harbour, streets are narrow and houses are/were built on some pretty challenging hills. I live in an area called Melrose, over looking Lyall bay. Generally I drive most places, but do use my mountain bike for short run chores or walk my dogs if the day is ok. :)

[chyna]

I meant to say I wouldn't want to walk around down there at night. All the drunks and pot heads hang out down there at night. Otherwise it is a lovely area. :)

Now the town I live in there is not very pedestrian or bike friendly at all. Not much to go to either. They are trying to make our downtown more self-sufficient spend in town. We've got a movie theatre going in which will be great. We used to have one but it burned down years ago.

[koolmimi]

I live about half way between Dallas and Texarkana. The actual town is
7 miles away from where we live and has a post office and one general store with a cafe. The store/cafe closes after lunch. The town about 20 miles from here has a population of 2200. So of course no public transportation at all. I'm definately not complaining because we live on a beautiful lake. Our little 5 acre lake has the springs that drains into the main lake. We only have one neighbor who lives across the lake. On the other side of the road is a horse ranch. The main mode of transportation is golf cart. My daughter lives on the next little lake over from us which is only about a mile away.

[Rory Bremner]

Sounds very tranquil Koolmimi

[farmgal67357]

We live in a very small town of about 1300 people located in the Missouri Ozarks (Southwest Missouri).
Our house is on the main street and is about a block from the little grocery store, post office and town square.
There are several small businesses around the town square and the square itself is like a small park with a lovely gazebo and benches.
We have several churches and one grade, middle and high school plus several dining establishments.
No buses or taxi cabs. Cargo trains go by several times during the day and night - I love the sound of a train whistle so it's no problem for me.
The nearest Walmart is about 12 miles south of town and the other is 20 miles east. Springfield (the big city) is about an hour drive from here.
Our town has parades and social events throughout the year - small town living at its finest.:)

We don't live too far from each other. My little town of approx. 10,000 is in SE Kansas, about an hour from Joplin (my nearest BIG city) and a couple of hours from Springfield. We don't have buses or a subway, but we do have what they call General Public Transportation for the older folks. We have a nice downtown area, a couple of grocery stores, and a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Our little cottage is smack dab in the middle of town, close to my bank, the grocery, the pharmacy, and several restaurants. It's not a bad place to live, I raised my children here. But it looks like we might be moving soon, hubs is looking for teaching jobs again, and most of them are in MO. We will certainly be looking for another cottage or bungalow wherever we end up!

[katey]

So where are you moving? I also moved a lot of times because of my job, anyway it's for the good. When moving we are always looking for a place wherein we could take advantages of job opportunities and lower cost of living.