State your city, and briefly talk about it (Pros/Cons)

SlipperyPete1340 wrote:

Boston

Pros: Lots of great schools/colleges, a ton of cultural and historical locations to visit, solid running community, good cultural vibes, fairly progressive on social issues, nice running community with tons of races every weekend.

Cons: Traffic, city is essentially a maze of one-ways and random, tiny streets, expensive, difficult to find a job.

To Boston Cons, let me add the weather. I've lived here for almost 15 years and I'm sick of the wind and snow. Can't find a decent Mexican food place to save your life and the fruits and veggies are crap 8 months out of the year (yeah, I'm a transplanted Calfornian!) But the pros that were listed are all true.

Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico

Pros: Fantastic regional cuisine. Craft Mezcal to die for, lots of country stills. Beautiful 16th century baroque city center. Great art & culture. Good running trails at 5000 ft. & up. The drug was is 1000 miles to the north. Low cost of living.

Cons: A bit isolated. Bad air April/May (end of the dry season).

"drug war" is 1000 miles to the north, I meant.

There are narcotrafficantes here, just like everywhere, but they're not at war.

Boise, Idaho

PROS: Good weather. Not a ton of snow in the winter, hot but no humidity in the summer, mild springs and good falls. Good running trails north of town. Nice, small, walkable downtown with good shops. Long 30-mile bike/running trail (paved) by the river. People seem pretty nice. Nice neighborhoods, good public schools. Good eateries downtown. Not too far of a drive to good hiking and outdoor activities. Really low crime rate for a city this size.

CONS: Most isolated metro area in America, hard to get out of here by car. Constant Chamber of Commerce/PR drum beat of this is the best place to live on the planet. Lack of good sports to watch. BSU football plays mid-major sports, few if any home track or cross country meets, bad minor league baseball, basketball and hockey. Idaho has lowest wages in America.

Overall, a pretty nice city, if you can stomach Idaho politics and backwards thinking. Boise is starting to get more progressive, finally believing that you need more than just service jobs.

Melbourne, Australia

Pros- generally good weather although Melbourne is often referred to as having 4 seasons in one day (can be hot, then rain, then hot again). Awesome food, bars, transport, sport, festivals, arts, great beaches, colleges, running etc. Regularly features in top 10 places to live in the world.

Cons- very hard to get good buffalo wings.

Aspen, CO:

Pros - Mountains = ski/bike/hike out your door, incredible food + arts + events (better than many mid-sized cities), beautiful and FIT people, excellent K-12, four empty ski resorts to ski (few Denverites), airport 3 miles from downtown.

Cons - Renting and ownership prices reach Manhattan or SF levels, some snobby rich people and snobby tourists, overblown political scene, isolation from the reality and the real world.

"I'm talking about a little place called Aspen. Where the beer flows like wine and the women instinctively flock the salmon of Capistrano."

Dumb and Dumber wrote:

"I'm talking about a little place called Aspen. Where the beer flows like wine and the women instinctively flock the salmon of Capistrano."

honestly, the oft-mentioned quote is quite a good desciption for many situations.

I dunno Lloyd, the French are a**holes

dartmoth graduate wrote:

This is truly an affront to the cultural standards of America. If your only reference for art is through the work of commercial entertainers, then you are truly an uncultured buffoon.

Black Music that Black People Don’t Listen to Anymore

All music genres go through a very similar life cycle: birth, growth, mainstream acceptance, decline, and finally obscurity. With black music, however, the final stage is never reached because [liberal] white people are work tirelessly to keep it alive. Apparently, once a music has lost its relevance with its intended audience, it becomes MORE relevant to [liberal] white people.

Historically speaking, the music that [liberal] white people have kept on life support for the longest period of time is Jazz. Thanks largely to public radio, bookstores, and coffee shops, Jazz has carved out a niche in [liberal] white culture that is not yet ready to be replaced by Indie Rock. But the biggest role that Jazz plays in [liberal] white culture is in the [liberal] white fantasy of leisure. All [liberal] white people believe that they prefer listening to jazz over watching television. This is not true.

Every few a months, a [liberal] white person will put on some Jazz and pour themselves a glass of wine or scotch and tell themselves how nice it is. Then they will get bored and watch television or write emails to other [liberal] white people about how nice it was to listen to Jazz at home. “Last night, I poured myself a glass of Shiraz and put Charlie Parker on the Bose. It was so relaxing, I wish I had a fireplace.” Listing this activity as one of your favorites is a sure fire way to make progress towards a romantic relationship with a [liberal] white person.

Along with Jazz, [liberal] white people have also taken quite a shine to The Blues, an art form that captured the pain of the black experience in America. Then, in the 1960s, a bunch of British bands started to play their own version of the music and [liberal] white people have been loving it ever since. It makes sense considering that the British were the ones who created The Blues in the 17th Century.

Today, [liberal] white people keep The Blues going strong by taking vacations to Memphis, forming awkward bands, making documentaries, and organizing folk festivals. Blue and Jazz music appeal mostly to older [liberal] white people and select few young ones who probably wear fedoras. But that doesn’t mean that young [liberal] white people aren’t working hard to preserve music that has lost relevance. No, there are literally thousands of [liberal] white people who are giving their all to keep old school Hip Hop alive.

Even as you read this, [liberal] white people are telling other [liberal] white people about the golden age of Hip Hop that they experienced in a suburban high school or through a viewing of The Wackness.

If you are good at concealing laughter and contempt, you should ask a [liberal] white person about “Real Hip Hop.” They will quickly tell you about how they don’t listen to “Commercial Hip Hop” (aka music that black people actually enjoy), and that they much prefer “Classic Hip Hop.”

“I don’t listen to that commercial stuff. I’m more into the Real Hip Hop, you know? KRS One, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, De La Soul, Wu Tang, you know, The Old School.”

Calling this style of music ‘old school’ is considered an especially apt name since the majority of people who listen to it did so while attending old schools such as Dartmouth [Oh hey that's you, dartmoth graduate], Bard, and Williams College.

What it all comes down to is that [liberal] white people are convinced that if they were alive when this music was relevant that they would have been into it. They would have been Alan Lomax or Rick Rubin. Now the best they can hope for is to impress an older black person with their knowledge.

Bakersfield, Ca

Pros-none

Cons- it's hot as hell, the air is bad, people suck and it sucks to train. Don't ever move here

Truth! wrote:

Ai wrote:

Philadelphia:

Pros: Good bars and restaurants. "per capita" one of top cities for places to eat, drink and relax vs any other major city.

Cons: everything else. its a ghetto hell hole. The crime is south-side-of-chicago-esque. Major infrastructure issues for the 21st century. Decaying rust belt city.

Definite exaggeration on how bad the crime/ghetto-ness is. As long as you avoid certain neighborhoods, Philly really isn't that bad. If I ever ended up in one of those neighborhoods though, I'd be shitting myself.

I don't think you could call Philadelphia a "rust belt" city. It is a Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic City that is known more for law/banking/commerce/colleges/medicine/pharma than it is for manufacturing. It (including its suburbs) has more of a hometown feel than other major cities.

Yes ... avoid the bad sections.

There are also alot of single track at nearby Sardis Lake, and miles of trails and dirt roads in the Holly Springs Nat'l Forest which is about 10-15 mins. away.

I grew up near Sardis Lake and never thought I'd see it mentioned on LRC. Glad you gave it a shout out.

B-A-T-E-S-V-I-L-L-E

Annapolitan wrote:

Annapolis, MD

Pros: mild winters (little to no snow)

Cons: d-bag Naval Academy kids.

You've got to be kidding when you say "mild winters". But I do agree with your observation about d-bag Naval Academy kids. Acting like they are hot shit projectile vomiting all over the sidewalk. Loud and unruly. There is more to be classy than simply wearing a nice uniform.

For the record, I am not anti-military, but I don't like that all service members get "hero" status just for wearing the uniform. Truth be told there ARE some d-bags in the military. As are there real heroes in the civil world.

All in all, Naval Academy is probably a net plus for Annapolis.

capn kirk wrote:

Annapolitan wrote:

Annapolis, MD

Pros: mild winters (little to no snow)

Cons: d-bag Naval Academy kids.

You've got to be kidding when you say "mild winters". But I do agree with your observation about d-bag Naval Academy kids. Acting like they are hot shit projectile vomiting all over the sidewalk. Loud and unruly. There is more to be classy than simply wearing a nice uniform.

For the record, I am not anti-military, but I don't like that all service members get "hero" status just for wearing the uniform. Truth be told there ARE some d-bags in the military. As are there real heroes in the civil world.

All in all, Naval Academy is probably a net plus for Annapolis.

No one should expect 'hero' status (whatever that is) for just serving in the military. Military life should be about selfless, honorable service. I would say certain segments of society outside the military are more responsible for pushing the 'every person in the military is a hero' viewpoint.

I agree with this guy. The attitude people takes towards the tens of millions of people in the midwest is arrogant and obnoxious.

I have found that the major metropolitan areas of the US, like NY, LA, Chicago, DC, and others function like islands. The folks that live there have little idea about the day-to-day life in other parts of the country. Those places also can be so hard to escape from the grasp of the metropolitan area.

People everywhere are doing interesting things, finding ways to make a living, creating art, etc. The difference is that they do it without the fanfare of pop culture or a major news outlet. The people that live in places society chooses to ignore often know what comprises a good life, because all they have is each other when nobody else is paying attention.

Thin naked and alone wrote:

Indiana

Pro

Cheap to live

Con

Fat people. I have been here awhile so I am used to it but when I travel it is amazing the difference. So many fat people here. The single life here is weird too. A high percentage of married people, combined with fat people make it a weird single scene here. Good news for guys as they age the single women here will lick and suck anything within an hour or so of meeting. I should put that in the Pro column. Haha

Where do you live in the state? I agree, the single life is weird. I'm 26, and it already feels like I have outgrown the single scene. Most of my friends are married or in long-term relationships. And the single guys I know have dwindling interest in dating women our age because the women often are desperate to get hitched, have kids, and do that whole married thing. No thanks.

My plan for this place, if I stay is to keep myself in good shape and focus on the younger women right out of college, because there never is a shortage of those and they always go for the older, established guy. And when the time comes, I could get hitched to a good one. Women have not yet disproven my theory that they all have an inherited gene that causes neurosis and a bit of crazy, so I figure marry a 20-something with the hope she keeps here body and smarts and enthusiasm for longer than I do.

Or move to Bloomington and pick up grad students. That's always an option.

And to close out my trifecta of post, I might as well describe my city.

Indianapolis, IN

Pros:

-The urban core is being revitalized

-great farmer's markets

-restaurant scene is improving with a sneaky amount of diversity

-some good running in the city and not too far south

-great sports scene (if you're into that)

-lots of people trying to improve the city

-growing arts scene

-lots cheap things to do if you look for them

-cheap housing

-airport is great

-Easy access to beautiful areas in southern Indiana

Cons:

-Lots of fat people

-Flat, but southern Indiana isn't too far away

-sprawling

-public transportation is terrible

-tough time finding interesting people

-bunch of conservative nut cases run the government

-nobody wakes up one day outside the state and says "Hey, I wanna move to Indianapolis" like they do with other places

Hong Kong

Pros:

Good trail running within a few minutes of anywhere

Lots of races

Cheap to eat out and get around

Top bars and pubs

Cons:

Air quality

Sh!t load of Chinese people