<p>Olympia, WA had a very appealing look and feel to me when we were visiting Evergreen State. It reminded my of our capital, Montpelier, though quite a bit larger. Lots of local businesses, interesting bookstores and coffee places. No chain stores or big boxes.</p>
<p>It has all the chain stores along the two freeways. They just are not downtown. My favorite breakfast spot(the Spar) recently changed hands because the former owner did not want to go smokefree. Now it stinks. A real loss.</p>
<p>Just to throw another name out: Oxford, Georgia. Oxford is the original home of Emory, and still the location of the Oxford campus of Emory. It’s a pretty little place, and housing is still pretty affordable. It’s about 45 minutes from Atlanta.</p>
<p>Not sure why the OP would leave Statesboro for Oxford. Both are charming southern towns. And as a total aside, Augusta had a small earthquake today!!! Not to worry… the masters golf course is fine :)</p>
<p>What is the best way to determine the true character of a town? How does one find out if the area is full of conservatives, churchgoers, liberals, alternate viewpoints, or whatever? For most Americans the typical European religions dominating the town makes it nice, but for some of us it is stifling. Is looking at voting trends the easiest/best way to check the “flavor” of an area? The number of libraries or being a college town isn’t a useful indicator (I can prove this). I suspect living in or near a major city is necessary to get a critical mass of the more liberal types. Do people really want to live with only old people for neighbors when they retire?</p>
<p>Anyone with nonstandard suggestions please offer your input. Feeling like Kermit- it’s hard to be different.</p>
<p>The urban-core suburban-outer suburban-small town-rural spectrum is a pretty good marker for political outlook. You also tend to get greater ethnic and economic homogeneity as you slide along the scale. “Tend,” not an absolute.</p>
<p>One of the interesting markers I’ve found from personal observation is the number of newspaper racks around town.</p>
<p>Of course, political coloration is really important to you, you can always look at the voting demographics.</p>
<p>If you have access to the Chronicle of Higher Education there was an article March 9th called “Blue Towns in Red States” by Michael B?rub?, which discusses this very thing. He points out that Ann Arbor, Berkeley and even Champaign-Urbana are not the norm in college towns.</p>
<p>Not sure what happened to my accented Es.</p>
<p>1More, you raise a point that I’ve considered on a personal basis: I enjoy visiting Austin, for instance, but I wouldn’t care to live in a blue island located in a red sea…I’d spend too much time taking up arms against a sea of troubles and while that’s fine for recreation it’s not much for a way of life, imo. A swing-state like Missouri or even a bluish part of purpled state like Virginia might work. And anent the latter, D dropped the subtle hint last fall that “You and mom might want to think about retiring in northern Virginia.” Mmm. Probably not. But might get a condo in Alexandria and become bi-coastal.</p>
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<p>Ironies of ironies as we leave NoVA and the DC area after almost 35 years. We could wind up in California in a few years, assuming of course we could afford it on retirees’ incomes. Not a good assumption.</p>
<p>I live in Berube’s town and, unlike in a big city (like Austin), there is really very little overlap between the two groups. The local government is relatively liberal; we are members of a liberal church; most of our friends are university types who have moved here from other areas. The only time my family spent much time with some of the more conservative folks was when our kids were young and were involved in youth sports. We do live in a blue state, with major cities in the east and west.</p>
<p>TheDad–Wow thanks for upgrading Virginia to purple!!!</p>
<p>jym626 - I didn’t know the OP lives in Statesboro, and I admit I don’t even know where Statesboro is. </p>
<p>I just thought I’d mention Oxford because I’m familiar with it, and there might be other readers, such as myself, who have been following this thread to find out suggestions for ourselves, rather than just for the OP. (Sorry, OP !)</p>
<p>Dude, Virginia’s demographics are changing. While a “Masschusetts” Democrat can’t get elected in Virginia, pols like Mark Warner and Jim Webb show there’s room for success at the statewide level. It’s not Blue but it’s not pure Red either. And NoVa is having a population explosion (you can tell by the traffic) that tilts heavily Democratic. Tracking some of the county-by-county D-R vote splits over several elections is illuminating.</p>
<p>DD’s school (Hendrix College, Conway Arkansas) is in the midst of a huge project which will include “Hendrix Village” that will offer single-family homes, apartments, condos, etc. Personally, I wouldn’t find Conway to have much of an attraction, however, there are some lovely areas near there. We were recently told that Conway is sitting atop a rather large natural gas supply and will soon come into some money (I may be telling that incorrectly … it was mentioned several months ago and my memory is bad). Here’s the whole story on the new village they plan to build. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hendrix.edu/eventsnews/eventsnews.aspx?id=9210[/url]”>http://www.hendrix.edu/eventsnews/eventsnews.aspx?id=9210</a></p>
<p>State College Pa/Lewisburg(Bucknell)/Clemson SC is beautiful in the mountains/Cullawee NC (Western Carolina) Davidson just N of Charlotte. Williamsburg is a retiree mecca for the golf and town.</p>
<p>jym and hayden - Sorry for the hiatus, my 12-year-old has the bug and I haven’t had the heart to wrest the computer from him since that’s about all he can do this week. You’re right jym, I live in a nice college town right now. But the blue state discussion is right on target for our family; our kids are all headed to the Northeast for college and our families are in the D.C. area, so our thoughts are turning to family as we get closer to retirement. Williamsburg’s a good way from NoVA, but very appealing. I kind of like the idea of Lancaster, PA too, and I’m wondering what the quality of life is like in Middletown, CT.</p>
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<p>My parents had an awfully good time in Lexington, VA. It’s a tad closer than Williamsburg to DC isn’t it? Personally I thought it was a little too small - but my Dad belonged to the “Fornightly Club” whose members researched and presented papers every week. (Lots of VMI and Washington and Lee retired professors, as well as some retired foreign service officers.) My Mom got involved in book clubs, garden club and some social service agencies. It’s not a bad place for grandkids to visit especially when they were younger.</p>
<p>Middletown, CT is a formerly industrial town. A bit like Lewistown, ME: it has seen better days. It is rather depressing, actually, driving past shut down stores.<br>
CT in general strikes me as a rather expensive state to live in, but there should be affordable and pleasant places near New Haven, New London (Connecticut College is located there), outside of Hartford, and other college towns.</p>
<p>Storrs, CT is where UConn is. Might be worth a look-see. Also, I am sure someone by now has mentioned Charlottesville, VA. Annapolis, MD is also supposed to be charming (though probably not too “blue”). And as I mentioned to you elsewhere, Providence RI is a nice city, thought if I remember correctly the previous mayor was convicted of some big corruption thing. I believe the more recent mayor is a Brown grad. Can anyone help with this?? They do this really cool thing on the river downtown several times a year called “waterfire”-- Take a look <a href=“http://www.waterfire.org/about/index.html[/url]”>http://www.waterfire.org/about/index.html</a></p>