And even then I shared a one bedroom with a buddy to cut down on rent.
Since that time I've slowly progressed upward in my living quarters going from a friend's basement to a studio apartment to living in my own basement (whilst I rented out the upstairs units) and so forth an so on.
But as of today, after saving my pennies and nickels, and after 14 years of living in the city, I am now officially a citizen of suburbia. I finally got the hell out.
Would have liked to made more posts as of recent but was busy moving my ass out of the deteriorating city. And not a moment too late and a spat of crime has taken Minneapolis and their "rolling stop ticket"-issuing police by storm. And I shan't stick around to see the outcome.
Now city pushers are going to claim that the city is waaaay superior to the suburbs. Typically leftists who envy the wealth and income generating potential of those that live in the burbs, and thereby not only try to marginalize the suburbs (to rationalize why they live in the filth-hole city), but also criminalize them (so as to provide a rationale to extort money from the burbs to pay for a bevy of socialist programs) . But let me point out several things;
1. I lived in a very nice part of Minneapolis
2. I had my house burglarized.
3. I had one car broken into
4. I had one stolen
5. I had yard signs stolen off my property
6. Crime in Minneapolis just shot up 20% this past year.
7. In this "great" neighborhood of Minneapolis, 3 people were killed no more than 1 mile from my joint.
8. I pay $15,000 per student to attend the utter waste of money known as the Minneapolis Public Schools.
9. and for the "honor" of living in this crap hole I got to have my property taxes increase 350% in only 7 years of living there.
I now live in an area where
1. there have been no murders in the past 7 years.
2. Police reports show "stolen bikes" as the number one crime
3. Nobody is going to steal my yard sign or spit on my Coleman bumper sticker
4. I don't have to pay for parking every 30 freaking feet.
5. My property taxes for a similarly value property ARE ONE THIRD that of the craphole known as Minneapolis.
6. And instead of shelling out $15,000 per student per year to essentially have them baby sat, I'm shelling out only $8,700 per year to have the kids in my neighborhood EDUCATED.
Anyway, just wanted explain why the absence of posts. Still have yet to unpack...and truthfully, I just wanted to rile up a friend of mine who has been giving me guff for moving out to the burbs and "swore" he was going to write a post.
Now he'll have to.
8 comments:
Congrats, dude.
I just hope the city doesn't follow you. I live on the edge of Ottawa, which was amalgamated with its suburbs into a single mega-city 7 years ago. This happened to Toronto and Montreal, too. I think it happened to London, England, as well. One of Ottawa's suburbs (Nepean) had been so well run it had a big fat stash of cash, and the nearly-bankrupt inner city wanted it. And got it. Now that cash is long gone, and the whole city is facing huge tax increases again. To keep people from fleeing, the new city's boundary is so far out in the farm fields it's an hour's drive away. An hour.
I prefer to have any city be a bunch of little cities all together, so that the governments have to compete.
Hope you stay free in the burbs!
I think you're letting the obvious advantages of the suburbs lead you into an inaccurate comparison between suburban schools and city schools. It's not a matter of having kids babysat vs getting them an education. You've just gone from horrible babysitters to merely mediocre ones. A step up to be sure, but still not the sort of thing I'd pay for with a smile, especially since it costs so freaking much no matter where you are.
My fiends in Minny have told me how bad crime could be in Minneapolis. I have been there many times and always thought it was one of those sqeaky clean "real america" type places. Always learn something new.
It's is squeaky clean, but give it time. Criminal minds are finding out how naive these Minnesota types are and moving here in droves. They take advantage of their stupid socialist, well-intended scandinavian values and the natives here feel guilty as if it's somehow their fault when crime skyrockets.
It will be a pit in a matter of a decade.
My lefty sister recently tried to lure me into a debate about the trendy "urban sprawl" panic. Ironically -- or predictably -- she lives on a small island community near Vancouver, BC, which could easily be described as an upper-class gated community for retro-hippies.
She was encouraging me to read one of the latest trendy books, apparently full of rationalizations as to why middle-class suburbs are the biggest threat to civilization since the Black Plague.
Being a born and raised Canadian suburbanite, I instinctively know those arguments are patently ridiculous and self-serving.
I recently read an interesting article in American Enterprise, on the latest anti-sprawl craze, which you might like:
http://tinyurl.com/ycg76a
That issue of American Enterprise is rightly entitled "Attack of the Snobs".
Enjoy the new house, Captain!
Thank you all. I shall, I shall indeed. Matter of fact, I already am. Just set up the LCD projector with surround sound stereo.
watching Cowboy Bebop.
God bless America...and Japan, can't forget Japan.
Sounds like a pretty sweet setup, while I'm stuck getting all of my media through a 19 inch monitor. Que up "Mushroom Samba" and think of those less fortunate. :)
My favorite was always Waltz for Venus.
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