What's it like where you live?

[Beldarna]

I live in the 12th largest city of Sweden, though we only have around 100 000 inhabitants. We're also called the capital of the north which our politicians are desperate to live up to. It's a university town with a university hospital which makes the town diverse with students coming from allover the world. We have four seasons and I love this time of year the best. The sun is back and there's snow everywhere! The temperature can range from 40 degrees celcius in the summer to -40 degrees celcius during winter.

pros: The city is a bikefriendly which means there are bike- and walkroads allover it. It takes me around 40 minutes to an hour to go from one end of town to another with my bicycle and often it goes faster than by car or bus. We have a public transportation that is cheap and goes pretty much everywhere and I can get to the airport from my home on my bike within 15 minutes and still I don't hear the planes from where I live.

We are close to nature and troughout there's lots of lighted up paths in the woods for people to jog in the summer and skii in the winter. We have a lake which is perfect for iceskating and skiing in the winter and bathing in the summer. The city is built around a river and there are wonderful walkways on both side of it where people gather in the summer.

There are plenty of restaturants everywhere with a diverse range of food, from asian to south european to american. Sushi is a big thing, I think we have four or five different sushi restaurants within ten minutes walking distance from each other, lol. (I don't eat sushi but apparently plenty do.)

In Sweden we love to fika so of course there's a range of cafés everywhere and that's where you usually find me if I have a day I like to feel social with my friends.

If your looking for things to do, we have lots of committed people in different organisations having activitites almost every weekend. The town is very political and there's demonstations for something almost everyday. We also have a wide range of nightclubs and pubs.

Of course we have our own hockey team and everytime it's a game going on you find the peole in either sportsbar, in the arena (if it's a home-game), or gathering at home. The city centre is almost deserted.

We don't have a bad part of town or an upperclass part of town. The city try to be diverse and have rentals, apartments and houses in all parts accomodating students, low incom and high incom to interact which is a great way to keep the crime low.

cons: Having a town full of students means the new friends you gained will sooner or later move away. Never a question of if, but when.

Looking for a job is hard as most places accomodates their hours for the students as it's cheaper and easier to move them around. They rather have five students working five hours a week each than one person working 20 =/.

The politicians have a severe case of megalomania. They have invested in a new mall, a new cultural building by the river that is buttugly and new parks all the while they claim they can't afford to keep the music school. But investing 1.2 million sek for a giant wooden clothes peg is ok.. Now they want to redo our square and get rid of the people standing there selling their goods. What is a marketsquare without a market I ask.. Just a big large empty field of nothing! They're also remodeling an awardwinning park and it broke my heart when they got rid of hundred year old trees.

Finding a home here is hard. If you want to rent you have to wait in line for 8 years for a two beddroom apartment at the moment. Houseprices (or if you want to buy an apartment) is through the roof. Every year a couple of hundred excited students have to quit school due to not having a place to live. They're building but it goes too slow and the rents are too high in the new buildings and the low rent places are soo hard to get. Yet, our politicans hope to gain a population 0f 250 000 people withing 50 years. I have no idea how the're gonna achieve that o.O

EDIT: I totally forgot to add the pride of my city! We have produced so many musicians it's crazy. Some of them have made it big international! Refused, The (International) noise conspiracy, Nocturnal Rites, Deportees, Cult of Luna, Lisa Miskowsky (Backstreet Boys even recorded one of her songs), and Tove Styrke. Neathless to say, the musicscene is huge!

Also, a long time ago the city burnt but a huge part was saved by a bunch of birches standing by a street. Since then birches has been planted on every street in the city. We're the city of birches!

[True]

ooh I love reading these kinds of things!

For me, well I live in Traverse City MI.

Its well.. Its a big area, but its all very spread out, there's like 5 areas where business cluster, and in those areas, it can feel like a small city. Most residential areas are pretty private though, even the ones in the busier areas of towns, there's trees everywhere, so everything has a sense of privacy, even if you are living in an apartment complex!

I live in.. almost.. the middle of nowhere, haha I have neighbors, and honestly the people who live on either side of me, plus myself, are the ONLY people 'almost' who live here year round, most others only come for the summer months. The roads are confusing and very curvy which makes winter driving kinda scary sometimes, luckily I have lots of experience lol. I'm NOT a big winter fan though, but I do love my neighborhood! I live right across the road from a lake! My favorite part about summer is hearing the loons and peepers (frogs) singing all night long. We have a ton of wildlife in our area and I love it.
A lot of people who live in the "city" or more populated areas are usually a bit older and unfortunately kinda snobby lol. but in the rural parts where I live. Everyone keeps to themselves but they're pretty nice, the kinda people you can borrow a cup of sugar or a couple eggs from. :p

The first thing people probably think of when they hear the words Traverse City is "CHERRY FESTIVAL!" xD yep.. Its our biggest tourist attraction event. Though we also have a couple film festivals that have been growing in popularity. However being native... I typically don't attend these things, the extra traffic makes it hard to get too, and Iv usually attended them so many times already, its kinda not as fun anymore lol. Traverse city is OBSESSED with cherries.. don't ever underestimate what can be made with cherries or what can have cherries added to it. Whenever I do swaps, I usually add cherry related products unless someone mentioned they specifically don't like cherries or fruit lol.

One thing that some people have a hard time understanding is that we have sandy beaches! And lots of them! Quite a few years ago, when I was seeing someone online, I used to tell him about the beaches. He assumed that I was just calling lakes in general 'beaches.' But then he came up here and was shocked to discover that, we do in fact, have sandy beaches. And that was the first time I realized that, what most people consider beaches, are lining oceans! lol

Unlike most places that have a "tourist season" we host tourist all year long! In the summer is festival/beach season, Fall is color tours/camping/hiking, winter is skiing/snowboarding/snowmobiling. Though spring might be a bit quiet, its when a LOT of US escape to spend our spring holidays in warmer places lol. 

Traverse city doesn't have a lot of "art museums" we have one main one, and a few smaller ones.. But that's ok because if you keep your eyes open, you find art tucked into almost every corner! I love it! Sometimes I decide to take a slightly different route and discover something gorgeous! Some things are obvious and right out in the open, but even more of it is tucked away, waiting for someone to find it!

Lets see... The last things Ill add is.. Traverse city, like the entire state, is divided between two collage football teams! Michigan State University vs Michigan State! Don't even get people started xD. I'm not a huge football fan, however I do enjoy the HS Football games Trojans (yay) vs Titans (boo). I'm A HUUUUGE Hockey fan though, and as the Red Wings do their summer training a few miles away from my house, well... I dont think its hard to guess which my favorite team is. xD

[kaoskat]

This is awesome guys! I love hearing about all these places! I wish I could visit them all!

[Galactica]

I really like reading about other places too!  Especially towns in other countries- so fascinating!

[Sandi]

I live in a village in south Sweden with about 1500 inhabitants. Not much to do here. If you want to shop something other than basic provisions you have to go somewhere else by car or bus. The surroundings are beautiful with a mix of forests (both deciduous and coniferous), open landscapes, meadows, lakes and rivers. It's not for everyone, but I like it even though you have to go somewhere else to shop and do other things. It's very calm here and I'm not afraid of walking alone in the middle of the night.

[CustomsRfun]

I live in Brussels, in Belgium. I was born here in 1975.
Known to be "the Capital of Europe", we have most of the central offices of the European Union here, as well as NATO headquarters buildings.

When my father died (i was 19) i left my hometown to go live, study and work in Paris, France.
But i hated it there (too many people, mindset is quite agressive and disrespectful, people are rude and self-centered, and the town is terribly dirty and polluted) so i came back to Belgium.

I noticed a strong change in the last 8 years:
City became dirty as well, we have LOTS of people coming here from allover Europe (if you listen to them, they seem to believe the roads here are paved with gold), and the criminality had boomed to levels never heard of... I never experienced being embarrassed about my city.. now i am.
The State does nothing to help, and we even went for 1,5 years without a govenment, as they couldn't agree on how to form it.

Add to this that this country always has been (and always will be) on the verge of imploding due to linguistical problems...

We have 2 main communities, the French speaking, and the Flemish speaking (Flemish is derived from Dutch). Both communities can't stand each other, and in Brussels, everything is writtenin both languages and you HAVE to speak both languages to find a job (believe me, i tried, and even to pick up trash or put parking fines on cars, you need to be bilingual).
Oh and we have also a very tiny community of German speaking people, near the german border.

I lost all notions of Flemish, as i never used it past my school years (being in Paris)...
So now i am unemployed for a year, and the fact that i speak and write fluent English.. nobody gives a rat's ass about.
I might have found a job as a cleaner, when my years of experience in work are in office positions..

But eh, such is the life here...

So
PROS of my country:
Great food (chocolate, waffles, beers, etc..), people are usually friendly and good willed. Great architecture in the cities. The part where we have the "Ardennes" -near german and Luxembourg border is really pretty).
Lots of green parts, even in the cities. Brussels is surrounded on 3 sides by forest, for instance.

CONS: stupid languages laws, not-so-good weather (very rainy most of the time, when we don't have the 4 seasons in one day), a LOT of taxes compared to the neighbour countries.
They put taxes on everything.
Public transportation service (especially trains) SUCKS.
Growing insecurity in the center of the city.

[DemureGirl]

I live in a tiny village in rural Wales. I moved here when my boyfriend asked me to live with him and just love it here. I grew up in Swansea and never liked it but here is so beautiful. The people are so friendly and everyone knows everybody else. We moved house last year and I was promptly adopted by our elderly next door neighbors. Their son lives in London and their daughter Australia and they have no grandchildren so I think I have become their granddaughter

I'm a really shy person who keeps to themselves but I have met so many wonderful people here since people will go out of their way to make you feel welcome. It is such a special place!

It's in the middle of nowhere surrounded by hills and, of course, sheep. So. Many. Sheep. There are sheep living at the end of our street in the middle of town and in our old house we frequently woke up to sheep in our garden.

You  can also truely be yourself here and no one will bat an eye lid. There is a fantastic mix of people from farmers in their muddy work clothes and wellies, hippies with their funky colourful clothes, students from the towns university (smallest uni town in uk! ) many of whom are LARPers (live action role play) and are often seen traversing the town in their medieval costumes with swords and shields (no one looks twice!).

All in all it is such a special place and one I hope to stay in for many more years

[Princess Lala]

I forgot to add Cons! My area isnt perfect even though there are amazing places here!

CONS

Spoiler

Prices of housing and rent are insane! If ypu see a house for sale under $120k- do not go for it unless you are a house flipper! No matter how nice it looks on the outside DONT! It typically WILL have a problem with the foundation due to the chalk and clay shifting, cracks in the walls, or even a bug problem. A GOOD 2 bedroom house will run cheapest $160 if you want basics. $200k+ is average here is a fair place to start. Ive been to sooooooo many open houses here! Downtown Mckinney has Victorian houses that are multi-million dollar houses!

Too many kids running around and their parents dont care. They are all spoiled brats too. All of em, especially in Frisco and Allen. The problem is severe in Allen.

There IS a risk of tornadoes. Its VERY low in Mckinney for whatever reason, ive seen tons of tornadic cells and  funnels out west (remember my husband was a storm chaser and trainee meteorologist!) and they will always travel past my city and drop down as soon as they hit this farm town called Princeton. Never seen a tornado here. Hail and flooding is a bigger threat as i live by a river and a park with a pond and hail sucks, make sure your car is under something before a storm! It rains here a ton.

NO basements here because of the clay and Austin Chalk formation. Basments are this thing for rich people here, but we have military-grade storm shelters! DIY projects too, someone here bought a broken down schoolbus and burried it in their yard at an angle leaving the door sticking out as an entry. Genuis!

Drivers in Dallas are CRAZY. Last week i actually went to a funeral for my friend Mario who died in a car accident caused by an impatient butthole. I dont understand because it takes no time to travel across DFW. I HATE the roads here, there are toooo many intertwining confusing roads and toooo many lanes! I always get so lost! Oh yes and people really do drive ridiculous big trucks here and there will always be someone parked in a parking spot in two parking spots at once horizonaly instead of paralell with the lines why just why LOL.

No alligators....*is a hardcore lover of alligators!* so weird since Lousiana is nextdoor! I saw some in Shreveport and when I went close to that area still in the Texas state line I sidnt see any. Gotta drive 4 hours east from here to see them!

Summer here can get very hot but not as hot as most people think! It gets in the 34°-39°C range ( like 90's to 100's in F) here in August- thats the killer month. Its humid here so it will feel muggier than it actually is. My area is a more temperate climate and honestly it stays in the mid to high 80F's most of the summer. Its gotten hotter than that when i lived in Indiana! Go out a few hours west or south yes it can get pretty darn hot above 110°F! My area has tons of trees to keep it cool plus all the rains! It gets humid and the air is very warm before it rains then gets chilly and the air is clean feeling after it rains.

[Tak]

Ooo.... I wish I could travel overseas. Belgium, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland. Maybe my daughter will take me when I'm old.

I'm a navy brat so I've lived, and camped, all over the U.S.. currently I'm in Washington, state, Vancouver, not Canada. Yup more from Washington. Rain rain rain. It's never really too cold or too hot. We do have a good two to three months of summer sun. Almost anything will grow in a well tended garden. Backyard chickens are normal. Not much crime (especially now that marijuana is legal). Downsides are the unbearable weed smell on public transportation, studded tires ruining the roads, and growing so fast in population that there is always traffic construction. Been in the general area for, wow, about 22 years now.  that makes me feel old. The is a small town called washtukna west and south of Spokane. My family has a park, street, and house named after us because we basically made the town with our cattle farm way back when.

[Miniature Sheep]

Hmmm. I live in Macclesfield, in northern England aaaand to be honest, I haven't a single positive word to say about the place. It's an irredeemable dive. The sooner I get to leave, the better! (Anyway, grumble over.)

The surrounding area is a whole lot better; the particular part of town I live in is only a short walk away from some really nice places like Lyme Green, Sutton and Langley, so you can get away from Macclesfield and out into astonishingly beautiful countryside in less that half an hour. There's also Macc Forest, which is actually about an hour's walk away from Macc itself, but it is amazing up there. Herons and grebes are a common sight around the reservoirs and I even saw some red deer back in the Autumn!

[Wind~Whistler]

We live in Southwest Texas (El Paso), home of the Rio Grande and... Well, that's pretty much it ^^

It's always busy here in the small city, and everything is fairly close. Sure, the freeway can be a pain, but the mountain range close by is a very beautiful view at sunrise/sunset. There is very little violence and we never had natural disasters, for now.

[Honeycomb]

I love this topic, it's so interesting to read about all those places.

[Lady_Manson]

I live Down in Texas I Live in Lubbock Texas it is near Amarillo Texas
   But there is not Much Here not Many People Know About Lubbock Texas but We are The Home of Texas Tech University,The Home of Buddy Holly, we only have one
Amusement Park Joyland Amusement park One Water Park Lubbock Water Rampage  and They are building Another Water Park Near Where I Live we have 4 Walmarts and we are fixing to get a Really Big one on 114th Street this will be our 5th Walmart we Have No Zoo and most of the other Texas Cities do we need one.
     Here is a Picture of My House I Live in
          visitors can't see pics , please register or login


       
     

[northstar3184]

I live in a tiny town in upstate New York about 40 minutes from the Pennsylvania border. We have a post office, fire department, 2 churches, a veterinary office, a small playground, and an abandoned wood mill. I can never find an actual census of the town but there's maybe 350 people. That's purely a guess though. The whole town consists of 5 streets.

Pros: It's very safe. It's a very quiet/relaxed area. We know most of our neighbors.

Cons: There's nothing to do within walking distance. The nearest gas station is over a mile away. Most of residents are elderly, so there were only a few kids to play with growing up. Also, people here are extremely nosy. When I was kid, several of the old ladies around town would routinely grill me with personal health questions about my dad, who'd suffered a work-related injury in his 30s that left him disabled.

[joce]

 I live in Wellington ohio now. Have lived in several small towns nearby.

Census says 4,820 people.


 I am between cleveland and sandusky so close to cedar point and a major town while being in the middle of nowhere. I love it! I am used to driving all over for everything.

 Our town has a cheese festival. Never gone lol. Our fair is the best! I take the week off every year. It's like a high school reunion. Combine derby and tractor pulls. We can ride our four wheelers around with our friends out here and have several parks we can take the horses to. We shoot almost every weekend out back in our range.

  my actual town is a beautiful old town that has some pizza places and bars. But Oberlin is right up the road with walmart and more resteraunts and a huge college lol! I really spend more time in other smaller towns around us.

 I love ohio. Love small town life!

No cons to me!