I have lived in this country 10 years this october. I have lived in California for most of that time in Orange County, a much nicer place than here in Kansas where once a week the beef plant burns blood and the smell is so strong it makes me gag. I only moved to kansas because my mother in law died and we decided to try and help deal with the situation. Although here you can buy a 3 or 4 bed detached house with a pretty big lot for less than 80K and thats not in the crackhead part of town. But so what, we are moving back to the UK this year as soon as we sort out all the paperwork etc. If you move to California be prepared for a massive cost of living increase to live anywhere half decent. San Francisco seems to be the best place in the US where I could live and that goes for the whole country even though I haven't seen the whole country and don't care to either anymore.

I am going to have to start being careful on here! All these people with spouses in "waste management" sounds a bit like soprano's if you ask me!

[QUOTE=jibsymalone]I am going to have to start being careful on here! All these people with spouses in "waste management" sounds a bit like soprano's if you ask me! [/QUOTE

Hey tell me about it I'm from Joisey right.

Salem? You've got to be kidding. Portland IS cool, as are Eugene (where I spent ten years of my life - bring it on BigDavyG!) and Bend, but Salem?

My husband supplied staff - up to 60 a time - for a conference. He traveled and employed temp staff all over the country, for 3 years. Saw the entire continuous 48, and says that out of all those cities, the only people whom he considered 'up to par' and efficient, were the ones in Houston. Go figure.

hehe probably that was the illegal alien crews ..zillions of them here

Actually, Waste Management is the name of the actual company, not only the industry. It's a very large, prestigious company, as these things go.

Well crap, if he's going to go by 'conference efficiency', Orlando really should be on his list too.

3rd recomendation here, although its getting more devloped very quickly

as another poster said, its actually not redneck at all (outside of davidson county defintely is though!), nashville actually voted for kerry in the election

the next 10 days are all supposed to be over 70f and i expect to be 'grilling out' this weekend, shorts and flip flops here i come!

house prices are going up fast though (good for me)

a friend just moved to this kind of development

shame theres no smiley for wrist-slitting

Country clubs and Church? I've never been to either in Chicago.

I was only 30 minutes out of downtown; there is a certain amount of suburban hell, but that's the same for every city.

Many suburban towns, particularly the newer ones like Naperville and Lake Villa, are definite candidates for suburban hell. Lots of characterless McMansions, no mature trees, vacant "parks", too many MegaChurches and stripmalls.

Having said that, there are several very nice suburban towns with beautiful housing, great downtowns, careful retail zoning and nice parks (e.g. Glen Ellyn, Winnetka, Lake Forest, Hinsdale). Not surprisingly, the nicer towns are generally the pricier ones.

The trick is to find a nice town thats relatively cheap. I nominate Wheaton (lots of churches and fundies, but it's nice), Geneva (far out of the city, but beautiful) and Libertyville.

You may now shoot me for stating the obvious.

Err my thermometer outside is showing 76F and its gonna get warmer tomorrow.

I love it here and couldn't see a reason to go "home". Infact, I'm flying to the UK on the 19th of April for a 3 day visit, my first since I got here almost 3 years ago and I'm seriously uninterested in the trip. That $1600 I spent on flights, would have paid for a nice chunk of wood flooring for my house.

Temp staff to do computer work, behind-the-scenes stuff, book sales etc...not conference organizers per se.

Houston was THE only place the folk knew what they were doing; needed to be told once, without having to watch them all the time. They arrived on time, worked hard, knew what they were doing and were polite in the bargain. He was thoroughly impressed with them.