What's it like where you live?

[JOHNOR]

is it a quiet neighbourhood? is it a bustling, busy city? do you have any crime problems or is it a really safe place to live? what are your youth like, do you have any problems with them? is it the type of place where everybody knows everybodys name or where people keep themselves to themselves?

[Undrtakr]

My Wife and I live in a quiet neighborhood. We live in a 2 story house with a nice backyard. Its VERY safe in our neighborhood and some people leave their front doors open almost all day and evening but I dont. We talk to our neighbors when we see them and they are very friendly. There are a lot of little children on and around our street.

[SparkleNana]

Friendly block on a friendly street. We have "block parties" for the whole neighborhood (a LOT of work and a lot of fun!) There is quite a lot of visiting and entertaining back and forth. There is quite a bit of crime (property theft). Thankfully, not "violent" crime.

[clarebear]

My neighbourhood is a nice place, quite safe. I can't really fault much with it.

[Holiday]

We are in a small town, great neighborhood with people we have known our whole lives. It's a safe, quiet town with zero crime to speak of. When someone new moves to town everybody knows about it...The town is a buzz! Lol! Lots of gossip...everybody knows everybody's business, which can be good, can be a pain! Pretty much everybody knows everybody, or knows a brother/sister/parent, etc. Our area is very "family" oriented. Most (has to be close to 97-98%) kids live with their Mom & their Dad together. We talk to our neighbors nightly. If you are outside, somebody is always hollering over at ya, or vice versa! I can't imagine living anywhere else! :smile:

[Ms_Speedy_Elf]

I live in a town of about 28,000 give or take a few.On my street it is pretty quiet ,but on the street that connects to my street it seems that the law is there on and off,due to kid's that are trouble maker's and loud partier's. I'm only about 3 block's from downtown .Neighbor's will speak to you if they are outside .The crime rate is average.

I miss the day's where neighbor's were really friendly and got together on the weekends for cookout's . I can recall as a child of being able to go to bed at night and leave the front screen door open in the warm month's to let a breeze in .WOULD NOT dream of doing that now.

[reindeerelf]

We live in a nice suburban neighborhood. Our house is one of the smaller ones but it is perfect for us and our two fox hounds. There are lots of tall trees on our lot, mainly white pines. We are fortunate that the developer did not cut them all down. There is also a strip of forever wild land that is wooded and borders our back yard. The neighbors are friendly when we see them and we are good friends with the couple next door. The crime rate is quite low.

[kelly ann]

I live in a street just outside the city centre. It's about a 25 minute walk to the shops. My street is on a very busy road. (Its the bus route) My neighbours are friendly but tend to keep themselves to themselves. The crime rate is average Id say.
I live in a typical terraced house. I have a nice large garden, which is perfect for my cats. Further up the road there are a lot of council houses. The people are okay, but there is a mix of people, like single parents, young parents, different races, people with good jobs, people with no jobs etc. I havent encountered any problems with the youngsters as such. But people over here arent very accepting of somebody different, I dont mean everybody just the odd few who make life difficult for people. Some years ago my husband almost got beaten up for being different. He use to wear a long black coat and his hair is quite long. That particular night he had bottles thrown at him, he was lucky to get away. Although this happened in another neighbourhood I use to live in. Thankfully the people are not so bad here.

[JOHNOR]

kelly ann- that is disgusting that your husband had bottles thrown at him and was almost beaten up. was he ok?

there are always going to be the odd bad eggs aren't their? it's a shame.

[clarebear]

Kelly Ann- The area that I use to live in was like that, my brother got beaten up for sticking up for a young lady that was being bothered by drunken moron's. But I guess that kind of stuff can happen anywhere these day's.

[Head Elf]

I live in Northeast Arizona in a quiet little town that was founded by Mormons (founded in 1868). We have our normal malicious mischief going on. Most of the town decorates for the holidays. When someone needs help with anything most of the people jump in to help out. We have a cute little park and the town has 3 schools in it. I live far enough away that I really don't see many people. I'm really close to the reservation on a road that has no markings for lanes. Farming and horses are the norm here. We have a lot of law enforcement in our town, those that work at the prison or the county jail, to regular county Sheriff's and State Law Enforcement.
You can hear the coyotes at night yipping away. In the morning you can hear cows or horses that want to be fed. The kids are polite and respectful. It's a nice little town, all in all.

[miller4plusmore]

I live in a suburb of Nashville called Donelson. It's close to the airport, but it's a nice little area. I heard it described perfectly in the paper earlier, "Donelson's a small city, within a city." We are very community oriented and many people here embrace Christmas in a big way.

[whychristmas]

I'm in a sea side town, pop about 10,000. It's a nice mix of the sea and country; and from where I'm typing I can see lots of hills and trees (and a few houses!). Sadly snow is a rare occurrence in the winter!

[kelly ann]

kelly ann- that is disgusting that your husband had bottles thrown at him and was almost beaten up. was he ok?

there are always going to be the odd bad eggs aren't their? it's a shame.

Well we both managed to get away, but it wasn't only bottles they were throwing it was bricks too. There must've been about 6 of them all had been drinking I assume and couldn't have been older than 17. They asked my husband for his wallet, but he doesn't carry a wallet so they thought we were lying, then I said to him, you'd better run, so he ran thats when they started throwing things and becoming very violent. As he was running to get help (we didnt have a mobile) I was trying to keep up with him, these boys were going to start on me!! I cant remember exactly what happened but I ran towards this house and had them to call the police. But believe it or not they were never caught and noone in the neighbourhood would give evidence or tell us who these boys were. Yet this happened again not long after in broad daylight. My husband had his faced punced by some youngster for no apparent reason. Again nothing was done because he wasn't caught!!
Youth today!! Id say bring back national service and get these :tree:off our streets!!

[kgstyles]

I live on an Air Force Base 13 miles from the city of Grand Forks, ND and 60 miles form the Canadian border. It's a very quiet place except for the planes that take off from here. There is no crime whatsoever on the base or in "downtown" Grand Forks. There is only 3 months of above 60 degree weather and the rest of the year it's cold and/or snowy with an average high of about 0 during the winter months. But it's a very family friendly base and city.

[Billy Battles]

I live in th Metro Detroit area. About a 10 minute walk from Detroit. Needless to say that the crime rate is probably well above average.

I however still have faith in people. I think that crime rates are higher in areas where people feel they have no hope. They are not getting a proper education, they do not see anyone from where they are from succeeding. Their role models are criminals, because "thugs" and drug dealers are the only people they see around them with anything, that is what they aspire to be.

With that being said I probably wouldn't live anywhere else....I know it probably sounds crazy.

[snowytree]

We live in a modest home in an established neighborhood. Lots of trees here at our house we are practically in the forest! We do know some of the people and our kids have a few friends but the homes arent real close together so it's kind of walk to get anywhere. The youth around here are pretty good kids. I'd say the crime rate is not to bad here but when you enter the closest city to us there are some problems.

[George Broderick, Jr.]

I live about five minutes outside Pittsburgh's city center in the "near North Hills", but you'd never know it... I'm in a township with separate (lower) tax structures from the city... I live in a 90 year old "Sear's home" on a street (I'm at the top of a hill) where everyone knows everyone else and we have backyard campfires and holiday neighborhood parties... I walk to church and all the kids on our street are roughly the same age... they all grew up together and most of 'em (including my daughter) are going off to college this week and next, so it's gonna get REALLY quiet around here. Fairly low crime rate and, because I live right next to the local police station, no crime on my street. I can see the Heinz 57 ketchup chimnies from my front porch and grew up smelling ketchup and relish in the air on hot summer days...

[kerst]

I live in a very nice neighborhood ! It is a first for me to know all my neighbors. I moved here only last year. Next Saturday we'll have our annual BBQ if the weather permits cheesy and last Christmas I invited everybody over for a Christmas drinks party. On warm nights people even sit outside on the sidewalk with a glass of wine. Houses are glued together so no gardens.

Sadly on the other side/street (I live on the corner) there is one couple who often fight during the night and scream and yell and keep us all awake. They dump their trash where it doesn't belong. and now I heard some drug addicts moves into that street as well.

As for crime... my flowers got stolen three times. I solved that by planting a large plant with thorns among the flowers. But other than that it's perfectly safe. I absolutely love this neighborhood !

[joyful]

When I moved to my present home it was like stepping back in time. Newspaper came out once a week, (it still does) by the time you have read about someone dying they are buried.
People were kinda nosy (was asked at the bank why we didn't like trees, LOL, we had to cut many trees down in our property because of the shade issue, too much shade turning things green).
We live on the outskirts of town so we do not feel part of the town. Also in my area if you are not a certain "religion" acceptance is not given readily.
But it was a great place to raise kids, our kids had an old fashion upbringing. Skating on the pond; sledding down the hills; playing hide & seek at night; sleeping out in the tent; fishing and hunting and etc.
But do not consider this my home, where I was born and raised will always be my home.
Wonderful memories of relatives living on the same street, wonderful Christmas memories and just a good place to live.
We live a very simple life, appreciating family, sitting outside on the swing, sitting around the fire outside making mountain pies. We are just regular hard working people who are very patriotic and appreciate what we have here in the USA.

[misjordi]

We live on a small farm about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh. We do not really have anyone that we can get together with so we kinda keep to ourselves. We have 24 acres and a few farm animals that occupy our time. I would love to live in an area where you have friendly neighbors and have BBQ's. Our neighbors barely say hi if you accidently meet at the mail boxes. We do not have any close neighbors beside us, a few acres of land seperate us. But across the street we have some strange ones, and my husbands family live down the hill but are classified as the "theives" of the family. Aren't we lucky to live down the street from them?? We do not have alot of crime in the country, maybe a broken mailbox now and then. But other than that we let our doors unlocked and keys hanging in the cars. Wish we had close neighbors like others have spoken about, or nice and crowded family get togethers, but we're not lucky enough to have all that. It gets depressing at the holidays, but this site keeps me going!! Thank you all!!

[sdkluger]

I live in a college town so the population goes up and down depending on what time of year it is. The population just increased by 5000 (about 30,000 or so now) or so yesterday. The neighbors are friendly but keep to themselves. There's some crime in the area. We've had things disappear that weren't locked up and a car broken into. There's also rumors of gang activity in the area, but it isn't bad yet. I'd love to live in a small town, rural area; but that's not possible right now.

[RadioJonD]

My neighborhood is so rough, the ice cream truck plays "Helter Skelter". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM9KRpEkGfY

[Maureen]

We live in a converted loft. Once upon a time the whole building used to be an old fashioned grocery store with stables for the delivery horse and the loft to store the meal and grain. There are now 3 apartments - one long one downstairs in what used to be the stable and 2 upstairs in the ex-loft! The whole thing is surrounded by an 8ft stone wall and it's wonderful!!

The town itself is a little different from Toronto!! Toronto - pop. 3 million Blairgowrie - pop. zilch. Major culture shock. That said, scenery wise, Perthshire can't be beaten and is considered the gateway to the Highlands. If you follow it round on a globe, we are on a par with Moscow and in the middle of Hudson's Bay!!! Explains why the weather sucks........!!!

[Mumof2]

I live on the Border of Mass and R.I its a really nice town to raise kids,good schools,etc..I live on a street right off "downtown" North Attleborough.crime is low here.its ok here but if you're not a "Townie" they don't talk to ya.it's ok im from Boston so its not like I wanna talk to these people lol.

They have a lot of activity downtown.Every christmas they have a parade,halloween they have a trick or treat for the kids at the business',for back to school they give you a bag you go around and the business' fill it with school supplies,easter egg hunts.fundraisers etc...

[Michael Rielly]

Hey, Mumof2 -- sounds like we are neighbors!

I live in, what once was a quiet little coastal town in Rhode Island. Over that past 10 to 15 years the town has been over run by tourists. what once took 5-8 minutes to get downtown now takes 30-45 minutes!