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[zevele1]

Since long i want to ask it

Most of the ricains on this forum do not live in big towns.Most of them live in the country side with gardens,forest and river near them

Are you representative of the avarage US population?
Or just it happens that many on MJ forum do not live in town?

Are you representative of a certain social class?
If yes,which one?

Listening to: 'Wings Of Mercury' from 'Live / Official Bootleg' by 'Man' on Media Jukebox

[Charlemagne 8]

While most of us ricains live in cities (some large, some small)  still, demographically there is a big shift underway to move further out. Ironically, with more and more people doing it, all you have are growing suburban areas. 15 years ago, I "moved to the country" after having spent my entire life (up to that point) in (1) Nashville, Tennessee and (2) Atlanta, Georgia.
I had no neighbors that I could see. The closest was about 400 yards away but behind a small strip of woodland. (That was quite a change from my 55' wide lot in Atlanta). Now I can see at least 2 dozen ... mostly "double-wides" which is a modular home delivered on wheels and set up in a few days, ready to move into. It's not exactly a "trailer" but it's not exactly a house, either. Still the closest is about 300 feet away but most of the trees are gone. All except mine. I have 18 acres of almost all trees and as far as I'm in control of it, it will stay that way. From the air, it looks like a big dark green square.

The social structure is very diverse but it would seem to be lower-middle to middle income peoples. Most have young families. A lot of them commute fairly long distances to work ... more than an hour. Machinehead is the extreme but is not unusual with his commute.

It's possible that the MJ forum people have little else that they want to do. Really all there is "out here" to do is yard work, house work and TV. Which would you rather do?

[JimH]

zevele/trash/junk,
It is a Very Good Question.  I thought about it tonight in the shower.  A couple weeks ago I built myself an outdoor shower.  The neighbors will have the state police in here when they figure it out.

I live in a suburb and I'm lucky to live on a lake.  A house built in the 50's, so it seems like a new house to me.

Like C8, I own a lot of trees.  Not 18 acres, more like 3, but almost enough woods if I wanted to heat my house with wood.

I drive to work.  For 26 years, I have driven from the western suburbs of Minneapolis to the old warehouse district of Minneapolis.  When I started working there, I had a wood stove store in an old brick building (1883) that was a wreck from a lot of years of neglect.

But my commute is now 13 miles and each day I meet another man from my office about 1/3 of the way to work.  From there, we take turns driving.  It takes about 25 minutes most days.

I have a garden and I try to grow vegetables, as well as flowers.  The rabbits eat a lot of what I grow.

I have a small sailboat and today I spent two hours on the lake in a big wind on a hot day.  A beautiful young woman went by in a huge white fiberglass powerboat.  I waved.  She waved.  I looked.  She looked.  I returned to my dock.

That's as much excitement as we can stand in the suburbs.

I'll write more in a few minutes.  I'm going to have a mojito.

[KingSparta]

>> I waved. She waved. I looked. She looked. I returned to my dock.
>> That's as much excitement as we can stand in the suburbs
LOL, JimH Party Man

[gateley]

Hi zevele,

I lived in Barcelona for a while before coming to Minneapolis. In Barcelona, everyone lives on top of one another, and for nature they go to the local square. (Ok, I exaggerate a little bit). In Minneapolis, we have some apartment buildings, but more land is devoted to houses. Each house has at least a minimal yard, and a couple of trees. Even apartment buildings have green grass around them.

I live in a townhome (it's a cross between an apartment/flat and a house), and I'm about 12 miles from downtown and work. There's a swamp out my back window.

Why do ricains spread out like this? We are the culture of the car. Spain has as much room as we do, more or less, but in Spain a car is very expensive. The government taxes them a lot. Gas is twice as expensive. Parking can cost as much as a flat (joke: how do you say sidewalk in spanish? parking). It is easier and cheaper for us to travel, and so we spread out more.

just my opinion, nothing to do with JRiver and no disrespect intended to any culture.

fins ara...

j

[Charlemagne 8]

"I have a garden and I try to grow vegetables, as well as flowers. The rabbits eat a lot of what I grow."
Me, too. I happen to like rabbits and I can buy vegetables in the store for cheaper than I can grow them AND keep out the rabbits so I'm glad I can feed them. It's kind of cool to see a rabbit munching happily on a small green tomato that I grew for him/her. They don't even run from me unless I get within about 20 feet.

We also have deer and coyotes and I have heard armadillos are moving into the area. I have seen a couple on the roads so I guess unless somebody is importing armadillos to throw out on the road, they're here.

[JimH]

OK, mojito half gone (well maybe a little more than half).

Two more things I wanted to say.

The American Dream, as we call it, is to have a house with grass and flowers around it, with a family of some kind (different now than before) and to call it a castle (not precisely but close).

The architect known as Le Corbusier drew a cartoon once of "Man's Dream".  It looked like what I just described.  Then he drew "Man's Dream X 1,000,000".  It looked like a bad dream.  House, house, house, all the same.

The other thing is more ordinary.  On this forum are mostly guys.  Why?  I do not know.  I used to think that Scronch scared the women away, but he is a perfect gentleman now, so maybe it is me.

Also, we collect guys (sorry to the females we cherish here) who have PC's and, often big collections of music.  Unfortunately, this means they are more like the gray hairs like you and me than like the young athletic types like Doof.  (hmmm, maybe that's why we have not too many females.)

I think we are skewed toward men who are better educated or have more money.  It's sad, but perhaps it's true.  But it may explain why there are more people here with houses.

Apartments are nice.  I loved living in two small rooms, with a bike, and deux pieds from the nearest metro in Paris.  I'm thinking about moving to a boat.

[KingSparta]

>> I'm glad I can feed them
Funny Because, I buy 25Lb Boxes of Peanuts to feed the squirrels.

It is fun to watch them come up and take a nut. sometimes they will take it from my hand and sit down and eat it.

[JimH]

Zevele,
Are you taking notes?  You could write a book and be famous.  Sort of like Alec de Tocqueville.

Jim

[Charlemagne 8]

He's got to sleep sometime. He's old, too. He just tries not to let it slow him down. "Eat, drink and be merry ... " and all that.
It's 3:40 A.M. (Sunday) there.

This picture was made 50 years ago.

[AlonsoN]

Some of us live in cities.

I live in Baltimore, right smack dab in the middle.  One odd bit is that folks who live around the city, in the county suburbs, drive an hour each way and sit in miles of traffic on the highways and connecter roads.  They think Baltimore traffic is terrible.  I know better.  I live in the city and never have a traffic problem because going in and out of the city is easy.  It's trying to get from one county community to anther that's a pain.  Within a five minute walk of my house are a dozen restaurants, another dozen bars (that's Baltimore, hon) post office, hardware store, hair salons where you can get an honest Full Baltimore Beehive, video's, pets, etc, etc.  And this is not a rich neighborhood by any means.  Houses go for 40 to 130k depending.

Schools stink, though.  And that's the trade off.  You can get a decent house for 80k and spend 120k on private schools, or buy a house in the county with good schools for 250k.  Problem is that in 12 years you can't sell the kid and get your money back.  Sigh.

The northern industrial cities have been loosing population for 40|PLS| years, due to the desire to sprall, and some really misguided ideas about how cities work.  Unlike many of our neighbor cities to the north (Camden, Trenton, Newark) Baltimore has not suffered complete devistation.  There are great neighborhoods & communities, and the center of the city is more or less healthy.  But there is the fact that the city has lost about 1 million in population, and there 40k|PLS|  abondoned dwellings in the city.  Can you immagine?

[gateley]

[Harry The Hipster]

I live in a small city - around 125,000 people, including near suburbs. And we're no more than 2|PLS| hours away from some pretty primitive forests and wild mountain areas. But on the other hand, we're less than an hour away from Boston, which is a major city in the Northeast, and in a lot of respects, we're really one of its suburbs, although in another state.

The State itself is around 1.2 MM people more or less. So its quite easy to get to know a lot of people - we're pretty compact - and if we don't know someone, we probably know someone who does. Although we live close to a major urban area, we have a lotof the characteristics of a small town. You often have a pretty good idea about the people moving in enxt door, or someone you have to deal with professionallly, before you ever meet him. Word travels fast.

Still, a nice place to live. Depending on your interests, its easy to have an urban lifestyle or move out to the boondocks. Used to be very homogenous when I was growing up - a Yankee upper class, various strata of French-Canadian, Irish, Jews, Greeks and other ethno-religious communities living a side by side existence but often not having too much to do with one another. Back in the 1940s, many parishes here had parochial high-schools that taught in the language of the predominant ethnic group in the parish: French, Belgian, etc.. Now we have substantial Cambodian, Bosnian, Romanian, Carribean, African and other communities that never had a presence here before - its a major refugee resettlement area. By one count, the main high school in town has to deal with something like 46 different languages or dialects in its student population. Has had a major impact on the city - favorable, in my view. A more sophisticated and tolerant place.

So, my city and state (and probably the US as a whole) are in the midst of rapid change of which we're not fully cognizant right now. We're both more and less than what we think and say we are, because perception always seems to lag reality.

As for myself, my wife and I live in the northern edge of the city, in a big old Victorian house we bought years ago when no-one wanted these things - remember the fuel crisis of the mid-70s? I live about 5 minutes from my office, but our kids are grown and live far away - Ann Arbor Michigan and Seattle Washington. We get to see them as often as we can, which is never often enough. We're a mobile society, although people sense a nesting instinct since 9-11, and I think they're right. Just not the same interest in traveling constantly. Home is more than good enough.

HTH

Listening to: 'Flying Home' from 'Homage' by 'George Auld' on Media Jukebox

[Jolly Molly]

I live in the East Midlands of England - each way I look out of the windows in my house, all I see is other houses, roads, and people. People can be seen any time day or night - the place NEVER seems to sleep! I have to work, so ... SADLY ... my choice of where to live is rather limited at present!

I USED to live in a place about 200 miles from where I am now - more years ago than I care to admit!  Maybe I would like to go back there some day - it's where property is cheap, mountains are big, rivers are beautiful and where there's LOTS of peace and ALL seems to be asleep (or close to it) most of the time!  There is plenty of open space, wildlife to watch, scenery to stand and stare at, and nice people who have time to stop and talk. Where was it? ...  WALES ...  

I would love to share a picture of Wales with you all but don't know how to do it ... CAN SOMEONE HELP PLEASE?    

Incidentally I loved the Sates when I visited West Coast States in 1995 - there are so many wonderful places in the world that I ain't ever been, nor ever am likely to get to!  Thank goodness for TV and books where I can learn about some of these places!
Molly    

[JimH]

Molly,
I would love to see a picture of Wales.

Here's a picture:

If you replace the parentheses in the following line with brackets you will get a picture.  There is Help for Posting above.  Your picture must be on your server.

(img=http://www.jriver.com/~jriver/woodland/north.jpg)

[zevele1]

I get a picture[this was before the last 2 posts-it take me hours to type]
I mean i get a general picture from your answers

JimH

I see around me in France,UK and here that for most women,computer is more like a car: a man thing.I do not know of a couple with the wife spending long time on the computer-kids or not,micro-oven food or home cooking food-I mean at home ,not at work.

The other side of it ,is that women may want they music on computer,but just to play it.Not to spend more time to get tags,sleeves than listening to the music as MOST of us do.

Sure most of us are not teenager anymore.And sure we have more money and time to spend.If you have the same job for decades,when kids grow up,house without mortgage ,you have more money left every months.

I do have a strong feeling that most ricains here are well educated.Because of it this place is not a very sorry average american forum[the bottom line to me is french forums,not US ones by the way]

Kind of Jim Harrison versus Eminen
Is this because of the % of grey hairs here?Or just because of a general feeling from the place,no matter the color of hairs?

In other hand you have young people here as well,Nila,Mouse and many others.You even have some charming sex people.Not a bad mix

Gateley

Spain is a great catastrophe on the urbanisation [?] level
When you see the belt of ugly hudge houses buildings and towers around any town in Spain,you get chills

But you cannot compare Europe and USA.Town was a close and safe place with walls around the city.No room for gardens and parcs.The town was alway crowded.
And the implantation of towns had other criteria than in USA.
Communication first.near the sea, in a valley with access to other valleys and plains.Many times on the traditional ways of invasions to block them.
Climat and water.Go to the gorgious south of Spain:heat and no water.
Also 'industries' was important
Agriculture,food,wool at the start,coal,iron  and other latter

Most of the old towns in Europe do not have much 'green spaces'If they have some,like Jardin des Tuileries in Paris,it is because the king was living there and had 'his private garden'

Not the case in London.But have a look: the sea as frontier and the problematic frontier[Scotland] far from London.
Only the very heart[Oxford street,Picadilly,Totenham court road]are buildings crowded and green less


Concerning my question,as i said i got a picture

In fact only people move ,not places of work
You live in the country side ,but your life is not only in the country side.
I mean JRiver is not out of town in a village near a lac.Workers from JRiver have a house near a lac or a swamp.
I cannot compare with Israel,but with France.
Look like there is two main differences: in big towns a lot of trains,tram,buses,many -if not most- used public transports instead of car

Many people travel more than one hour from work to home to reach hudge homes buildings,towers NOT houses
There is another problem in France.From the heart of Paris ,if you draw a 120 kilometers circle,you have around 36 millions people living here out of a total population of around 66-67 millions people
Sure France is not USA ,but not a small country as well.Center,south center of France is empty,i mean really empty,not a way to say things

Many work places moved out of town,CMagic says he is 30 kilometers south of Paris,and i am sure he is working where he lives.
But i am surprised that in USA it looks like work places stay in town
There is any need for hight teck places to be in town?

The "MachineHead's Best Buy" is in town? Why not in a small town near a big one?

I have the same feeling that AlonsoN about living in town.In Paris schools are not the mean problem,average flat a 2 rooms flat a problem for family.
London is like villages one close to an other.You have always "your local shops",no matter where you live.There is no need to go to center of town,you get allmost all in "your village"

Here ,there is allmost no country side.One hour drive ,you change town!

I would like H.T.H. to post a map of Israel and a map of any US state at the same scale,you may understand what i mean,and understand many more things as well.
You can put 10 times Israel in Minnesota,more or less

JimH
What is a mojito?

By the way did i tell you once that i love Jim Harrison and the quality of life in London?[with a fair income,this is true]

[JollyJim]

Zevele

>>>You even have some charming sex people.Not a bad mix <<<
Steady boy, steady !!!!!!


By the way, what is 'ricain' ??

Jim

[zevele1]

When posting for US National days,i said ;" to the yankees'

A little mistake,cause yankee is not 100% neutral in USA

The french for americans is americains
People say 'ricains' instead.It is a 100 % positive meaning.
You would not say ricains are idiots.If you use ricains it means you have something nice ,cool to say-only

[JollyMolly]

Thanks JimH

Where was that picture taken?  Looks good!

Would love to post a picture of Wales  ... BUT ... I DON'T  have one on the server - only on my hard drive!  Can I do it some other way please?  

Molly

[Harry|PLS|The|PLS|Hipster]

Z:

Here's a side by side of Israel and New Hampshire (where I live). Scale for Israel is 1"=30 miles, NH is 1"=25 miles, so Israel is slightly larger:



And NH is one of the smaller states in the US....

HTH

[JimH]

Here's one I found on google:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Peace/usa.html

[JimH]

Molly,
The picture is what I see from my back yard.  It's the boat from my description above.

If you can find a picture on the Internet, you can do a right click on it and then "copy shortcut" (using IE).  Then paste that link here. Posting Help above.

[zevele1]

Can you tell me the name of the lake in the middle of USA on the map you links on your post?

[zevele1]

H.T.H and JimH thank you

If you have a look at the H.T.H map.
The brown------- are 'the green line' the frontier of Israel before the 6 days war.
You can see that from the sea shore in Tel-Aviv aera to the ------ ,there is less miles that the ones that some of you drive one way to go to work...
You may understand better the concern[paranoia?] of Israel concerning security

You may understand how the problems ,the situation is a very special one.
Two enemys in such a small place to share....Look like a no way out most of the times.......

[lee269]

I live in a town on the south east edge of the conurbation that is Greater London. My house is in a small terraced street of '2 up-2 down' houses (for UK viewers, reminiscent of Coronation St - a popular soap opera). In the 6 years I have been here my house has doubled in value - I could no longer afford to buy it, or in fact almost any house in my area, which is by no means an affluent one. There are approx 7-9 million people living in Greater London, and there is now a serious problem with the fact that people working in essential public services - nurses, firefighters, teachers etc - cannot afford to live or work in central London. Schemes are being set up to provide affordable housing for these people. They say an Englishmans home is his castle, and there is a culture of homebuying in the UK, but lots of people I know starting out cannot afford to buy around here, with 1 bedroom apartments costing upwards of £100,000.

Alonso - I remember Baltimore well from my visit in 1998, particularly the myriad brewpubs... The waterfront makes a great focal point to the city centre.

Mojitos - AFAIK a very nice Cuban cocktail containing rum and mint. A Danish friend of mine turned me on to these 2 years ago in Luxembourg (long story), and each summer since I have been trying to reproduce the magic formula. I would love to know the official JRiver mojito recipe.

lee269

[JimH]

zevele,
the blue lake is Israel, but I think you knew that.

The other lakes on the North are the five great lakes.  From west to east, Lake Superior, L. Michigan, L. Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario.  Not certain about the order of the last two -- somebody will correct me.  Lake Superior borders Minnesota on the NorthEast side.

[zevele1]

In 92\93 i was thinking about to buy a small flat in London.
But ,even at this time it was very very expensive.
Of cause,if you buy a flat for hollydays ,it has to be in town.But even places like Kilburn was out of reach
In fact we did a big mistake not to buy 15 years ago.At this time it was not that expensive.
Now the situation is very bad for average people

[sekim]

>>>> The "MachineHead's Best Buy" is in town? Why not in a small town near a big one? <<<<

zevele,

This one is pretty simple really, logistics. Being corporate headquarters for a major retailer means they have to be near areas that have more localized facilities. Motels, airports, entertainment, and whatever else goes along with major business dealings. These things are already in place so it wouldn't make much sense to build in an outlaying areas.

[JimH]

zevele,
mojito
http://www.digsmagazine.com/drinkrecipes/drink_mojito.htm
not bad.

[Jolly|PLS|Molly]

Thanks JimH

Here goes with the picture of Wales!



The hills on the horizon are the Brecon Beacons - further South than my place of origin but still so lovely!  

[Molly, that link doesn't work.  I added one below.]



Molly

[KingSparta]

I wonder if penny royal will work, since i have a bag full of dried plants i got when i was in NJ.

[JollyMolly]

Thanks JimH

Molly

[zevele1]

Mojito
Will try it in Vienna
What is light rhum?

Greg Lemon is old story.A new ricain rules le Tour since 3 years:Amstrong.He is very strong,to much.Look like that is treatement against cancer changed him in a kind of mutant

MachineHead

Airports are not in middle of towns.They are near a big town and with smaller towns around.So why do not built in one of them ,maybe even closer from the airport,With people from all around coming to work using other ways that the 'outside to inside big town'.Most of the time having shorter travel time.means better 'spirit',productivity.

Beside this,in Europe they see that places like 'your BestBuy' if in a small town,with most of the workers living in other small towns around,get workers much more involved,bound to they company  than if in a big towns

But i have an european point of view,where there is allways small towns around and close to a big town

Not the case in USA? You have a big town with suburbs and empty space until the next big town?

[JimH]

It's 2000 miles to the next town from where we live.

Light rum is clear, not dark.  Looks like vodka or gin.

Hope you have a Sacher torte in Vienna.

[zevele1]

JimH
TWO THOUSANDS MILES?
Or 200 hundred?
But 200 hundred is an answer.BestBuy can be only in a big town

Funny the light rhum story.Because the white rhum is stronger than the brown one.
The brown one is for cakes ,crepes

There is a very good one that is a little bit light brown,more kind of light yellow.The color comes from the wood barrel[?]

I will post the list of all the cakes i eat there.

Do you know the movie Sunrise[if i am not wrong] a tourist girl and an american tourist boy spending a night is Vienna

This is the kind of US movies i like

PS: a mile is around 1,6 kilometer ?A bit more if i am not wrong

[Charlemagne 8]

2,000 miles to the next town does seem a bit much even in the U.S.

A mile is equal to 1.609 kilometres.

CVIII

[JimH]

Zev,
I was "pulling your leg".  It was a joke.  Not too funny, but lots of jokes aren't very funny.

The next big city west of us is Denver, about 700 miles.  There are lots of towns, many organized like small towns in Europe, but now with not very active commercial centers.  People drive to bigger towns to do much shopping.

Looking forward to your cake playlist.

Jim

[Figaro]

Just to keep the record straight: not everyone here is young (or youngish). I'm 71 and holding in San Antonio, TX and I live in a condo. Miss my house and vegetable garden, but you have to know when to quit and take it easy. Thinking of getting rid of just about everything except my computer and taking to the road in a motor home.

[Charlemagne 8]

Figaro,
Do it if you feel that you should. Being 71 is no guarantee that you are close to your end any more than being 20 guarantees that you're far from it. Morbid but my point is: As long as you are able, enjoy living. So many of us forget to.
CVIII

[zevele1]

700 miles is a HUDGE diatance by europeens standarts

But i understand now the general situation .Still a lot of space,and big towns still the heart of important things,matters

Figaro ci,Figaro la

Sorry ,very cheap joke,but i cannot resist...
This is the stong point of this place,a mix of all ages.
Would like very much to travel your country as you want to do

[KingSparta]

Do you Like Rum?

http://www.internetwines.com/spirits-rumtemplate-over.html