One thing that really pisses me off is this village that claims it is the number one city in America, or the best place to live in America. These statements are ludicrous and are pure opinion. I know any single male over 35 would give you a drastically different view of this piss ass village.
One thing C-Ville loves to chat about is how nice and homey the area is. A report about over/under pricing of homes recently hit the news, and guess what? Charlottesville is #1 in the commonwealth in overpriced housing. However, among 317 cities Charlottesville only sits just below the top quarter of overpriced homes. Our homes are only overpriced by 29%. What a great thing. If you look at average home price, we make it all the way up in to the top 20%. Wow. We are working our way up to the highest price city in America. Do you think we can do that?
So, should I count that as the best place in America? Or should I move to some place that has housing that is at least CLOSE to reality? Here is a list of places that are all better deals that the village: Salem OR, Grand Junction, Spokane, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, Boulder, Ann Arbor, Madison, Denver, Rochester MN, and Buffalo. Of course, I’m skipping another 200+ places.
Charlottesville, the #1 overpriced city in Virginia. Can that be the new slogan they slap on all the promotional BS that this place cranks out?
I can’t disagree with the inflated housing costs here, especially relative to the rest of VA, but I can tell you that it makes Boulder look cheap, for sure. Not Denver. Boulder is and has been a staggeringly expensive place to live for some years now.
Have you even seen housing prices in other areas of VA? I say look at Arlington or FFX City- now those are actual overpriced and inflated areas. Cville- home prices here are outrageous but nothing like up there.
I bet if you talked to a single female over 35, she would probably be as bitter at the dearth of available well-adjusted men, but then again she may just make the best of it & enjoy the City for all its worth.
Are you going to the blog summit? It may be a great way to enjoy the city (I know then your blog wouldnt be so interesting).
Try Santa Fe, NM and Hawai’i – bloody unreal…
I’m willing to grant and accept that many people actually enjoy C’ville and that some of them truly do believe with all earnestness that it is “the best place to live in the USA.”
I don’t understand this belief or agree with it, but, if that’s what you feel, OK.
But what peeves me is that for the C’ville Uber Alles crowd they rarely grant the same understanding to those of us who do not much living here and don’t at all feel that it’s the best place in the USA to live or even in the top 10 or 20.
Instead we are usually met with variations of the following:
1) I bet you’d hate it everywhere. You’re just a mean, rotten, person.
2) Have you ever been to [insert some city name]? Well, it’s way worse there.
3) You’re not trying hard enough. You need to open your eyes or get out more. Just make the best of it!
4) C’ville votes Democratic!
5) You’re too naive, unwashed, and uneducated to appreciate the nuances and finer qualities of life that can be found in Mr. Jefferson’s County.
In all the above it’s implicit that there is somehow something amiss with us, i.e., it’s a given that C’ville is great. Thus, anyone who doesn’t think C’ville is great is defective.
Talk about smug.
And the fact that Outskirts and Doc is so over-the-top with his critiques of C’ville is both refreshing and amusing to me. It’s the best antidote to the smug.
AMEN!!!
Buffalo has a wealth of beautiful old houses that are cheap, but the property tax rates are outrageously high.
The median income in NOVA and other cities is much higher than median income in Charlottesville and so even though housing costs more in NOVA it’s affordable to a greater percentage of the NOVA population than identical and less costly homes (still high) here in the village.