# Best Places to Raise a Family



## danzon (Aug 31, 2003)

Where are the best places to raise a family? I want to hear from people with experience living in a small town / city or even rural area who love it.

We (my husband & 9 month old baby boy) are looking to move to a family-friendly town. Some places on our list:
- Ashland Oregon
- Bellingham Washington
- Healdsburg California

Recommendations? Ideas? Things to consider when moving a family?

Thanks!


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## Holland73 (Jan 5, 2004)

I am from Ashland and Medford, the neighboring city. I was born in Roseburg, which is even smaller than both and raised in Ashland/Medford from the age of 5 years old.

Ashland is beautiful. It is a wonderful combination of natural beauty and outdoor activities, being nestled right in the middle of the mountains, plus a wonderful eclectic mix of people. It tends to be what many call, "crunchy granola", but I find there is a BIG mix of everything. It is nice though because you will be able to find many AP-minded families there!

The schools are good and don't have the "rural, small town" curriculum that many rural, small town schools have. Having lived overseas, and still living overseas, I find the Ashland has a very european feel and atmosphere to it.

BUT...Ashland is VERY expensive, in comparison to the surrounding towns/cities. Housing prices are not cheap, as space is running out. Many people from California are moving up to Southern Oregon...many retirees and people trying to escape natural disasters, plus they sell their homes in CA for incredible amounts and spend half of that on the same exact thing in Southern Oregon. Southern Oregon is starting to burst at the seams! I was just home the last 2 weeks of March and was surprised to see all the growth...granted, I was also a bit saddened!

Good luck with your search, hope I helped a little!


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

We live in a rural area and love it, we couldn't imagine living in town. It certainly isn't for every one though. We have 10 acres, but the land around is vacant is it feels like we are out in the middle of nowhere, dd can run, play, and yell without distrubing any one. But it is alot of work, we fight a constant battle trying to turn the land into an actaul backyard. My battle this week is digging up cactus!







We live in SW CO, in the winter we have to plow to get out, SUV with 4 wheel drive is a neccessity. We have a tiny little town 2 miles away, it consists of 1 gas station, 1 stoplight and a little store. Everyone knows everyone here, when we first moved here and would drive into "town" to walk around, people would come running out of their houses to inroduce themselves. Which can be a bad thing too, when I went into labor, dh ran down to the store to get something, 10 minutes later my mother called pissed off because I hadn't called her yet to tell her I was in labor, word sure does travel fast! Larger towns are situited on either side of us, one 20 miles away, and another 32, they certainly aren't cities, but are enough. We have plently of outdoor activites to do, we hike alot and go camping, skiing, etc... There is a large city 4 hours away, a few times a year we will go there to go shopping. We travel alot with dh's work, and are also so happy to come home. I have always lived in somewhat of a rural area so city life is not for me. if you aren't used to it, then rural life can be isolating, especially if you have bad weather in the winter. We don't have to lock our doors, and rarely lock our car doors either. I never have to be afraid, if I break down, people will immeaditely pull over to help. People are very friendly. dd is demanding attention, gotta go.


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

Forget to say that that our rural area is very AP friendly, tons of AP families, unschoolers, homeschoolers, I see people NIP all the time, slings are everywhere, several homebirth MW, and 2 at the local hospital. I don't know if other rural areas are like this, but when I go to a big city, I have never seen anyone NIP or even a sling.


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## Violeta (Aug 23, 2003)

does it have to be on the west coast? i love the area we live in..when we moved here 2 years ago, it was in the top ten places to raise a family...are you familiar with the Hampton Roads area of Virginia...it includes VA Beach, Norfok, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Newport News and Suffolk...we actually live in Suffolk, which is very rural, but have access to big city things just 20-30 minutes away like great shopping, beaches, museums, cultural, etc.


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## Destinye (Aug 27, 2003)

San Juan Islands, WA (but try telling my dh that...sigh)


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## Pookietooth (Jul 1, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Holland73*
Ashland is VERY expensive, in comparison to the surrounding towns/cities. Housing prices are not cheap, as space is running out. Many people from California are moving up to Southern Oregon...many retirees and people trying to escape natural disasters, plus they sell their homes in CA for incredible amounts and spend half of that on the same exact thing in Southern Oregon.

Goodness! The whole pyramid scheme that is Calif. real estate just doesn't seem to go away! DH and I would love to move to Oregon, but not if housing is as expensive as CA.


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## danzon (Aug 31, 2003)

Thanks for the insightful feedback. Ashland sounds good; we've visited and enjoyed the town, but that was awhile ago and before our 'relocation' wheels started turning.

For those of you who live in rural areas -- AMB8301, I'd especially like to hear your thoughts -- I'm curious about the type of people. We'd like to be in a place where there are progressively minded people, ideally a university/college in town...and it seems that many of the spots we've checked out are quite conservative. Oregon and Washington state both seem to have pockets of more liberal minded people but most of those states seem pretty conservative / right wing. (That's just not our cup of tea, nothing personal). For instance, I see a lot of hunting info, sportsman activities (I remember camping on the Oregon coast where there were a bunch of 4-wheeler trails/races...)

Thoughts?


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## hjohnson (Mar 2, 2004)

I lived in Colorado for 3 years and I found that almost all of Colorado is conservative except for Boulder. Boulder is up there with California when it comes to house prices.


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## moondiapers (Apr 14, 2002)

Healdsburg is pretty close to a large town/small city now. The city is getting closer and closer. I recommend Ukiah, California's #1 small town.


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

I believe our rural area is pretty progressive. There is a private lesbian dude ranch not far from where I live plus many local business are owned by them so they are well accepted.DH and I went to one of the two restaurants located in our tiny town last night and our waitress was kissing her girlfriend, and no one even blinked an eye. One of the towns that is 32 miles away has a good college, there are many college students here as well as tourists. That same town is a draw for tourists in the summer, the town only has a population of 14 thousand. Many of the families I have meet are non-vaxing or selective, homebirthing, etc... I know there are plently of conservative people here, but I would say that there are also many that aren't. The town I'm closest too has a popultion of 2 thousand. Alot of people here live the the"country" as opposed to right in town. I believe I am in a pocket, people I have talked to in othr rural areas have said they have had the same experience that you are talking about with fairly conservative people. If you are intestered in rural areas then maybe you could find one of these pockets in an area you like.


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## Holland73 (Jan 5, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pookietooth*
Goodness! The whole pyramid scheme that is Calif. real estate just doesn't seem to go away! DH and I would love to move to Oregon, but not if housing is as expensive as CA.

Sorry, I think you misunderstood me, or I didn't make myself very clear. Houses in Oregon are half the price as they are in California.

So, a family sells their home in CA for $500,000, then buys the same size, maybe even bigger, home in Oregon for only $200-250,000. Talk about making a profit!!!

Danzon...I agree that the Pacific Northwest tends to be a lot more liberal-minded then most other states in the US. Although, in many rural, rural areas, I would not really consider Ashland rural...more just a small city, they do tend to be ridiculously conservative and close-minded.


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## Kirsten (Mar 19, 2002)

Sounds to me like you'd like Bellingham, especially the southern part - Fairhaven. I lived in B-ham for four years while attending WWU and it is a great town! Gorgeous area, nice people, liberal. Really a great place to live - big enough to have lots of options but small enough to have low traffic, crime, etc. It is also nice to be 90 minutes from either Seattle or Vancouver, B.C. if you want to go to the city for a concert, museum, etc.
Kirsten


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## Truvie (May 4, 2004)

I live in a rural area in Sonoma County, about a 30-40 minute drive from Healdsburg. We go to Healdsburg occasionally to walk around the plaza, but all I really know about Healdsburg is: lots of restaurants and shops, quite a few tourists, and generally a very pretty place.

I live in west Sonoma County, which is very progressive. Very community oriented and friendly. Slings and nursing toddlers everywhere. Organic farms and markets, solar power, vegetable-oil-driven cars, etc, is the dominant culture in this part of the county. We like it! There is a yahoo group for west Sonoma County that you could look at to get an idea of the "flavor" of the place: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WaccoBB/

Truvie


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## witchbaby (Apr 17, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *hjohnson*
I lived in Colorado for 3 years and I found that almost all of Colorado is conservative except for Boulder. Boulder is up there with California when it comes to house prices.

denver proper is very liberal-- we're talking about the actual city, not including the suburbs.
and boulder just pretends they're not conservative.









(heh, native denvah grrrl here...)


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## Korwynne (Feb 18, 2004)

I grew up in Corvallis, Oregon.. it's a really nice place..


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## darkstar (Sep 8, 2003)

AMB8301* where are you?? We are looking at land to buy in southern colorado.in the fall, And it sounds like that pretty close to what we are looking for. We have been looking at land in crestone, trinidad, and around durango. I know that is a wide search. Please give me some input.


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## Ravenmoon (Mar 2, 2002)

I'm from Bellingham and it really was the greatest place to raise children.I couldn't say enough great things about it.If it wasn't for B'ham i never would have been introduced to homebirthing,breastfeeding(i had no idea!)and AP parenting.Due to a shortage of jobs though we are in San Diego currently.We will be moving back there when we save enough money to buy our own home up there.Jobs there are hard to come by.


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

darkstar- I'm pming you


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## danzon (Aug 31, 2003)

We took a trip to Oregon and visited several towns in the Western part of the state. We really like Ashland; its in a beautiful setting, and it has a great vibe of people. We visited an elementary school there (we had read about its multi-aged classrooms, where students of different ages are in the same classes together) and were impressed by the physical setting....I was surprised to see skate-board racks next to the bike racks! The one concern we have with Ashland is it being far from any urban area -- 4-5 hours to Portland.

Our second favorite area in Oregon was McMinnville -- a small town in the wine region.

We also visited Corvallis & Eugene; saw a lot of grunge kids! (That's a very surface judgement; we didn't spend enough time in either to judge.)

Truvie: where do you live in Sonoma Co? I actually grew up in the Valley Ford area (talk about small town!) My siblings live in Sebastopol, Occidental, Tomales, Cazadero....I love all of that area.


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## danzon (Aug 31, 2003)

Any opinions on Ojai? Seems very new age-ish.....Anybody who loves/hates it for raising a family?


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## mountain (Dec 12, 2001)

I've never been to Ojai, but I wouldn't recommed the Mother Lode area--I'm in Sonora & it's hot as hell in the summer. The winters are nice, but there are few AP people--very conservative. We are looking to move where kids can be near family so we're looking for any cool places in MA--we're thinking amherst/noho area. We tried Washington & it was so hard to find any good work & the rain started to bum us out. Of course, we lived in Aberdeen so I don't know about Bellingham. The forests are sooo beautiful, if you move up there, try to save them! Weyerhauser is eating them as fast as they can grow.


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## Mama2Evan (Apr 10, 2004)

*Bloomington, Indiana*

Was voted a best place to live recently (Men's Journal)

Home to Indiana University.
Very diverse population (and 1/2 the people are gone for 3 months of the year!)
Food from every country imagineable
Music, arts, festivals, wineries, lakes
Environmentally progressive
Very liberal minded people
and more

a link
http://www.geocities.com/~bloomingguide/


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