Is Maine the new California? (Old Town: buying a house, buying, to live)

[Submariner]

The liberal masses in California are concentrated in two metro regions, roughly San Fransisco and Los Angeles. At the same time, the remaining 99% of the state population is rural and conservative.

The conservative regions of California produce a lot of food. Over 2/3s of the fruits, veggies, nuts, and cotton produced within our nation are produced in this one state.

California has a very strong economy because of all the Ag it produces.

The population of the cities is so huge that it allows roughly 1% of the state geographically to overwhelm state politics.

My relatives and my high school classmates are not happy with the way the cities control state politics, but the only option available to them seems to be pack up and leave. For most of those families, their grandparents migrated to California during the Grapes of Wrath migration, of the 1930s and 1940s.



Maine on the other hand is over 92% forest. If Mainers were legally allowed to produce lumber instead of importing lumber internationally, we would have a much stronger economy.

Our mills have tried producing paper but competition is too competitive. Our mills have shutdown and it has left our economy struggling.

Roughly 50% of Maine's population is allocated within a 40-mile radius of one city [and a huge portion of that is water].

The politics of these two states are comparable. Concentrated urban centers effectively control the entire state, such that rural townships with virtually no population are legislated as if they were urban.

[Three Wolves In Snow]

I was a kid in CA.

I moved around.

I eventually moved to Maine back in 2011.

CA was pretty decent when I was a kid, although there was definitely a strong left bias even then.

Maine, back in 2011, was amazing. Everyone just went along, took their time, were ridiculously friendly - was a little more difficult to get a job than in other places because no matter how much they like you, give you a tour of the place, introduce you to who you will be working with, someone else comes along, who has family that has been here forever...welp, you're out. That was the only negative I could find in Maine back then.

Got laid off from a work from home job, and didn't want to leave Maine, but didn't want to go through being a stellar candidate only to lose to their lawn mower's daughter's friend.

So, I went back to CA to stay with my sister for a bit. Horrendous. It is unbelievable what they have done to that state. It's beyond disgusting.

I am now back in Maine - and yes, Maine has absolutely changed.

A whole lot of people are extremely impatient and rude...I never saw that in the past. People want to blame Covid, but I think it's transplants who forgot to leave their attitude behind. If you come here to get away from the rat race, the rudeness, the stress...then don't continue to act that way. RELAX. It's Maine.

Solar panels in the middle of fields - definitely shocked me.

The building of apartments, free rent for 2 years, and $100,000 for 'refugees', definitely shocked me.

The rudeness on the road, even up in the Bangor area, not just in the Portland area, and further south, definitely shocked me.

The very idea that a state that says, 'Live and Let Live' would take a candidate off of the ballot, is not the Maine I knew from before. Each person gets one vote. They don't get to tell people how to vote by removing someone.

Gas prices are higher here, but they were back in 2011 and on - but nowhere near CA.

Rents are higher here - but we have to pay for all that 'free money' during Covid - but nowhere near CA.

Food prices are higher here, and they were back in 2011, but that is one thing that CA gets right. WinCo will always get you jaw dropping low prices.

Registration in Mane doesn't, or at least it didn't, keep going up, instead of going down like it does everywhere else when you are using the same car each year. It does in CA, no matter how old your car is.

Is this turning into CA? NO. It's not even on the very tip of getting anything like CA. Yet, anyway. As more come from certain areas, and instead of embracing Maine for what it is, rather trying to change it to be like where they came from, yes, it will definitely change, but to get up to CA level, Maine has a long, long, long way to go.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by Submariner

The liberal masses in California are concentrated in two metro regions, roughly San Fransisco and Los Angeles. At the same time, the remaining 99% of the state population is rural and conservative.

True in the '70s. Still true today.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-o-xPc1kJU

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

True in the '70s. Still true today.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-o-xPc1kJU

I know the Gatlin Bros. version from the early 1980's. This one is better.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by jbgusa

I know the Gatlin Bros. version from the early 1980's. This one is better.

[roadrat]

Things are definitely moving in a bad direction here in Maine, Drug over doses are at epidemic levels, drive by shootings ( one in Saco just yesterday), homeless everywhere.
The feckless mayor of Lewiston is so soft on crime that the local Shaws has a uniformed security guard at the registers, Lewiston has pretty much given up on business and is embracing the "poverty industrial complex".

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Originally Posted by roadrat

Things are definitely moving in a bad direction here in Maine, Drug over doses are at epidemic levels, drive by shootings ( one in Saco just yesterday), homeless everywhere.
The feckless mayor of Lewiston is so soft on crime that the local Shaws has a uniformed security guard at the registers, Lewiston has pretty much given up on business and is embracing the "poverty industrial complex".

It was 2 cars, at least one shooting at the occupants in another car. Crashed into a school bus full of children, fled the scene when they were unsuccessful with a carjacking (according to people who saw it all happen), apparently hid in a house on Scammon and North St.

I live in that area - Saco, across the river from the seedy part. I can't even tell you how many police and SWAT teams went by - for hours! Just when you thought it was quiet, there came another SWAT vehicle, another out of area police vehicle...it just. kept. going.

The news was very slow on updates, and I haven't looked today, but it was ridiculous for several hours yesterday.

So...since October, there was a mass shooting, there was another shooting in Saco killing 1 and critically wounding another, and then there was yesterday.

As I said earlier, Maine has definitely changed.

Of course anything can happen anywhere, of course these types of things happen all the time in other places, but that's the point - this type of lunacy doesn't typically happen here. Just another reason to be here.

I kept saying to myself, yesterday, 'Yep, I need to get back up north again. This is insane.'

When I lived here before, I felt very safe. People didn't lock their doors, people were, as I said, ridiculously friendly, no one was impatient on the roads, in fact, they drove really slow. There were problems with drugs and people being addicted homeless, but wow, there are definitely more than there used to be.

In Brewer - everywhere. Some places in Bangor, you see them.

In the area of Saco where all this madness took place, well, once they went across the river to hide, that's where you will see all the druggies and homeless. Actually, I guess that's technically Biddeford, but it's right there, across the river - so I kept thinking it was Saco - still, it's right there.

Maine still has so many great qualities, wonderful qualities...I still very much love this state and the majority of the people. And yes, when you are closer to more populated areas, yes, there will be issues, but again, while I lived in Hampden in the past, I went to Bangor all the time, and I didn't see what I've been seeing in the Bangor area now, and the area I'm in now - it doesn't really feel like I left the 'bigger cities'.

Maine, at this moment, is still far safer than a whole lot of other places, but I guess my previous experience, which I thoroughly enjoyed and hated leaving, is not going to be as it used to. STILL not as bad as CA, or other areas in the country, but I'm sad that it's not what it was.

I don't even know what lifers think - the ones born and raised here, I can only know my experience.

I'm not here to change anything, I'm not here to push anything (I mean in this state), I came here because Maine was so relaxed, laid back, people were kind but not all up in your business...see, I don't mind the 'yep' and 'nope' responses, and no further digging. That's exactly what I'm comfortable with - I agree with them - no need to pry into someone's life until you get to know them better, and even then, if they don't want to, let it rest. That's not the same in other places. I prefer how Mainers do it.

Maybe I just missed all of this the first time around.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow

It was 2 cars, at least one shooting at the occupants in another car. Crashed into a school bus full of children, fled the scene when they were unsuccessful with a carjacking (according to people who saw it all happen), apparently hid in a house on Scammon and North St.

I live in that area - Saco, across the river from the seedy part. I can't even tell you how many police and SWAT teams went by - for hours! Just when you thought it was quiet, there came another SWAT vehicle, another out of area police vehicle...it just. kept. going.

It sounds like you are seeing a lot of excitement.

Here in Argyle, all remains peaceful our doors are unlocked.

I usually hate it when folks just assume that all crime is gang or drug-related, but, ...

Two carloads of thugs, one shooting at the other, hmm. Sounds like it may have been gang-related.

A few years ago, when LePage was in office. He kept making speeches about black gang members from NYC and/or Boston coming up to Maine to sell their drugs and hook up with rural white women. The media roasted him for his racist remarks. And yet at the same time, there were near-weekly news reports of drug busts that included black drug dealers from NYC / Boston who had brought large quantities of drugs to Maine, and who then used their local white girlfriends to sell those drugs.

At the time I thought it was humorous that the media was roasting him, while simultaneously the local news was filled with exactly the same stories he was talking about.

I suspect that most of the people who get shot in these incidents are gang members or at least drug dealers.

People who live that lifestyle choose to live that lifestyle. Who was it that said? "live by the sword and die by the sword"

Maples will soon be getting tapped.

[sluggermatt15]

Originally Posted by DuchessLyratheKind

Been looking for a house in Maine for 2 years and have become concerned about some of the legislation being introduced at the state level and the attempt to keep Trump off the ballot in November. Then this article came out today.



https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop...iberal-bastion



Regardless how you feel about this media outlet, it can't be denied that the lean toward the left is happening.

Maine has always been a political left state....

[G1..]

Maine is a great place leave it alone.