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Can anyone offer any advice on what living in Ithaca is like for regular working professionals? I have been looking at nationwide job opportunities in sponsored research and have had a couple of preliminary conversations with Cornell about positions with them.
I am 44, married, 1 daughter and I am burnt out on both Atlanta and Georgia. Really, the south period. This just isn't for me even though have been here since 1978. I don't really want to move to another big city, driving distance is good enough for me.
My biggest concern is work-life balance and being in a place where I can raise my daughter in a safe environment and enjoy my family and not have work consume my entire life.
Ithaca is a generally safe city/area. Not sure about professionals, but the area has a great arts scene and is your usual college town. It is a diverse city with a Black mayor and a Black Superintendent of schools. Even some of the small town school districts have become more diverse, slowly, but surely. Anything else? Visit Ithaca
Thanks. I'm not really sure what I should be asking but if I do this I'll be uprooting my entire life to make this move. My husband's family is in Brooklyn so I won't be totally isolated, but all I really know about NY is it's cold and it snows a lot (versus being blazing hot from April - October here).
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckhthankgod
Ithaca is a generally safe city/area. Not sure about professionals, but the area has a great arts scene and is your usual college town. It is a diverse city with a Black mayor and a Black Superintendent of schools. Even some of the small town school districts have become more diverse, slowly, but surely. Anything else? Visit Ithaca
I like living in the suburbs. I want to be able to get off work and go home and have peace. In terms of neighborhood I'd want to have the basics nearby. There's no mall near my house, and all of the decent stuff is north of I-20 anyway, but I have grocery, gas, cleaners, fast food, a couple strip shopping centers. Stuff I'd need day to day. I live in an all African American neighborhood on the southside, but I'd like to have more diversity. We have to drive to everything here (MSA is sprawl on steroids) so walkability isn't really a factor. The biggest thing I would need is a really good black hair salon. And a nail place.
I'm not sure what price I should expect for housing? I know NY is higher than GA. I have a 3 bd/2 bth house and my mortgage is less than $700/month PITI. I don't really expect to get that good a deal up there, but I don't think I know enough about NY to be able to gauge what is reasonable and what is outrageous.
Also, I expect if I do make this move that we'd probably go down to Brooklyn fairly regularly to see his family. Probably once a month + holidays.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckhthankgod
Actually, we have been getting some relatively mild winters up here. So, it can vary even in the winter.
Do you have a price range for a home/apartment? What about type of neighborhood in terms of walkability, shopping, diversity, etc?
Actually, Upstate NY is pretty much on par with much of the South in terms of overall cost of living.
If you want more of a small town vibe, Newfield and Trumansburg tend to have more Black students in their schools compared to the other small town districts in the area. There are suburban areas that feed into the Ithaca City SD like Cayuga Heights, Northeast Ithaca, East Ithaca and Northwest Ithaca in the town of Ithaca. Dryden is another small town that is closer to Syracuse and highway access and has a few Black students in its schools. There quite a few Asian residents in the area and a few Hispanics.
I lived in Ithaca for 5 years. We still have friends there. My family is from NYC. I am also African-American.
Ithaca is very safe, though from what I understand there are starting to be some rumblings there due to a bit of drug dealing going on. I suspect it is a temporary blip since the town isn't big enough to have more than a few dealers at a time. Once the police close in on these people things will go back to normal IMO. Anyway, the only "crime victims' in Ithaca are college students who 1. leave their apartment doors/windows unlocked or 2. walk around drunk at 3am.
The schools are good. The high school has had some racial issues though. There is an alternative high school but it is not everyone's cup of tea. I would tread carefully on that front, since there is no other options when it comes to the high school situation.
There is a black community there. It is small and close knit. The town itself is diverse for a college town centered around an Ivy Leauge school. If you want to know all kinds of people from multiple backgrounds you will absolutely accomplish that in Ithaca. It is a very liberal town. The mayor was from the Green Party at one point. It's like a much colder Berkeley.
It is beautiful in the summer. There are lots of things for kids to do there. I think it is a great place for elementary aged kids. But like I said, just watch out for the school situation as the kids age. The people are mostly liberal but they can have some huge blind spots when it comes to race, so you need to stay engaged so you can be your kid's advocate. There actually can be a marked difference between the locals and the people who settled there because of the colleges. The former tend to staff the schools.
We went back and forth to NYC all the time. It is not a bad trip at all. There are also a million greyhound type buses going back and forth between the 2 cities every day. That part was cool.
The little towns near Ithaca are worth checking out of you want something more rural or suburban. I would NOT go in the direction of Dryden et al however, I would go more towards Lansing, Trumasburg, and the like.
Feel free to DM me if you want!
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Last edited by Tinawina; 01-26-2012 at 05:22 PM..
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