Go West! Or something!

September 20, 2005 4:58 AM

Should we go west? How far west, and how? What do you know about Montana? Small-town life in general?

My partner and I are thinking of leaving Brooklyn and going West. The only question is, where can we find a place where we can balance low cost of living, slower pace, affordable land, and our desire for proximity to a college town?

We're knocking around the idea of Montana (Bozeman or Missoula, maybe?) because the cost of living ought to be reasonable, and we are fond of the live-and-let-live attitude Montanans display. But I fear that our life experience of living in medium-to-large-sized cities (NYC, Seattle, Prague, Denver) will lead us to go absolutely batshit crazy in a place with a population of 30 to 50 thousand.

Have any of you made a move like this? Was it a good decision? Also, what can you tell me about Montana? Thanks!

posted by jennyjenny to travel & transportation (14 comments total)

I lived in Missoula for two years in the mid-90's. I am from the Washington, DC area (and that is where I live now). I loved Missoula, but I did go through a period of 'batshit crazy' for a few months, mainly because I didn't have any friends that wanted to talk about anything but outdoor sports and recreation. I love the outdoors, but I like to talk about national and world events and so forth as well. I took a course a semester at the University, to try to alleviate this vacuum, and to get access to the University facilities as well. It is very different. One thing I noticed is that there is very little sarcasm used, which is a BIG change form the East Coast. That was nice, but took some retraining on my part. I really got to love the friendly, straight-forwardness of the people and when family matters necessitated that I return home to DC, I knew I would miss that.
There was a little bit of 'go home' sentiment, since the town was growing with people moving from elsewhere. For some reason the locals tended to put all this on the heads of the Californians, although people were coming from everywhere.
The main drawback seemed to be that well-paying jobs are hard to come by. People who can move their jobs with them fared best. I have an undergrad degree, and ended up getting a job at a bookstore. My friends there viewed me as something of a brainiac. When I got the bookstore job, one of them hit the nail on the job scene's head when he said "Another Ph.D. working at the mini-mart!" Of course, this was all 10 years ago, I was in my 20's, and my friends were all extreme sporters, so YMMV.
posted by juggler at 5:40 AM on September 20, 2005

My experience with small town live-and-let-live-ism is that it works to the extent that you don't mind not having any friends. Sure, you can do what you want with no one bothering you, but don't expect others to want to hang out with you while you do it. For non-sociable types, it'll be great. I lived in a small, rural college town in Georgia, and there was nothing to do outside of our home--no friends, no culture, no events, nothing. Our little home was great, lots of land, a shop, a big garden, lots of hobbies, low cost of living, all that. But it was a year and a half before we met even one couple we could socialize with, and they were the only ones we ever met in the remaining time we were there.

Again, this was my experience, in a different town. But my general impression is that, if you want to be left alone, you'll enjoy it. But realize you'll be really alone.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:26 AM on September 20, 2005

The only question is, where can we find a place where we can balance low cost of living, slower pace, affordable land, and our desire for proximity to a college town?

All compared to Brooklyn? You know that finding those things is a different question from moving out west, neh? You can find all those things in Buffalo, Ithaca, Plattsburgh, other upstate SUNY towns, Pittsburgh, State College PA, etc. Glancing at realtor.com, all for way the hell less than Missoula or Bozeman.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:46 AM on September 20, 2005

My experience with small town live-and-let-live-ism is that it works to the extent that you don't mind not having any friends.

Exactly. I moved from Seattle to a town of 2,000 so hearing you saw "small town" and 20,000 people is amusing. That said, I grew up in a town about this size, so I think I was expecting a lot of what I got. MMP is right, it took us a long time to make friends. This is partly because we are an anomaly of being a 30-something couple with no kids, and partly because our interests aren't the interests of our immediate neighbors.

However there is a TON to do here, it's just not the stuff I would have been doing in Seattle. There is cribbage night, and bingo, and the soup-a-thon, and church if you're so inclined [lots of church really]. The historical society does some really neat programming and the library has authors come and speak. We can drive 30-40 miles and go shopping in the big-box city over the border and it's only ten miles to the nearest espresso stand.

On the other hand, I have neighbors. They are there with a hand when you're stuck on the mud or the ice. They watch the dog when we go away. They help carry heavy stuff. They have kids who we can hang out with. They leave firewood around for my older landlady. When she got stitches due to a tug of war accident people came by with dinners and just to see how she was. The down side to this is that the live and let live attitude means that while we are tolerated for our funny no-kids life and our odd hours and our strange haircuts, we are also expected to tolerate our neighbors' dog living in a crate in the backyard, a lot of yelling at kids and by kids, and the fact that everyone around here seems armed.

I don't know you, so I have no idea where you fit along this spectrum but one thing that I think is hardest for people who are moving to smaller places is that 1) everyone knows your business whether you want them to or not [the lady at the post office knows who I get mail from and it seems like somehow other people know too] and 2) an enterprising "let's fix this place up!" attitude isn't always appreciated the same way it might be in the big city.

Small towns have a culture of their own that can often be very different from city culture and there's a stereotype of the city people moving in and trying to change things, or lamenting the "backwardsness" of the place they consciously decided to move to. I've seen this work well and I've seen it work badly, but it's definitely a force in small town life in a different way than in the city. My across-the-driveway neighbor moved in here and has been on a one-man campaign to get my across-the-street neighbor to remove the toilet he is using as a planter from his front yard. We think that neighbor is weird because unlike everyone else, he closes the blinds in his house, what is he hiding?

Most businesses where I live don't have websites, and there is one place within a 20 mile radius that has wifi. Make sure when you plan your move that you're not assuming that any place you'd go in the US will have the things you're used to [we're 30 miles from a good burrito, this should not be a problem in a colelge town] because there are a lot of suprises, and I'm a five hour train ride from where you live now [and land is CHEAP]. Think also about politics and whether moving to a more remote locaiton is going to mean that your legislators do not share your political beliefs, and how you'd feel about that.

I currently have a low-paying job because I decided I'd rather work in my community than commute to a better paying job that was over a mountain. Any place that has a college in it will have a lot of people willing to work for very little money and unless you are able to bring your jobs with you, I'd think long and hard about what you'll be doing for income before you choose a location.

That said, I love it here and it's beautiful and I don't think I'd want to be anyplace else. Good luck with your move.
posted by jessamyn at 8:27 AM on September 20, 2005 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn,

An elderly landlady injured in a tug-of-war accident?

Only in America. Only in a small town.
posted by Prestocran at 8:57 AM on September 20, 2005

I lived in Montana for 18 months and developed a love/hate relationship with the state. The land is beautiful. I loved it. The rest, for me, sucked.

We lived in a small town half way between Bozeman and Billings. Bozeman is a nice, college town. However in small town Montana, we found people to be closed off and clanish. People were still considered "new comers" 20 years after moving into town. You would not encounter that as much in Bozeman.

If you like winter, you'll enjoy Montana. The snow was plentiful. The temperatures were the coldest I've ever experienced. It was a shock to see people plugging their cars in at night or leaving them running while they went to buy groceries. I remember wearing a coat while we lit our 4th of July fireworks.

I spent some time at the university in Bozeman and found the campus easy to navigate with lots of little shops within walking distance. If I had to return to Montana I would only live in Bozeman.
posted by onhazier at 9:04 AM on September 20, 2005

My sister, a very social and literary New Yorker, lived in Boise ID for four months this spring while teaching at the university there and totally loved it.
posted by nicwolff at 9:08 AM on September 20, 2005

All I know is, spending a week in Billings (bigger than Bozeman or Missoula) drives me crazy with nothing to do...

And I live in Salt Lake City.
posted by mmoncur at 10:20 AM on September 20, 2005

I lived in Bozeman for 6 years (grad school) and loved it. After living on the east coast the freedom was amazing. Want to build an art car, no problem, there's no saftey or smog inspection. Want to build a cool playhouse for your kids, no probem, there's no building codes outside of town limits. Want to go camping, the National forest is only 10 mi. away, and no reservations for camping. Plus, since its not a park, you can get collection permits for rocks (including petrified wood), firewood and mushrooms. Here in california, people ask me the difference and I like to say "When I first came to Montana, it would have been legal to ride in a car with no pollution controls, driven by 14 year old, with a loaded pistol in the glove box and an open beer in your hand. Oh, and no speed limit." Not that I condone such behavior, but people have the idea that without laws everyone would go nuts. Someone mentioned that its takes getting used to everyone being armed, but I don't think there were any murders while I lived there. And while you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a christian, I never had anyone try to convert me or make snide remarks. There are several high tech and biotech companies in town. Living is cheap, we bought a mobile home a mile from campus for $8000, lot rent $225 per month. A grad student friend from CA, bought a nice house (3-4 bedroom) for about $135,000, said it was cheaper than his previous rent. I could mountain bike to work and take a detour to Pete's hill for a workout on the way home. Email me with any questions.
posted by 445supermag at 11:43 AM on September 20, 2005

You know what? I've been pining for Walla Walla quite a lot recently. There's no way I'll realistically ever live there again, but it's a good, medium-sized (~30,000 people) town with a great combination of rural humility and academic/intellectual culture (there are 2 4-year colleges and a community college right there, plus Washington State University's about 40 minutes away). It has a very stroll-able downtown. Apparently, it's turning into quite the wine destination these days. And if Patit Creek is still in Dayton (about 15-20 minutes away, IIRC), there's seriously good food to be had, too. There's a little airport in case you need to get out quickly (plus the bar at the airport serves the strongest drinks in town).
Spokane's not ridiculously far away, and the Pasco-Richland-Kennewick three-headed city is even closer. Both are dull, largish (for eastern WA) metro areas where you can at least get some shopping done at a proper mall.
Seattle and Portland are 4+ hours away. Good places to spend the occasional weekend.
posted by willpie at 12:13 PM on September 20, 2005

I lived in small-town Montana for about 8 years. Mind you this was in the late 70s-early 80s, so I'm somewhat out of touch with the area, but my uncle still lives near Bozeman and so I get updates.

The general attitude about outsiders moving in and ruining the place; yeah, you'll get that. Heck, I resent the fact that the area has changed so much. People want to make it just like Denver, then forget that people in Denver are unhappy with the way the city turned out compared with how it used to be: traffic, smog, pollution, but with a pretty backdrop behind it. (Oh, and no water; that Ogallalla aquifer is going bone dry...)

On the upside, the changes mean that the things you are used to might be coming there. It's a pretty area, but also there really isn't much to do if you are not an outdoors-type person. Just don't expect it to stay the way that it is, because it's changing as new people move in. Last I heard mobile homes in Bozeman were appreciating in value, which isn't a good sign for land prices. I mean, a two-bedroom ranch, sure, that should be worth more in a few years, but a mobile home?
posted by caution live frogs at 12:46 PM on September 20, 2005

Spokane Washington might be the place for you. Big enough to have culture and restaurants and a great independent bookstore, a small and easy to use airport with good flights out, four hour drive to Seattle for a big big city experience, and incredible natural beauty in every direction. The winters are not quite a brutal as Montana. I would move back in a hearbeat if I could.
posted by LarryC at 3:29 PM on September 20, 2005

jennyjenny, I'm in a ~60,000-person town right now, after having spent a lot of time living in NYC and Chicago.

Let me tell you this. I couldn't wait to leave the place 20 years ago. Today, it's, um, tolerable. I'm at heart an urban person. That said I do appreciate the Midwestern character, which was very evidently missing when I lived where you are. Just a general unassumingness, mixed with politeness and tolerance. That's nice to have (and I found plenty of it in Chicago, which has its own urban take on all of that). Today we can get movies, there's the internet, there's cable -- to be a cultural backwater is almost no longer possible. But it's still a pretty dull place in terms of entertainment or nightlife.

One thing I'd consider, though, would be living in a fairly small town outside a larger city. Madison, WI, for example, is a great small city with a university atmosphere that makes for a fun, challenging cultural environment. Yet you can live in a small bedroom community outside of town and still get to work in 30-45 minutes. That might be a transitional approach you can try that gives you the best of both worlds. For me there's nothing quite like a midwestern night with the breeze coming in off the cornfields and the stars visible in the sky, but I have to balance it with what just isn't and never will be available here in terms of social and cultural stimulation.
posted by dhartung at 5:36 PM on September 20, 2005

Two self-links: Big Sky Blog, a collaborative blog by Montanans, that may give you some insight; and GreaterFalls.com, my blog about the town of Great Falls located about one hour north of Helena.

Lived here for 3 years now, and am still - STILL - amazed at the kindness, honesty, and overall niceness of most people here. Traffic? Never heard of it. Four seasons? Well...three, for sure. Stunning scenery? Like nowhere else. There is a state income tax, but there is no sales tax; when the price says $19.95, that's what you pay. There are PLENTY of literary, artistic, and musical things to do here -- way more than most people can imagine.

If you move here, you will love it. I can almost guarantee it.
posted by davidmsc at 5:53 PM on September 20, 2005