The big social events of the year (for me) are the Literacy Society’s book
sale
The day is coming when that could never take place in America until our
greatgrandchildren start a Literacy Society
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Steinman
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 12:02 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OM] Pick a Metro
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [OM] Pick a Metro
Oh, do I HAVE to?
Total freedom to live anywhere that has several requirements:
1. One Million population in area. (may be more or less depending on
other factors)
How close?
I like my populations like I like my skiing: close enough to visit, but I
don’t have to deal with driving in snow every day. :-)
Portland, OR was good to me that way. I went to visit the snow some 70 days
a year, but didn’t have to drive in it during the week.
Vancouver, BC is sorta like that, in terms of population. I can get there
and back in a day, and still preserve the illusion that I live in the
country. But I don’t find myself going there often at all, unless it
involves a summons. :-)
Victoria is actually a fine place with about 200,000 that has most of the
things I’d go to Vancouver for, including a couple nice camera stores,
diverse ethnic restaurants, museums and a thriving waterfront scene. But the
last ferry doesn’t let me do evening events there, unless I’m willing to
couch-surf.
2. Good airport connectivity
YYJ (Victoria BC) is just a 35 minute ferry and 10 minute taxi away. It only
adds about $40 to any flight, for the 14-minute “puddle jump” to YVR
(Vancouver BC). It would cost five times that much for ferry and parking to
drive to YVR, and a bit more than that to endure three hours of public
transport on foot.
3. Reasonable cost of living
Okay, you got me on that one. The Chinese and East Indians have invaded
big-time. The average single-family home is over $1M within driving range of
Vancouver. They recently slapped on a 15% foreign buyers tax, but that has
only caused the speculators to buy in Victoria and even Nanaimo, driving up
prices there.
Other than housing, things aren’t too bad. Mercans get “sticker shock” in
the stores, until they realize they’re spending Arctic Pesos. Salaries are
generally commensurately higher, and seasoned IT pros can expect six
figures. A veteran teacher with a Masters can pull down $85k. On the other
end, minimum wage is just $10.85, but most reasonable jobs will pay $20.
4. Not too weird (Austin weird is OK, Tulsa is not).
We are definitely “Austin Weird.” Or perhaps Austin aspires to “Southern
Gulf Islands Weird.” I am one of only about 50,000 people in the western
hemisphere who has a Green Party representative at BOTH the Federal and
Provincial level. There are thirteen choirs on this island of 10,000 people.
The big social events of the year (for me) are the Literacy Society’s book
sale (12,000 sqft of used books!) and the Film Festival, which features
enviro-social indie films — it pulls people from as far as Vancouver. The
vibrant Saturday Market pulls people from as far as Alberta, and is a “gotta
go” for out-of-town visitors. (And a big source of our income.)
The comparative would be Denver.
Meh. We have air you can breathe. And the ocean. And it’s green here most of
the year, rather than brown.
Jan
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