Where You Live

With the elections coming up soon and so many topics on the board I thought it might be interesting to see whats going on 'Where You Live". How is the unemployment, Taxes and housing situation where you are. What about the weather...is it normal where you are.
I live in Lubbock Texas...125 miles south of Amarillo and about 70 miles east of the New Mexico state line. We are in a major drought. last year we got less than 5 inches of rain for the whole year. All the grass, plants and trees are dying or dead and wildfires are always breaking out. The cotton and wheat fields are just dirt and sand. We are under water restrictions now. The unemployment is kinda low according to the "official" record but that record is bogus. Its really pretty high. Lots of people need work and lots of older citizens coming out of retirement to work again. Lubbock is one of 100 citys in America where more people rent/lease than own homes and their are lots of empty houses for sale. The main industry here is medical, Texas Tech university and cotton. With the cotton failing it really effects everything. We don't have much manufacturing or distribution here. taxes are real cheap here. We do not have any state income taxes and we do not pay tax on food, medicine or coffee. Tax on liquor and cigarettes and adult products is whatever the local tax rate is. Ours is 8.25%. What we really need are jobs...jobs that pay more than minimum wage. Over 50% of Lubbock makes somewhere around minimum wage.

Western Washington actually held off the great recession about 9 to 12 months longer than most of the rest of the country. But we are currently sitting at a reported 8.7% unemployment which ranks us about 33 worst (out of 51).
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm

But I know it has to be worse than that. The industry I work in (construction) is closer to 20% by my estimate. And our mostly Democrat led state government has decided if we won't vote to raise taxes than even more money will be cut from schools, and pregnant low income women. I'm getting tired of government spending more money while we are all supposed to tighten our belts. I had my hours cut (to 32 hours a week) one year ago, and a few months ago they dropped my hourly rate by 10%. My poor little company is in real danger of just completely folding leaving all 20 of us unemployed. I will not be able to get another job in this state as a structural engineer. Things don't look real good right now.

We don't have a state income tax but sales tax in our region (for absolutely everything) is almost 10% What little agriculture we have seems to be doing well (we get plenty of rain every year). But last year we lost half of our state apple crop because it came in late and all the migrant workers had moved on.

Sadly orur house has lost seroius value (as has everyones elses). At one time we were up over $60k in equity, and now we are just over $15k upside down (for a home only about 1200 sq ft). We have had to seriously tighten our belts, and my wife has had to go back to work part-time to cover some of our short-fall while at the same time still trying to home-school our two boys (one of which cannot go back to public school).

I don't keep up with much of any of that.

All I know is, we bought our 2 bedroom, 2 bath pad in '97 for 59,9K and today it's value is in the 200K+.

IMO employment is good, since I see plenty of help wanted signs all over this area. Course, much of the employment is minimum wage, with nowhere to grow. This is why I went into the medical field when I was 19. Food and medicine almost always have openings with room to grow financially.

Oh yeah, we're 20 minutes from the well known 29 Palms Marine Base too. Which has exploded the economy of 29 palms and Joshua Tree. We're situated right between the Base and Palm Springs, so it's a great area to live.
Highs in the Summer= 110 (most days 85) Lows in the Winter= 25 (most days 45)... again, an ideal place to live. My wife came here from New Hampshire and wouldn't leave this area for nothing.

The main industries in Pembroke, ON are military (CFB Petawawa) and nuclear (AECL Chalk River). We have several small businesses (pawnshops, restaurants), chain brands (Walmart, Zellers, etc). As far as I know, the economy is alright here. Some areas in Petawawa (sister town of Pembroke) are receiving new neighbourhoods, as the military base expands to accomodate more people, but Pembroke itself isn't growing all that much.

Weather goes from 30°C in the summer to -20°C in the winter. Severe storms and sunny days in the summer, rain in spring and fall, and lots and lots of SNOW in the winter.

Lawrence county, Illinois. 8.5% unemployment rate. 80% of employed are either salaried or hourly wage earners, 11% political, 9% self-employed. hotter'n Hades in the summer, colder'n a well digger's butt in the Klondike in the winter, EXTREMELY inbred, and about 50/50 conservative/liberal. Not my first choice of places to inhabit, but I'm stuck here.

Quote :

EXTREMELY inbred

Where I live its probably more like 50% American citizens/50% illegal hispanics

Hey, around here, line dancing is considered legitimate courtship ritual, and marryin' cousins is commonplace.

Around here many live in Mobile homes with a pitbull tied up in front and a super duty truck parked outside. Heck...redneck is a compliment to these yahoo's.

Sounds like my neck 'o the woods, fer sure!