Who wants to move to Salt Lake?

[KustyTheKlown]

^i really like downtown troy. it feels poised for a resurgence. areas not downtown/near RPI, not so much. we have casually looked at houses to buy in downtown troy

 

[drjeff]

^i really like downtown troy. it feels poised for a resurgence. areas not downtown/near RPI, not so much. we have casually looked at houses to buy in downtown troy

What has been going on with downtown Troy from a development/redevelopment perspective over the last 10-15 years has been impressive.

I know that Rensselaer likes to take some credit for it based on how they have extended some of the student housing facilities down off the hill the school in over and into Troy proper, but I am pretty sure it's more than just that, regardless of what the communications folks in the Renssealer Alumni House say!

Geographically Troy really has lots going for it, with the proximity to the Adironacks, The Greens, easy highway access for travel North, South, East and West as well as a solid airport nearby and the entire Capital District and what it offers. Even though I am approaching 30 years removed from having lived in that area, growing up just North of Albany will always have me very fond of the area and it's success

 

[KustyTheKlown]

yea, it is crazy tho how downtown is clearly burgeoning, but just a few blocks away you are in some pretty grisly abandoned row houses baltimorey scenes.

 

[drjeff]

yea, it is crazy tho how downtown is clearly burgeoning, but just a few blocks away you are in some pretty grisly abandoned row houses baltimorey scenes.

There are parts of Troy that probably will always be like that. Was lthat way long before I matriculated there in and around some of the old mills that even back in the late 80's had long since been out of use and home to some seedy characters

 

[cdskier]

yea, it is crazy tho how downtown is clearly burgeoning, but just a few blocks away you are in some pretty grisly abandoned row houses baltimorey scenes.

Baltimorey? There's some absolutely beautiful row houses in areas of Baltimore. Then there are also some shitty ones in some neighborhoods of Baltimore. I always kind of assumed this was pretty normal for many cities. Is that not the case?

 

[jimmywilson69]

fancy College facilities are completely out of control... Its an arms race and like Dr. Jeff said, fueled by student loans.

 

[jimmywilson69]

Baltimore is more shitty than not. but yes generally a lot of large cities have that issue. Philthydelphia for example. that places is downright disgusting

 

[cdskier]

Baltimore is more shitty than not. but yes generally a lot of large cities have that issue. Philthydelphia for example. that places is downright disgusting

I've spent a good deal of time visiting Baltimore (my sister lived there for 10-15 years until moving out to western MD last summer) and really never thought it to be more shitty than not. There are 100% some bad areas, but overall I found it surprisingly nice (as far as cities go...which in general I can't stand and prefer to avoid).

 

[ss20]

fancy College facilities are completely out of control... Its an arms race and like Dr. Jeff said, fueled by student loans.

It is insane. The Governor of CT wants to renovate/replace 60-75% of the buildings on the Uconn campus over the next 20 years or something like that.

My old town's high school was a 1950s cold war-era infrastructure nightmare that just keeps getting patch job renovation after patch job renovation and the state wants to knock down college facilities that are 40 years old.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Baltimorey? There's some absolutely beautiful row houses in areas of Baltimore. Then there are also some shitty ones in some neighborhoods of Baltimore. I always kind of assumed this was pretty normal for many cities. Is that not the case?

I’m sure other big cities have large tracts of blighted property, but baltimore I know and have seen firsthand. I got lost with no gas in west baltimore after taking my LSAT and trying to drive back to dc. Gritty

 

[jimmywilson69]

oh yeah West Baltimore is not a good place to run out of gas

you might be right CDSkier It just seems like the proportion of the city that's not nice is much larger than the nice part which is all by the water (inner harbor, Canton, Fells Point)

 

[KustyTheKlown]

oh yeah West Baltimore is not a good place to run out of gas

you might be right CDSkier It just seems like the proportion of the city that's not nice is much larger than the nice part which is all by the water (inner harbor, Canton, Fells Point)

you also get a birds eye view of blocks upon blocks of blight from the highway

 

[cdskier]

oh yeah West Baltimore is not a good place to run out of gas

you might be right CDSkier It just seems like the proportion of the city that's not nice is much larger than the nice part which is all by the water (inner harbor, Canton, Fells Point)

There's a decent amount of nice areas away from the water as well (although Inner Harbor, Canton, Fells Point, Fed Hill, Riverside, etc for sure are some very nice areas). Some that come to mind are Mid-town Belvedere, Mt Vernon, Hampden, the area around Johns Hopkins University. Go up to some areas of North Baltimore around Charles Street north of Loyola and you'll forget you're even still technically in "Baltimore".

But yea, west Baltimore does leave just a bit to be desired

 

[KustyTheKlown]

southeast dc/anacostia is certainly no picnic.

and my philly friends who ~10 years ago ditched their rittenhouse rentals to buy property in Kensington are some brave fuckin intrepid urban explorers ::coughGENTRIFIERScough::

 

[BodeMiller1]

yea, it is crazy tho how downtown is clearly burgeoning, but just a few blocks away you are in some pretty grisly abandoned row houses baltimorey scenes.

I got another empty bottle and another empty bed...




Thumb in the air

It's another red light nightmare, in another red light zone.
And I ain't to old to worry and try - try to get back to the start.
Here's what I'm gonna do... I'm gonna ride on, ride on
thumb in the air. One of these days - I'm gonna change my evil ways, yea right.


ode to Baltimore

 

[BodeMiller1]

Angus only plays 5 strings, the top low E is dead.
I saw it on the internet so I know it's true.

 

[raisingarizona]

aside from being your cultural opposite - jewish athiest pro choice urban liberal - its also an age/generational thing, in that my generation was/is a bit economically fucked, and yours had the opportunity to realistically own a home and raise a family on a single income. that being said, economics is one of many reasons i dont have/want kids. economics doesnt prevent me from having kids. its just another reason not to.

Agreed. It's an extremely stressful proposition these days and lets face it, the world is becoming crowded and with a very uncertain future. A lot of young people feel climate change anxiety and are rightfully scared to bring kids in to this world imo.

 

[x10003q]

It would be nice if the Federal Gov't got OUT of the student loan business.

No doubt about it, prior to them getting into the student loan business 30 or so years ago, college was much more reasonably priced than it it now. The once the Fed started into the loan business, unlike when private lenders, who often were much more realistic with how much loan money they would lend an applicant, the amount of money the Feds would make loans for started seeing an increased maximum, and the colleges knowing this, started raising their tutition rates much faster than they used to, since they knew the Federal Gov't would keep on loaning students more and more money, thus futher augmenting the annual revenues colleges could take in, and you get the massive increases in tuition you have seen.

The secondary factor, that certainly isn't immediately thought of, but does play into the mix, is the facilities on most campuses these days, are far more oppulent than they used to be, and all of the enhanced dorm facilities, dinng facilities, athletic facailites, etc, do have significant costs associated with them, and that also has added to the cost of things.

Heck, having just gone through the college admissions process with my oldest, and now going through it again this Summer with my youngest (he'll be a highschool senior in the Fall), what a modern college campus looks like today is far more than the often not that much different than the highscool like facilites I had when I was in college.

This Saturday I am taking my son to tour my alma mater, Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute. I remember that when I started there in the Fall of 1989, the tuition had just broken through the 20k barrier. Now, for in incoming class this Fall, its now just over 57k. Is the vaue of that education really commensurate with the almost tripling of the costs in around 30 years? I know I will be impressed with the physical facilities on the campus as I was when I also toured my daughter there last Summer, howveer are some new glitzy buildings as well as an impressive looking athletic stadium and facilities that have been built since I graduated worth the costs to attend now?

The Federal Govt has been involved in school loans since 1958.

In 1976, Congress passed a law that said Federal School Loans could not be dumped in bankruptcy. In 2005 Congress added ALL approved school loans (including private lenders) to the no bankruptcy section of the law. Guess who benefited from that new law?
1. Lenders could now hand out money and NEVER worry about the loan not being paid. They could also make a huge profit on high interest charges when money was cheap. Prior to 2005, it was very difficult to accumulate the loan amounts we see after 2005.
2. Colleges - could now add all those important gyms, food centers, and big money buildings, raise the cost to students and collect $$$ from the loans.
and last but not least -
3. For Profit Schools - Corinthian Colleges, ITT, Ed. Corp of America are all gone - having defrauded their students. University of Phoenix was fined $191million for their crimes. The Education Management Corp was fined $99.5million for their fraudulent actions. These for profit schools benefited the most from the new no bankruptcy rules and screwed their students the most with there failure to provide a level of education that would get the students hired. Then they lied about how great their job placements were.

As we see, it is not so clear cut to level the blame at the feet of the students for the current loan mess. Prior to the 2005 law change, if you had somehow accumulated $50k in undergrad school loans no private lender would ever give you more money. After 2005 they were handing out loans to anybody with a school bill.

 

[machski]

I've skied loon a bunch of times but I avoid the gondola to the point that I didn't even know that view from above

Hopefully they'll do that again next year. Looks good!

They have done those seeded bumps for several years now on lower 7Bros. Next year, you'll have a HSQ there to lap those (and perhaps Picaroon will get a bit more snowmaking love given the new HSQ)

 

[skef]

I ran out of things to read and so I finally made it to this thread, which I must admit I hadn’t been particularly drawn to thanks to its (now mostly irrelevant) topic (I don’t want to move to Salt Lake).

The variety of experiences (education, loans, careers, children), attitudes (conservative, liberal, admixtures of the two) and ages (recent grads to aged boomers) is mind-boggling. It’s wonderful to think that all these very different people share an activity (flying down snowy hills!) that they love so much they hang out on forums like this during the steamy off-season. I might revisit posts here in the future just to understand where you folks are coming from, on other topics.

I have been really, really lucky in life. I’ve worked hard, yes, but I’m not so deluded to miss recognizing that luck has factored greatly into where I’ve ended up.

So, just to add another profile: I was born in the last year of the baby boom (1963), and am married to a gen-xer (1967) with whom I’ve sired two children (now 18 and 21 years old). (Both are great skiers, and used to ski with me, until that became uncool.) My dad made sure I had a modest amount of college debt to pay off (one semester’s worth?), which was deferred while I made my way through paid-by-your-taxes-STEM-grad-school, and which I pretty quickly paid off afterwards. I got a job at a start-up that blew up, spent a year cooling my jets at a Big Corp, and then left to join another start-up… that took off. While it was maybe taking off, we had kids. Lean years became fat. I stuffed money into 529 plans for each. The older one (who graduated in May) used only about half of what was in her account (thanks to modest school choices and athletic scholarship-type deals). The younger one currently has no interest in college. She wants to just get a job and I hope she does. I’m hoping the older will go to grad school and the younger will eventually seek higher education, but there’s a non-zero probability that I’ll be sitting on a pile of tax-deferred money that ends up funding the education of some grand-niece or something…

Like I said, I’ve been lucky, and, thanks to that, my kids (and grand-nieces?) are lucky (= debt-free).

But I do think we need to do something about the student loan crisis — it’s really a generational screw. Exactly what to do, I don’t know.