I’ll be in Austin, TX through Tuesday night so in the meantime send urgent news and story tips to one of your other favorite XGW authors. This trip begins my search for a safe and more affordable place to live.
Mike and Peterson pitched Hartford, CT to me which has become the first ex-ex-gay ghetto. However upon reading this in Hartford’s wikipedia entry decided it wasn’t right for me.
The region has a relatively low population of adults between the ages of 18 and 25.
The under-25 folks seem to cluster in West Hartford (which is young, progressive, and teeming with restaurants and cafes) and around Manchester/Vernon, which are near college campuses and have several 19th-century textile mills that were converted into very nice urban-style apartments which appeal to local grad students and young couples.
Real estate is more expensive than Buffalo, N.Y., perhaps, but cheaper than the Connecticut/R.I. coastline, Baltimore-Washington, or the L.A. basin. There are similar converted mills and other youth-oriented housing in Baltimore and New Haven, for example, but those apartments cost double or triple the going rate in Hartford.
(I know that Buffalo can be a wonderful place to live in the warm-weather months, by the way.)
Dan, you ageist!! 😉
Denver, baby! We have a number of x-x-g’s here as well, if that’s important to you. 🙂
Real estate here is not too expensive, and we have several notable architectural firms including Fentress Bradburn and Ivins Design Group.
Austin is great, except for one problem–it’s surrounded by Texas.
Yes, and today is a picture-postcard-perfect day here in Buffalo by Lake Erie.
Dan, I know it’s too late for Mike… but if you would like to check out beautiful, low-cost, architecture-rich Buffalo, Leroy and I would be glad to put you up here for a visit. 🙂
I second the Buffalo recommendation. I moved here in 1994 after spending the first 30 years of my life in Dixie, and was instantly amazed at how the reality of Buffalo is the exact opposite of what people who’ve never been here think it is. The people are great, the summers are amazing and the winters are not nearly as bad as I was lead to believe. And the food!
I can’t comment too much on the gay culture – although I am gay, I don’t actually know any other gay people here.
Tom, thanks for the ringing endorsement of our underrated and much-maligned city!! The gay community here is wonderful, too, and I hope you’ll be able to connect w/folks if you wish to.