SperlingViews - New_Paltz, New_york

Although New Paltz is a great place to visit, looks artistic and funky on the outside, and is in a beautiful location, inside it is bourgeois and run by families who can afford to live in this now expensive town. The housing prices more than doubled after 9/11 with people moving up from the city, and many local residents have moved away because salaries have not kept up with the town's high cost of living. During the housing boom, landlords bought up property to rent out to students at high rates. This has made it hard to find a house or condo to buy in town that is not next to a student rental. (This is a problem if you need to get to bed early and wake up early for work as the bars in town are open until 4am and drunk loud students roam the streets at night.) In addition, property taxes and especially school taxes are extremely high. Families move here for the good schools, but they also repeatedly vote to raise school taxes every chance they get. Attempts to bring an art center to the town were halted by townspeople who have a "not in my backyard" attitude. Traffic in town has become unbearably slow and bumper to bumper on weekends with the influx of tourists. The local government sticks its head in the sand about the town's growth and traffic problems. I would say New Paltz is worth a visit, but if you are looking for an artistic town, don't move here.[read more...]

New Paltz has a reputation for being a progressive artsy college town, but regrettably, this hasn't been true for a long time. It's become a crowded and expensive tourist town that has been over-run by bourgeois families who pump up school taxes and the cost of living, block the development of art centers and buy up houses for student rental investments. The view is beautiful, but the armies of families in mini-vans and weekend tourist gridlock have chased away the artists and progressives. Even the student body, the last breath of diversity in town, has become increasingly preppy, or up-state conservative, or inner city low-brow in contrast to its alternative reputation. It's simply not funky and cool anymore.[read more...]

New Paltz has it all: art, theater, restaurants, shopping, nature and proximity to New York City. The State University of New York brings a steady stream of smart, hard working young people into the area.[read more...]