Fairbanks
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12/21/2007
I haven't lived inside city limits, but I lived within 5 miles so close enough to call it. I started out in the hills just north of town, I can't really comment on the scenery, I'm not into that type of thing, but we had moose walking through our back yard, the biggest problem with that is most places north of town have a 1000-2000 gallon holding tank instead of a well where city water is not available, it was at 8 cents a gallon to get it hauled in when we moved to the other side of town almost 2 years ago so it's probably 9 or 10 cents now, the much cheaper alternative is to haul it yourself in 300-400 gallon tanks that are made by a local company and go in the back of a pickup truck. alot of people take their snowmobiles, ATVs, and even their sleds out to the pipeline and ride down the service road(you're not really supposed to, but that's not enforced) and there are trails everywhere, and there are a few ski resorts nearby. for local sports we have the alaska Nanooks(hockey, basketball, they win the national championship in rifle most years, volleyball, and probably something else i forgot) the Fairbanks Ice Dogs hockey team, the Alaska goldpanners of Fairbanks and the AIA fire in the alaska baseball league, and we have a new arena football team, the fairbanks grizzlies, we have fights at the carlson center, and all the ticket prices are reasonable. Fairbanks isn't a bad place to live by any means, but I still would rather live in anchorage
if you need a job there are a zillion jobs available in retail and fast food, it may not be great, but Wal Mart pays enough to live on($10.50) and Fred Meyer is supposed to have a great benefits package(but they start lower than wal mart on hourly wage)
crime in fairbanks isn't really much of an issue, there are a few murders each year that they just call a missing persons case, but drugs and alcohol are a factor in most crimes, and fights are kept to knives, so if you just don't hang with the wrong crowd you'll be fine. I've walked or biked around the "bad" part of town many times(even lived in the best western there for a couple weeks while we were house hunting), and never even seen a crime(except for drug deals)
cost of living was a bit of a shock, but I had been sheltered by the uber low cost of living in kankakee IL Compared to the rest of the country, Kankakee (zip 60901)'s cost of living is 18.57% Lower than the U.S. average and it's really not too bad here with the lack of taxes
Isaac | Badger, AK