Great People, but hope you like Rural Living
-
3/31/2011
I have lived outside of Allen, OK for about a year now on a ranch. I will say that Oklahoma is beautiful land for ranchers and those who love rural living. It is only 20 minutes from Ada, OK (a college town of about 17,000) which has a Wal-Mart, gas stations, hospitals, and some shopping options (like Maurices). Nevertheless, I will say that Allen itself has certainly seen better days. I'm sure at one time the downtown area was beaautiful with historic brick buildings and shops, but now it is extremely run down, in short, due to limited financial resources. There is one small resaurant in Allen that I would never trust going to and they do have one small grocery store thing. One bank, a small library, and many people who have lived there their entire lives and have yet to travel outside the state of Oklahoma. I worked in Ada for the Dept of Human Services for a while and worked a lot with many teachers in Allen, OK. The teachers and other working folk do the best they can with they have but there is so little financial resources in Allen, it is hard to be amazing at anything when there is little to go off of. I've been told by many in Ada that Allen is about a year behind academically compared to Ada schools, but I will say one thing that Allen people are incredible. The people of Allen are very nice and welcoming and they certainly notice you if you've never been through town before. the crime rates are much lower than Ada, which is nice for families, but again the school system is far behind and the only attraction is the new dollar store in town. There is little to do if you like the evening life, but again, Ada is only 20 minutes away and is a college town. Overall, Allen is a friendly place to live with limited options for financial or career growth and no night life. Oh, and the cost of living in Allen is really affordable as well, of course most of Oklahoma is pretty cheap to live in compared to much of the US =)
Jae | Allen, OK