been here a few years, here's my opinion
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8/25/2005
A great place to live with the low cost of living, very low real-estate prices, excellent malls, good schools (specifically in the SW-Allen county area), wonderful restaurants (we're known as the City of Restaurants!) and so many families the atmosphere is really family friendly. No joke, having lived across the country in both urban and surburban areas... I can say this is one of the best areas to settle down in. People are very friendly, what they call traffic-congestion around here is an absolute joke... rush-hour on any of the major routes is not bad at all.
Major draw-backs only really include the following:
1) airport is not a major hub, so if you have out-of-town family, it will be expensive/time-consuming to fly for visits.
2) Trains, lots of trains... and they blow their horns. Residents will claim not to hear them, but trust me... any newborns/infants/out-of-town visitors will hear them! I suggest choosing where you live wisely, use maps.google.com to identify how close train tracks are to where you're looking at real estate.
3) Real-estate prices have been declining - so don't expect to recoup any investment. In the 100-170k range, prices are stagnant, in the 175k-+1mill price-range, people are selling for incredible 6-figure losses. Indiana has big foreclosure problem and in Fort Wayne, combined with massive expansion in SW-area, there's too many available houses. Definitely a buyer's market.
Abhd | Tonawanda, NY