Meh, great if you like taxes, and scabby roads.
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10/19/2018
I've lived here for the better part of my life, 35 yrs or about. The city is in a bit of rock and a hard place overall. Lot of jobs, if you're willing to work. But a clear crony system with long standing nepotism. Overall it's pretty common to see a hugggge gap in labor wages, versus owner operator incomes. The city is just coming down from a manipulated and artificial housing cost boom, that benefited a very small group of wealthy folks. Unfortunately the every day folks picked up the tab with wildly bloated property valuations, and of course Lincoln's favorite 3 letter word, tax. Crime is overall fairly low, but we're seeing more blow-over from Omaha which is a smaller version of KC, a sh*thole. Violent crime is on the rise in Lincoln slightly, impart to a criminal element traveling from cities where the fruit isn't as ripe for the picking. Good news is that they mostly commit crime amongst their fellow have-nots.
The real issue with Lincoln is the Husker program and the leverage that the university has over the city in general. Unless you're into weak-suck college sports or getting hammered 24/7, you're going to be bored out of your skull here. The powers that be here are really good at keeping away any sort of attractions or venues that don't directly benefit the handful of people running the city and the university. Did I mention the ridiculous taxes here? Don't even think about registering a new vehicle here, you'll have to get a larger loan so that you can afford it. Overall I'd say the majority are living in nice houses in good neighborhoods and are in debt up to their eyeballs. We're also now experiencing an influx of people moving here from the near uninhabitable coastal areas, which is for sure adding to the problems already in place, and wouldn't you know...most of them are huge fans of....you guessed it, tax. But with any luck, they'll move along and take their big govt loving social politics elsewhere and be someone else's problem. As a mixed race individual in a mixed race marriage, I've never encountered any issues with racism here. There's a couple small neighborhoods that see lighter skinned folks like me as a victim opportunity once the sun goes down, but other than that no one here really cares what you look like as long as you're not criminal. The local city cops are fairly incompetent and should be avoided at all costs. Their focus is on generation of income via ticket fines and court fees, avoid at all costs.
Lincoln is long overdue to an economic fall out and I forsee it happening in the next 5 yrs. Those of us fortunate enough to buy a home before the artificial value spike will be fine, but there will be an abundance of foreclosures available at some point and people filing bankruptcy. Just wait and see.
D | Lincoln, NE