In a word; Provincial
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4/7/2012
I will preface this review by telling you that I have lived in many places in this country including, Boston, San Diego, Lincoln, Nebraska, rural southwest Nebraska, Versailles, KY, Cripple Creek, Colorado and a few other places too.
Indianapolis has a pretty good quality of life and potential for a GREAT quality rating in my opinion but here are a few reasons why it falls short.
If what you're looking for is the status quo, you've found it! For a city of 800,000+ people, it's remarkably easy to maneuver around, but you'll have to get used to the limited interstate exit ramps and their dumb locations. This city is stuck on habit. It does everything in a vacuum and has to reinvent the wheel with every move.
Be VERY careful while driving down the street, you may find a parked car in your travel lane! It's legal and well, everyone's from here, and we all know about this, right! Lately, the city has taken to bottle necking major thoroughfare intersections downtown, in the name of "pedestrian friendly", never mind, that big trucks can not make right turns at them, and tire marks jumping the protruding curbs clearly indicate that these warts in the street scape, are dangerous and impractical!
The state has a new smoking ban in place as of March, 2012, but don't worry, you can still smoke everywhere except restaurants. All the opponents to the bill were concerned that it would hurt business. After all, every business in the states that have bans have gone belly up, right?
The cost of living is low it's true, and you can buy houses all day long for under $20K in the center township, but they will need some serious work, still, this is remarkable!
This city has the Canal which is beautiful and a fun place to walk, but you'll not find refreshment, or comfort stations while there, it's severely underutilized and the city doesn't seem to think anything needs improved there.
Great Cultural arts await you here and the city has done some major improvements, so I should not be so hard on it. Great Museums and friendly people too. Trader Joe's, Long's donuts, Au Bon Pain, and every other chain shopping is here. Beautiful and lush vegetation in the better parts of town. The white river meanders through the city and the Monon trail which is now a bike/walk path, extends for something like 18 miles. Biggest problem with this trail, is that auto's have the right of way and that is both dangerous and troublesome for the bike commuter. The city seems to be committed to the bike commuter, but like the other traffic issues, everything is done bass ackwards!
Good luck here, I don't think I'm staying!
Peter | Indianapolis, IN