Reviews & Comments
Pocatello, ID
I like Pocatello -
11/23/2014I grew up as a Jew in Pocatello, graduating from high school in 1965. While were a distinct minority in a 40% LDS (Mormon) town, I didn't feel any particular religious prejudice. Pocatello was then a small town with many of the benefits of an urban area - because the diverse faculty of Idaho State University drew in international and national level entertainment and demanded high quality education for their families. While there are fewer minorities throughout the West, Pocatello happened (happens?) to have a significant black population because it was the place where railway porters changed their shifts. They were/are well integrated into the community with a black high school contemporary of my sister serving as mayor for a number of years.
I haven't lived in Pocatello for over 40 years, and I understand that an inclux of right-wing haters from California has increased tension levels - but I remember Poky as a great place to grow up and my parents lived there comfortably through their retirement years. The essential reason we didn't move back was that there was no work for my Anthropolgy professor wife.
Norristown, PA
The Philadelphia area is a good place to live, but -
11/23/2014We've lived in PA for over 40 years and I still find describing municipal locations difficult. For example, according to the community, we live in "Jeffersonville." But Jeffersonville is a descriptive but non-existent place. We pay our taxes and vote in "West Norriton Township." We would send our kids to school in the Norristown Area School District. Our zip code is supposedly for West Norriton, but it comes up on most computer locators as Norristown (the larger suburb to our east of which we are a suburb). We also get mail addressed to us in Eagleville or Trooper (2 smaller non-existent places just west of us.)
We like where we live in a 100 year old "townhouse" (rowhouse) twin on a tree-lined street with good neighbors. Among other reasons, we picked it as our "downshifted" retirement location (after living in a much newer and much more expensive house in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia) because it was friendlier and more alive. The neighborhood is quite integrated in terms of race (Caucasian, African American, Asian, Latino, and mixed couples), age, economic class, and religion -- but I'm still not sure where it is.