Reviews & Comments
Champaign, IL
Still Racial Attacks? -
7/23/2006I went to college there in the 90s; at the time, many black gangs were targeting single white men walking at night and attacking them. Naturally, this was overlooked by the press as the victims obviously deserved it because they're white. Does this sort of thing still happen in enlighted Champaign?
Champaign is definitely an American crap town!
Anchorage, AK
Colleges & PFD -
7/23/2006I was stationed at Elmendorf for 3 years; I found it to be an excellent assignment. I did take some graduate and continuing ed classes through Univ of Alaska-Anchorage and was pretty impressed by the quality. It's a hermetically sealed campus, with enclosed walkways. Alaska Pacific U is also in town.
BTW, if you want to qualify for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, at least when I was there 5 years ago, you had to establish residence for a year before applying. After you qualify, you get the PFD for life, but when I was briefied on it, they threw some scare tactics at us--the state gov't can recover the money if you move away and never come back. Don't know often this happens.
Newport News, VA
Patchwork of neigborhoods -
7/23/2006Real estate prices appear to have peaked in 2005 (right when I purchased my home, bloody hell!). Homes at the mid to higher end are taking longer to sell, following a substantial ramp up in real estate prices from 2001 to 2005. No doubt the interest rate hikes have impacted real estate, but also the increased supply of homes compounded with some downsizing at the military bases have brought about at least a plateau for home prices. Personnel cutbacks at Langley AFB will start to become locally noticeable in 2007.
The roadwork on I-64 has finally been completed--traffic to Norfolk/Virginia Beach (aka the Southside) has gotten better, but there still are delays in getting to Williamsburg and beyond.
Newport News is a patchy town--gated communities interspersed with some rough areas; this kind of skews median home prices. Plenty of cultural opportunities nearby, in Norfolk, Williamsburg, and Va Beach.