Reviews & Comments
Sacramento, CA
Good and Bad -
12/31/2012I lived there for 3 years while in college (about 3 years ago). It's a big city with unbelievably awful traffic. It takes 30 minutes to drive 4 miles down the road in some parts of Sacramento. The summers are unbareably hot reaching over 100 degrees on many days. Being that it is dry heat (which I was not used to being raised on the East coast) does not make it more bareable. During the summers I did not want to spend long outside due to the heat and constantly felt like I needed to drink water and carry lotion with me because my skin felt SO dry (and I don't have dry skin). BUT the people were very friendly and down-to-earth. I have lived a lot of places and I would have to say the people in Sacramento were probably the nicest most normal people I met anywhere.
Columbia, MD
Good and Bad -
12/31/2012I spent the first 18 years of my life in Columbia, MD but have now moved away. Columbia is a very metropolitan suburb 10 minutes outside of Baltimore. As far as suburbs go it is pretty big and not a far drive from surrounding cities. You can probably find almost everything you need inside of Columbia. There are also many public pools, movie theaters, a fantastic mall, and public transportation. However, crime is bad and the way the city is built you cannot really get away from it. The good neighborhoods are placed right next to the bad ones in an effort to keep the bad neighbohoods from not being too bad and to keep from having one very bad area of Columbia. This was a good way for me growing up to know/make friends with people from all walks of life as the schools are mixed with both rich and poor. Again however, as a teenager growing up there I would not raise a teenager there. All I did (and most of the kids I knew) was do drugs, drink til I could have developed a drinking problem, and engage in other things you wouldn't want your children doing. The majority of teenagers I knew were doing the same thing. People who moved there from other places that had never been bad kids quickly became bad kids like everyone else. Many of my peers dropped out of high school and many of those peers are now still there on welfare. Now that I have moved away I realize that people don't have that high school experience everywhere. That is not to say that nobody succeeds there because many people I know did but a sizeable amount did not is all. Or at least not to the standards that most people have for their children. The cost of living is also extremely high. Getting a one bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood (not the ghetto) anywhere around Columbia will cost you at least $900+/month. I would never move back.
Aiken, SC
Overall... -
12/31/2012If you are looking for a small town than Aiken is a pretty good place to live. The climate is not bad either, mild winters and hot summers. The crime is bad in parts of Aiken but not bad in the nicer areas. However, there is just not much to do here. There is only one public dirty pool which I would not go to, one theater, and one very pathetic mall (I don't know if you could really call it a mall). In order to get to any bigger city the drive is 30 minutes (Augusta) or 1 hour (Columbia). There is only one main road in the bigger part of Aiken (the part where most of the stores/restaurants are) and you would not believe the traffic they have on that road for this being a small town. I am still young enough that I want things to do so my spouse and I (and most young people I know) cannot wait to get out of here but if you are just looking for a small town with a relatively mild climate I would recommend Aiken.