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Where do we live, where do we wish we lived?


asylumhill

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I thought it would be interesting to find out where all the people who are posters here are currently living, and where we would choose to go if we had to move.

(Obviously) I am in Asylum Hill in Hartford right now, and would look at the Park Place apartments in Hartford or the Park Street West Hartford area if I were to move somewhere else.

Anyone else?

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I currently live in Berlin. I work for AT&T, our garage is on Brainard Rd, and I'm lucky enough to work in Hartford and the surround areas (business' and residential) every day. Before I bought my house, I was an in-house phone guy in Travelers Tower (servicing all their buildings downtown, Windsor St, and Farm Glen in Farmington). It was circa 2001, I was really looking into buying a condo downtown, but at the time, only Bushnell Towers afforded that luxury. I had a line on one for a decent price, but there were a few things that held me up. First, it only had one parking space, and it was another 30grrr for a second one. I delayed on it (it didn't seem to be moving) for a few months, and I'm lucky I did. SBC decided to move me down to Norwalk, then Stratford for the better part of 3 years. Thinking of the commute from downtown Hartford to Norwalk every day, I decided to move to Wallingford with my then girlfriend, now wife. Two years later we decided to start looking for houses, but I had no idea how long it's be before I get moved back up to Hartford, so I couldn't really look at anything in the city, it had to be more south. Looked extensively in Meriden, Wallingford, Cromwell, Rocky Hill and finally found a house in Berlin, literally 5 blocks from where I grew up. I suffered with that commute for only about 6 months (thankfully) before I got moved back to Hartford. Now, with a kid on the way, I don't think I'd move to the city, my house is in the historic district, and I'm within walking distance of the Elementary School, the Middle School, and Berlin High. In my perfect world, I'd love to have a penthouse apartment in the city, but that little condo in Bushnell Towers would have done me just fine, it just didn't work out....

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I currently live in Phoenix after living my first 19 years in Windham/Willimantic. I moved out to the Phoenix metro area in September of 2000 to attend Arizona State University.

If I move back to Connecticut it would be in Hartford County. I would like to own a condo downtown when I eventually move back east, when I will do that is hard to tell. In the short term I could picture myself living in the Phoenix-Tempe area for the next 5-10 years and possibly owning a condo or townhouse in this area. There is a lot of urban living being constructed in Tempe/Phoenix/Scottsdale and would love to own a condo in one of these areas when my budget can afford one.

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I grew up in West Hartford and went to college in New London. I graduated in 1998 and the only job I could find was in Waterbury, so I moved to nearby Thomaston. I now own a single family house (built in 1892) in downtown Thomaston within walking distance (two blocks or less) of everything - restaurants, theatre, parks, grocery store, river, library, post office, etc. It is the perfect location for me.

However, if I worked in the Hartford area I would love to live in the renovated buildings on Mortson Street or Putnam Heights in Frog Hollow. I've always loved the vibrancy and life along nearby Park Street.

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I grew up in South Windsor, CT, went to college in Springfield, MA and graduated in 2005. Now I live in downtown Springfield and work for the AHL.

Ultimately I plan on living in downtown Hartford and I know I don't want to rent, so one of those new condos in the next three years would be great. I just have to advance a little further in my career first before I could afford that.

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I live in DC. But I've lived in Enfield, Storrs, Chicago, Atlanta and NYC. I frequently travel and have spent time in just about every major city in America. I've spent months in Los Angeles and once figured out that I had stayed at over 15 different hotels around San Francisco. I have vacationed in London, Paris, Rome and Mexico City.

If I could live anywhere, It would probably be on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands.

I always thought Hartford was an underappreciated gem. And I get back frequently.

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Right now I live in Wethersfield. In two weeks I will be going off to Manhattan College. I have lived in Wethersfield for the last three years, before that I lived in Hebron for about 15 years. At the time my mom wasnt working but all her family was in Wethersfield & Hartford and my dad's office was in Norwich so Hebron was in the middle. My mom then got a job teaching at Cromwell High School and I was going to school at Watkinson over in the west end so we decided to move to Wethersfield so at least two people would have shorter commutes.

My mom's whole family grew up in Hartford and still own property in the city. I personally would love to live downtown. Ive tried jokingly to convince my parents to sell there suburban home and buy a downtown condo but its not really working.

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WOW! Vancouver has a very dense skyline.

Yes it's very dense, the downtown is only 5 square miles and is home to over 100,000 people. Since a large park covers the western half of the downtown peninsula this brings the density of the inhabited area to 30,000 per sq km (the highest in North America). I would say that it has roughly the same number of office towers as Hartford but there are as you can see there are many more residential highrises. In the years I lived there almost every empty space in the city was transformed into a building site for residential towers.

Living in Vancouver was my first introduction to urban living. The city gave me a totally different perspective on life so different from that of the greater Hartford area. Growing up I was taught that only poor people live in cities and apartments, the ideal was to live in a suburb. In Vancouver the closer you live to downtown the more desirable, trendy and expensive it is. The suburbs are where the working and lower classes live. The most fashionable areas are Yaletown and Coal Harbor where shiny new towers over look the water and mountains. Also for shopping I grew up only knowing the malls, in Vancouver the place to shop was on Robson St. which is filled with over 100 boutiques and restaurants, art galleries etc. Malls tended to be associated with the suburbanites and generally had the more middle class stores like GAP instead of the more trendy European labels.

I see Hartford going in the right direction by starting to build residential. Much of what you see in Vancouver was the result of Expo 86 and the decision to build condos in what had been a factory/warehouse district that had fallen into disuse. Many of the warehouses have been turned into lofts and boutiques or restaurants. The demand since then has been so great that housing prices have skyrocketed. In 2002 a 550 sq ft condo downtown sold for $120,000 Canadian ($75,000 U.S. at that time), today the same condo sells for $300,000 ($265,000 U.S. due to the appreciation of the Canadian dollar). The housing market there is crazy and I have a feeling it's a bubble waiting to burst with the median home price in the city at $700,000. I remember 2 summers ago when two 260 unit towers had people lining for blocks waiting to buy condos the day the sale began, within 4 hours every unit was sold and the building is only complete now. In fact many people made a living out of flipping not yet built condos.

In kind of hope Hartford is where Vancouver was in 1982 and the boom is just starting to begin. Take a look at the picutre in the link to see what I mean. http://www.globalairphotos.com/large/BC/Va...town/1982/079/2

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I thought it would be interesting to find out where all the people who are posters here are currently living, and where we would choose to go if we had to move.

(Obviously) I am in Asylum Hill in Hartford right now, and would look at the Park Place apartments in Hartford or the Park Street West Hartford area if I were to move somewhere else.

Anyone else?

Hmmm...

Apollo Beach, Florida here. I grew up in Southeastern East Hartford (Hillstown), bought a home in Glastonbury, and Manchester, before I got transferred to Florida. I live in a condo on the water, yet I do miss Connecticut (Shady Glen, the autumn) but I might move back someday. (If they ever reduce taxes!)

If I could live ANYWHERE -- a tropical island in the PACIFIC -- that has INTERNET ACCESS!! :)

Jim S

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I currently live in NY and I've been down here for almost 3 years. I'm looking to relocate back to the Hartford area and start up my own construction/landscaping business. I'll probably be moving to Oakwood Ave in West Hartford sometime before Christmas. It's not downtown, but I am going to be living on the 3rd floor of a 3 family house, and there's actually a view of downtown Hartford from the balcony, so I'm excited about that. Eventually I hope to move downtown when much of the condo boom construction is completed.

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