If you are moving to a new city, how much research do you do about the people who live there?

I would probably make sure that the town is not a neo nazi nest. Otherwise, I do not care, since I do not go outside.

I don’t do any research into the people per se. People are people. There are good and bad…everywhere. I did get with the local police department to discuss where the higher crime areas were when I was looking for a house to buy Things like income work themselves out by what I can afford to buy. Like incomes tend to buy in the same areas. Race, religion and politics were not even a consideration.

I guess if there was one small piece of research that was done it was population density. I hate big cities.

No. I usually check the amenities, like bookstores and libraries, transportation and grocery stores. Internet speeds and Post offices.

I too rarely go out. When I do I take it a taxi.

I wouldn’t just randomly move to a city without doing a ton of research. (I made that mistake once – I took a job in Boston without really doing diligent research and I hated Boston. Left after 3 years.)

The moving I’ve done in my adult life has been within two counties where I knew mostly everything relevant to know. I’ve lived here for 20 years and 20 years ago, I wasn’t googling like I am now. If I had to move to a strange city, I would research by googling demographics and other stuff.

I’ve been here damned near forever, and at the time, I came, there was no motivation beyond the weather. Back then, it would never have occurred to me to consider the characteristics of the folks here as a factor. It was simply blind luck that I showed up here. And what a wonder it was! I popped up in this town when its progressive disposition was drawing in hoardes of independent young smart single women. It was absolutely unbelievable.

@HP What city?

@JLeslie San Francisco The Viet Nam war was going full blast, and servicemen were transiting through like gangbusters. And this place was a straight up navy town. The hookers were CLEANING UP! But there was a definite shortage of young, stable single men. I can remember switching on the radio to discover that young single women at the time outnumbered the men (not counting the sailors) to the tune of 7 to 1.

“How much research” is hard to answer, but I investigate and perhaps more importantly, try to get a feel for the local culture and atmosphere and so on, by visiting the place.

It can be hard to really get an accurate sense of what it will be like to live in a place, without living there for a while, as the experience as a visitor tends to be pretty different.

One thing that has become more important to me in 21st Century USA, is the culture/politics of a region. That mattered before, but it’s become more and more important to me as I’ve become more concerned about the crazy xenophobic factions.

Zip. Nada. None.

@HP

Did you arrive in Frisco before, during, or after the Summer of Love, man?

The main reason we moved from Ottawa, Canada to Los Angeles, CA, was because on a delightfully brisk, sub-zeroº January day in Ontario, my dad saw people at the Pasadena Rose Parade wearing t-shirts.

I don’t know if he intentionally avoided moving to the southeastern US, but I’m quite thankful that he did. I wish he was still alive, because this is another of many unanswered questions about our lives I’d like to ask him.

Anyway, in April, 1955 Einstein died, so we packed up and ditched my favorite place in the western hemisphere.

We lived in Van Nuys, CA for awhile.
When I bought my house in 1973, I moved to an area that’s only about 2 or 3 miles south of there, so I did no demographic research.
The primary reason I moved here was because it’s only about a mile from where I worked.

@Brian1946 I got off the Greyhound in February of 66. I’d never heard of a hippy or a flower child. I got a room in a 6 bucks a night hotel. The town was full of those, some of them a block from Union Square. They were predominatly owned and run by Indian immigrants, and all smelled so strongly of curry, that to this day if I get a whiff of curry, I immediately think back to those places. But as usual, I digress. I spent the first night in the bed at the fleahop after sitting for days on that grueling bus trip. I woke up the next morning to brilliant sunshine and shirtsleeve weather, astonished that entire state of Nebraska had not moved here. I walked a block to Market street and caught the first of the many public transit buses visible. It was one of those beat up electric trolley busses, that I remembered from our trips to Kansas City. Anyway it the bus was the number 7 and it displayed on its signboard “7 Haight”, but of course that meant nothing to me. Anyway the bus rolled along, and I was of course glued to the window. We rolled up Haight street and there were young people on the sidewalks heading in the same direction as the bus. There were also on the bus plenty of kids weirdly and colorfully attired. Anyway the bus was getting crowded as more and more of the thickening groups walking got on the bus at each stop. The fare was a dime (if you can believe it) and the walk at this stage was uphill, so at each stop kids abandoned walking and hopped on the bus. Thinking there must be some sort of carnival, I asked a kid wearing an honest to god turban with a big red jewel inset in its folds what the celebration was about. He grinned and told me “No one knows.” Anyway at the corner of Haight and Masonic the crowds of kids ambling back and forth across the streets had impeded traffic to the point that the bus just gave up. There were cops trying to bring some semblance of order to things, but the crowd of kids and most of the rest of piled out of the bus into the by now throng of people, and that was my introduction to Haight Ashbury. But that was just my first surprise. There was a place on that corner called the Drugstore Cafe, and I was starving. It was a pharmacy which had been converted to a restaurant, and it was of course quite busy. Anyway I walked in there to read the big menu that hung on the wall to read “Hamburger with the works $1.25.” I was accustomed to getting a damnned good hamburger for 35 cents, and immediately understood the implications regarding my budget and the necessity for urgent employment.

None really. But the best way to get a feel for the culture there is to watch their local news (ABC. CBS. NBC. etc.) online.

Interesting. GA’s to everyone. Thanks.

I always read the history of the area where I’m going to live. I study up on the flora and fauna, and inform myself as best as I can.

The choice to move to a city or area has already been made by the time I start my research, so questions of income, race, ethnicity, religion, and politics are irrelevant.