...as one who was born and raised there, but left and never looked back.

and it seems that CT is as far south as is tolerable

houses are less expensive... close to RI (my partner's family lives there)

pretty random really...

It has never quite recovered from 9/11. I lived in New Milford and people would go to work in NYC from way up there. After 9/11 many businesses that employed people from CT never reopened. The crash of 2008 really dealt it another blow. Property taxes are quite high and buying or renting is pricey. It is a beautiful state that has hit some hard times. I'd move back in a heartbeat if I could afford it.

property seems much less pricey than Vermont


I am looking at properties about 30 miles from Hartford??

...or overpriced, crappy housing.

The southern part of Fairfield County tends to feed into high-paying jobs in Stamford or New York City, so the traffic tends to be terrible and housing expensive. Only two highways in the area, and one of them is cars-only. 5 lanes total either into or out of New York, plus the Metro-North commuter line and Amtrak. Because there are a lot of people in a cramped area, there is a lot of economic change in relatively small distances. Where I live, if I head two miles east, I'm in a pretty poor neighborhood with lots of crappy apartments for rent and older, somewhat battered vehicles. Two miles west, I'm in an affluent area with homes that cost the better part of a million bucks and late-model SUVs thick as fleas.

Things get a bit better in New Haven and Hartford Counties.

The major cities took a beating when the industry moved out, so Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, & New London tend to be poor, with higher crime and crapper schools. Hartford has a median per-person income of less than $15k per year, and Bridgeport and New Haven are only slightly better. Lots of formally middle-class houses from before WW2 divided up into buildings with 2 or even 3 apartments in them, streets crowded with parked cars, and a generally-decrepit look because the landlords do not live in residence.

The eastern part of the state by the shore is pretty and less hectic than the western part of the state. Get away from the shore and it tends to be more woodsy and rural.



I'm here because my family is here. I preferred living in Minnesota, but had to come back due to circumstances. I'll probably die here at this point. My brother and his wife are working on their third kid, and my parents are getting up there. Not sure where my kid will go; he's looking at the Air Force in a few years. Hopefully Dolt45 doesn't get us into a shooting war.