The Glade 4.0

Yeah - I'm doing it again. Anybody have any recent experience with any of the below towns/cities in Ohio? I'm starting my research on it, but I'd appreciate any firsthand experience. Maybe even if you have overwhelming opinions about the state, I'll take that too.

I'm going to have to vote on my choices for where I want to do my clinical years, and I don't think I want to stay up here in Kirksville, which is too small (17k) and too far (90+ min) from bigger towns. There are some places in southern Missouri that look decent (Springfield, Joplin), but spaces are limited down there and I'm giving Ohio a second look.

Athens
Columbus
Cuyahoga Falls
Massillon
Warren
Warrensville Heights
Willoughby

Thanks for any help.

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The Dude abides.

Where in Ohio would you be doing the actual residency? Cleveland or maybe Akron I guess from the cities you listed?

I haven't lived there for a few years now, but I'm familiar with all of these towns to one degree or another.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I've lived in Columbus almost 20 years. What do you want to know?

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

I might be able to offer some insight, though my knowledge of the Cleveland area is spottier than my Dayton and second-hand knowledge and resources for Columbus and Cincinnati.

If you're interested in specifics about the state/lay of the health care industry, DFK! can probably offer some about Columbus at the very least; I'll ping him to check in if you want.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It's not a residency, it's the clinical years of my medical education (years 3 and 4). I'm not concerned about medical climate or hospitals (I already have a good sense of that), it's more a matter of first-hand experience insights that's tough to sift out from internet searches.

Things like:
* traffic/road conditions,
* town events and family friendly things,
* abnormal populations like lots of homeless or over-abundance of college kids,
* quirks with public schools,
* toxic politics (Tucson, where I left, has this in spades)
* amount of shopping/dining,
* any typical reasons people have to travel to larger cities/towns (i.e. shopping, dates, medical appointments, etc.),
* general age of housing constructions (should I expect drafty houses?) in typical rental places?

I actually did talk to DFK already - about Columbus and Athens. I don't really need knowledge about the health care industry since my rotation director will pretty much have everything laid out for me, for better or worse. It's more about things like I mentioned above.

Kirksville, where I live now in rural NE Missouri, is a bit too small for our taste and too far away from a larger city. The schools are great but the town is very poor so that anything not university-related is usually in need of major repair. But dollars stretch very far here.

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The Dude abides.

Columbus is an interesting town, it's the fifteenth largest city in the country and largest in Ohio. The metropolitan area ranks about 25 in the nation and third in Ohio. There are several cities/towns/villages in the Columbus area, some completely surrounded by Columbus. Taxes, cost of living, and traffic are all dependent on where in town you live.

Traffic can be locally heavy at times, but unless there's an accident, it moves continuously. I live 6 miles north and about 4 blocks east of the center of Columbus. I can get anywhere around town in about 30 minutes, any time of day.

Columbus has an annual Jazz and Rib Festival, a Food Truck Festival, Oktoberfest, the Ohio State Fair, and more that I'm forgetting. Every little municipality does fireworks on Independence Day and there are places you can go and watch fireworks from three different locations, just by turning your head. There are all kinds of festivals in towns within a hour's drive, including the Pumpkin Festival, the Sweet Corn Festival, and more.

The Ohio State University dominates Columbus for geographic size and student population and it seems everyone from here is a graduate, or at least attended. There are several other colleges and universities in town and the surrounding areas, but unless you go where the kids are, you don't notice them. By that I mean that I avoid the OSU campus area during school season and I hardly know the university is two miles south of home, other than hearing the crowd roar during football season.

For the most part, Ohio school districts resemble congressional districts. Cities have public systems that follow city limits, other school districts look like congressional districts and the quality of education varies widely between all public school systems. For instance, my wife and I planned on moving to another city within Columbus (Grandview Heights) to keep our son out of Columbus schools. We realized taxes would be more than private school so we didn't move. He's a senior this fall and has never been inside a public school.

I hardly notice the political scene in Columbus. There have been recent scandals involving the new mayor and red light camera companies but that's about it. Prior to the current guy being elected, we had the same mayor for 12 years. Ohio is a national battleground state. I recommend not having a land line, if possible. Unless you like being polled and cold called by politician and celebrity recordings for months at a time every few years. Caller ID is a must.

There are several malls in Columbus, a couple nice enough that I will go to them if I have to. There are also outlet malls within an hour's drive north and south of Columbus. The dining scene is fantastic! Columbus is frequently a test market for all the fast food outlets. Family dining is abundant and reasonably priced, both chain and local places. There's a local restaurateur that has themed places in town where you can get comfort food, fresh seafood, steaks, etc. There are multitudes of microbreweries and growler stores in town. Every neighborhood has bar or two.

There are no typical reasons to go anywhere else other than tourism. There are lots of cool things to see and do in central Ohio.

Housing age varies by location in town. My house is 95 years old. I don't know what the rental scene is like other than there are nice places and not so nice places.

Other information:

There are pockets of refugees from all over the world here. Hit me in PM before you commit to a lease anywhere. There are also areas of town that are still known for the peoples who settled there originally. There's Italian Village and German Village. Victorian Village is known for its Victorian era homes and annual Doo Dah Parade. Just look that one up on google, it's SFW.

Any more questions, ask.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

I'm pretty sure I said more in that post than I have in all my others combined.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

I live in Willoughby.

My sister lived in Cuyahoga Falls for 10 years.

My fiancee worked at the following systems: Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and did some NP Clinical hours at Lake Health.

What did you want to know?

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Ah, okay. Other folks are going to be more help on many fronts, but I'll chip in with my input on my specialty niche in the amateur sporting world.

Athens -- Athens Ohio Roller Derby (nee Appalachian Hell Betties) is a long-standing, thriving league that is not a WFTDA member, but I've heard rumors that they're gearing up to seek apprenticeship status. It's an old-school attitude league with a lot of heart.

Columbus -- Ohio Roller Derby plays at the State Fairgrounds, and is consistently ranked in the 30's internationally in the WFTDA. The highest level of derby play you'll see in Ohio. If you end up north of town, you might also check out Central Ohio Roller Derby, who plays in Mt. Vernon. They're a young league that's mostly still getting their act together, organizationally.

Cuyahoga Falls -- Akron is home to two WFTDA leagues, the Rubber City Rollergirls and NorthEast Ohio Roller Derby. NEO has been on a downward spiral for years, and Rubber City has been sort of sucking up its talent, despite being a pretty fresh face in the WFTDA.
Massillon -- See above about Rubber City and NEO.

Warren -- Youngstown hosts the Little Steel Derby Girls, a small WFTDA member league that's struggling with attrition of late.

Warrensville Heights -- Cleveland's Burning River Roller Derby is your roller derby game in town, here. Burning River hosted one of the Division 2 tournaments last year and is a league full of quality folks, though they've taken a beating in the rankings this year.

Willoughby -- See above for Burning River, though you could probably also justify the drive to see the Eerie Roller Girls of Erie, PA if you wanted. I've never worked with them or seen them play before.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I notice for the Cleveland area that all your cities are on the east side. I'd recommend, if you do your work in the Cleveland area, considering the west side on account of the snow in the winters.

The lake starts to curve north in the center (roughly) of Cleveland, which means a great deal more lake effect snow on the east side than the west as the wind carries it onlto the shore rather than parallel to it.

In practical terms, this means driving downtown to a hospital can rapidly become a 2 hour event rather than a half how from the west side - which means a 3 hour event from the east, and on the East side there's Deadman's Curve to contend with. I went to the Police Academy in Cleveland Heights from January to April, driving west to east and returning home the opposite way and any time it snowed it became a 15 mph slog through terrifying weather and traffic conditions.

Cuyahoga Falls is a pretty, small city and Willoughby is pretty nice. You may want to consider Strongsville. I have a hard time remembering much about Warren/Warrensville heights but mymemory is telling me they were pretty shitty.

There's a number of pleasant suburbs on the west side. My grandparents lived in Fairview Park my entire life until my step-grandma finally moved in with her son 2 years ago. It's a quiet community located right next to the airport. Rocky River, just north of it is where I played hockey as a kid and my stepmother lived before she and my dad married - another very nice community. Lakewood is in slightly closer to the city but IIRC more expensive. If you want to live farther out, Avon, Sheffield, Avon Lake, and North Ridgeville are all nice small cities in Lorain County. Stay away from Elyria or Lorain though. I lived in Elyria as a little kid, and again after we got married. It's in sad shape unless you can afford a really nice house. Lorain is worse; my brother and sisiter-in-law live there and the place is terrifying. My daughter works downtown there for now, which worries me.

There are a LOT of older properties around Cleveland, so age of rental properties and condition is something to be cautious of, in any direction.

The nice thing about the area between Cleveland and Akron is that you have access to the lightly-populated but very beautiful area that forms the foothills in Eastern Ohio. There are a lot of places there like Atwood Lake which are true hidden treasures of recreation. It's not excessively touristy either, even in summer - there will be enough people that it won't be dead but not so many it will be overwhelming. There are events like Jamboree in the Hills that you won't hear about nationally but are well-attended. In the fall, this area is beyond merely gorgeous. I used to drive down I-77 to go to Wheeling for drill, and October was hands down the best month.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Mentioned it above in a follow-up comment, but probably easily missed. First-hand experience insights that's tough to sift out from internet searches. Things like:
* traffic/road conditions,
* town events and family friendly things,
* abnormal populations like lots of homeless or over-abundance of college kids,
* quirks with public schools,
* toxic politics (Tucson, where I left, has this in spades)
* amount of shopping/dining,
* any typical reasons people have to travel to larger cities/towns (i.e. shopping, dates, medical appointments, etc.),
* general age of housing constructions (should I expect drafty houses?) in typical rental places?

I guess to help you understand my situation: Since I'm still a med student, I have pretty much no say where I travel to for while on rotations. We, as a class, vote for our pick of site (the town are rotations are coordinated from) and we remain in that area. The towns mentioned above are the only places in Ohio where we have sites. So I'd want to live near the town (probably within 20-30 minutes) and they could just as easily make me travel 90 minutes one way for a given setting (clinic, hospital, prison, etc.) for whatever service (Family med, OB-GYN, Peds, Surgery, etc.). I don't get paid for any of this and my family is surviving (well enough) on my student loans while my wife stays home and manages the household. Suffice it to say, we try to keep costs down. I'm willing to live outside a city/town if it keeps my rent down and doesn't eat the savings in extra gas mileage. But definitely one thing I'm ignorant on are things some of you have mentioned: good communities to check out that may be outside the city/town proper but offer a better lifestyle for me and mine.

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The Dude abides.

Willoughby is at the crossroads of all Northeast Ohio situated 20 minutes from Cleveland and about 30ish from Akron/Canton. Traffic is light with a small-townish bustling downtown that always has something going on during the weekend. It is home to the Willoughby Brewing company (creators of the World Beer something-something winning Peanut Buttercup Stout). The public schools are highly rated, taxes are mostly reasonable. The population is about as white as white can be. Politics are non-divisive as it is with most homogenous areas. Dining is good in the town and 20 minutes from excellence in Cleveland. Houses are a mix of older Victorian on the square moving into tract housing from the 50s/60s and new mcmansions in tidy subdivisions.

Cuyahoga Falls is great if you work in Akron, otherwise it is inconveniently located. Politics are meh, schools aren't great, population is primarily white again and the downtown riverwalk usually has activities most weekends. Food in this area (Akron in general) is pretty shitty. The houses are pretty old, taxes a bit high, and shopping choices are suburban. The people there are pretty friendly but you do get some homeless wandering over from Akron, which has a very high % of homeless and allows for legal panhandling.

Stay out of Warrensville Heights.

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Thanks for that. Not caring so much about how white a town was, but interesting I guess. Where I live now has a lot of poor folks and is the halfway house/rehab hub for all the rural towns in the area. Really wanting to avoid that one again if I can.

What's so bad about Warrensville Heights?

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The Dude abides.

I remember, now that Hopwin mentioned it. Basically everything. Also, I do recall now that Cuyahoga Falls is a bit of a pain to get to. Warren seems pretty far out of the way for what you're describing.

As for your situation, that makes more sense now about why you picked out the areas you did. I think Willoughby or possibly Massillon is your best bet.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Some people want diversity, some people want homogenity. It occurred to me that I should raise the point though after I recalled that many Cuyahoga Falls residents refer to their city as "Caucasian" Falls and I could never really tell if that was with pride or derision.

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Holy ****. It's Hopwin!

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