My Kind Of Town

Thinking of moving somewhere new? You may have heard that this town was nice, but snobby; another one's shabby and maybe not so safe, but possibly on the rise; a third one is cool and youthful.

So how do you sort out the buzz from the beef?  For many folks looking to relocate to a new community, the factors are pretty basic: the reputation of the schools, property taxes, convenience to the workplace, and how much house you can get for your money.

For a deeper, more personalized method of evaluating a community and whether it's right for you and your family, The New York Times proposed in a recent article taking what they termed a "values audit.”  While the term may be nothing more than a bit of marketing jargon for doing your due diligence, the underlying notion is a sound one.

To really get a sense of whether or not a place fits, you have try to understand the values that a community and its people reflect and then see how they align with your own.  If that sounds amorphous or subjective, try structuring the exercise into a series of key questions, such as these below:

• What are the public priorities of the place?  Is the major concern for keeping taxes low, or economic development and job growth, or quality public services and amenities?
  
• What is the tone of public discourse?  Do issues get debated in a respectful and harmonious way, while allowing for disagreement and dissenting points of view?
  
• Is there a healthy mix of long-time families and newcomers?
  
• What can you learn about the community from the on-line comments and letters-to-the-editor of the local paper or from the postings on social media groups devoted to the life of the community?
  
• Are public officials accessible and responsive when you call their office?  How about police, fire and other emergency services?
  
• Who is dropping off and picking up the kids at school – a lot of nannies and caregivers, grandparents or stay-at-home dads and moms?
  
• Does the local shopping district feel like its populated by a diversity of people, or is it very homogenous, and if so, are they folks you feel comfortable being with?
  
• Is there a wide availability of programs and activities that you and your family will want or need as the years go by?
  
• Are there decent accessible medical care, social services, and transportation to meet your needs?

Here in Lancaster, we are endowed with a vibrant community, full of diversity, a high quality of life and rich in opportunity for a wide range of cultural, social, professional, educational and leisure pursuits.

But even a stellar community profile does not make Lancaster – or anywhere else, for that matter– right for everyone.  So go ahead and ask some questions of your own that occur to you.  Put a place to the test against the things that matter in your life.

Once you start, you soon see that taking the measure of a community and how well you and your loved ones would flourish in it is a rich exploration that tells you as much about yourself and your personal values as that of the place where you are thinking about putting down roots.