For us in Nebraska, these attributes have immediate and powerful positive effects. Nebraska is the happiest and most contended state in the nation measured by both economic well-being and emotional well-being. I bristle a bit when I hear the Great Plains labeled as fly-over country, but eventually I smile because I know numerous of individuals in urban communities pay a lot of money to have what I and my neighbors pay nothing for - quiet piece of mind.
Ord, Nebraska = Paradise?
Wednesday June 24, 2009
Categories: A Sense of Place
Filed Under: Nebraska
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Thank you, AML.
Well, telecommuting is all fine and good if you're a lawyer whose N.Y.-based firm does such things. Most people don't enjoy jobs like that. So jobs in towns as small as Ord are darn hard to find.
Go to the larger cities in the Great Plains such as Omaha or Des Moines, and the job situation looks much better. So much so that this writer from Forbes called the region a "zone of sanity":
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/30/foreclosures-unemployment-migration-kotkin-opinions-columnists-kansas-city.html
I was born in Chicago but live in Nebraska now. It has it's finer points -- a great place to raise kids, and if you're Catholic (as I am), a most excellent diocese of Lincoln where the priests are noble, the sisters are joyful and hard-working, the seminary is full, the schools are affordable, and the laborers (laypersons), while not many, are not few, either.
However, we are taxed like crazy. Property taxes are high, auto taxes are high, gas taxes are high, utility taxes are REALLY high (highest cell phone tax in the nation...lucky I don't have one), and we don't get much bang for the buck. The local government in my city is a joke. We've got jobs, but we're mostly underpaid compared to our experience levels -- and it's worse for women, of course, but doubly worse for women who are mothers.
The arts are not easy to come by -- you really have to go out of your way to see good theatre, fine art, music, but there are some few-and-far between opportunities.
And whoever it was that said the nights are always cool wasn't here on Sunday and Monday. Summer nights are MOSTLY cool, but we have our share of oppressive, oven-hot, lung-stifling, no-relief-in-sight evenings.
All in all, though, I do prefer the general courtesy, easy pace, and work ethic of Nebraska. I find Chicago very claustrophobic now -- funny how that works.
Living in Nebraska brings one significant problem for some. If you are a fan of another college team, not the Huskers, they can and will be hateful to you. I've seen genuinely rational people with whom I was having an enjoyable conversation flash anger at my mention that I'm a Notre Dame graduate. "IhateNotreDame." All one word. If you like the Huskers, you're welcomed with open arms. If not, they can be abusive, rude, obnoxious, cruel, contemptuous. In matters of college sports, these are not nice people, despite what Brent Musberger says. Husker Nation says it all. And forgeigners are not welcome.
LOL, Dennis. What you say is so true. One of my daughters knows firsthand of what you speak, since she is a Dallas Cowboys fan living in Washington, DC.
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