http://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/money/personalfinance... /

I'm not a millennial. Just as well as my wife wouldn't let us move to this place.

If you're struggling to afford gasoline I would suggest you start using the bike lanes in Athens like all the millennials do.

I don't know. I'm a little skeptical. Just looking at Zillow there are several nice houses listed for under $200k. I believe the school taxes are high though. As far as other expenses it feels like a real bargain. Prices at bars and restaurants are a fraction of what you'd spend in a larger city. Gas may be high but the town is pretty compact so you don't need to drive far on an average day.

Do you get more for your money in Lancaster? Bigger school district with more resources. Then you can be at Easton or Polaris in 30 minutes. Avoid the day to day Columbus traffic. Cheaper commercial real estate downtown I'd imagine if you wanted to put in an art store. Athens rents have driven a few places out.

I think it's all relative. This house could use some updated, but pretty good deal for $172k...

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2-Briar...

Well maybe it's just me, but that makes total sense. I don't know why I would want to live in Lancaster. That's not a knock on it as much as it is an admission of ignorance on my part. But in my mind it has no amenities that I would gravitate toward, and no major employers to draw people. I could work at OU-L or I could commute quite a distance to Columbus, right? Anchor Hocking maybe?

That's in contrast to Athens, which is a cultural center of Southeast Ohio. It has a major university with high-paying jobs in an otherwise impoverished region. It has broadway shows, a great music scene, and scenic beauty. It also has lots of students competing for the housing stock and is, in my mind, an attractive retirement location. With all the in mind it is easy to see why housing is more expensive than in Lancaster, but it is actually a shock to me that there isn't a bigger difference.

This brings to mind a conversation I had recently with another BAer. Up until the formation of the Appalachian Regional Commission during the Johnson Administration you virtually never heard the term Appalachian or Appalachia used to refer to any counties in Ohio. The way our area was usually referenced was to say we were in the "foothills of the Alleghenies." Has a much better ring to it, doesn't it?

Poorly funded schools, if there is such a thing, comes from the districts not being able to pass a tax levy. Most around Athens pay 1/2 the millage we pay here in Athens plus they don't pay a 1% earned income tax. Why we have five separate school districts in Athens County is beyond me. Scioto County has 10. Way too much duplication of services.

We used to have at least ten. From memory: Carthage-Troy, Ames-Bern, Albany, Nelsonville, Butchel, Athens, Chauncey-Dover, The Plains, Glouster, and Jacksonville-Trimble. I can’t really say that the reduction and forced consolidation to the present five has markedly improved education overall. And, I can cite one case where it has markedly decreased educational attainment. That would be the closure of Chauncey-Dover. That high school had teachers who were adept at teaching kids coming from the relevant socioeconomic background, and they were generally successful in educating their graduates to an acceptable standard, some of whom went on to college. Now, the Chauncey kids are lost in an Athens High School that visions itself as a prep school for the Ivy League and could care less about the education of kids from Chauncey. I could cite examples from my own children’s days at AHS of extreme prejudice among both teachers and other students against kids from the old Chauncey-Dover district. I won’t name names to protect the guilty. Fewer districts is not always better. Larger school are not always better. State bureaucrats don’t always know best. Small local schools are sometimes better.

Let me add that the plan to consolidate elementary schools in Athens is something that I’m totally against, even though my own children have graduated and I don’t have any real skin in that game at the moment. But I do care about what’s best for the city’s children, and this is not a solution to any real or imagined problem, but a brand new problem in the making.

What's your explanation, Alan? And, the solution to what you see as a problem is to do away with neighborhood or district schools and put everyone in one big school? This is really the best way to treat small elementary school children?

I'm of two minds on this. I think most research I've come across shows the consolidated school would lead to better educational outcomes. On the other hand I think there is value to kids being able to walk to school. This would be mostly impossible for almost all kids with the new consolidated campus. I also think there will be some serious traffic problems associated with the plan. So more congestion and pollution and less healthy lifestyles for kids and parents alike. I don't know how to compare the value of those things to the increased educational outcomes.

Exactly, as I pointed out in a previous post, the discrimination against kids from Chauncey was made much worse by the forced consolidation of The Plains and Chauncey with AHS. And, the educational attainment of those Chauncey kids suffered as well. This consolidate campus concept is just the current fad in educational circles. It's kind of like the one-time fad to have huge enclosed malls, only to have it replaced by the current deja vu fad of strip malls and "shopping communities" (e.g., Easton). At a smaller school members of a discriminated-against group can at least band together with a significant number of their own to provide some level of a protective social shield. In a consolidated situation they become even a smaller minority and are even easier prey for other students and faculty. Yes, faculty are part of the problem!

In the Athens school district, only about 15% of the students walk to the so called neighborhood schools. In fact, less than 50% of the kids in the schools live within the city limits. This is more about helicopter parents and those still stuck in the Leave It to Beaver era as anything. Children are much more resilient than we think. There are parents who are actually afraid to put their kids on the bus. They generally are the same ones who take the phone off the hook or turn off the stereo when their kids go to bed. Heck, we cranked up All Along the Watchtower and our two slept just fine (over generalizations of course but you get the point).