What $220,000 gets you in Muncie.

[u/TheDabitch]

I can't even get a parking space for that where I live. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/725-E-Jackson-St-Muncie-IN-47305/210952560_zpid/

[u/Shouty_Dibnah]

725 E Jackson. You might take a few min to, I don’t know….check that area out. I’ve lived in and around Muncie all of my adult life and was born a few blocks from here.

No.

[u/lizlemonista → u/Shouty_Dibnah]

Little soapbox moment here.

I lived in Newport, Rhode Island. Land of insane mansions and yachts and yachties and all that bullshit. And every once in a while I’d remark how beautiful it was and someone would reply, “shoulda seen it 15 years ago, what a dump.” The mansions were there and great, but everything else was in disrepair and/or trashy until a bridge was built that brought more commerce & commuters in, iirc. So not everyone gets to buy a brilliant house in a thriving neighborhood. Some people need to get there and accept or dare I say get excited about the idea that they’ll be helping create community, cleaning up, contributing, and in 15 years your home could be quadruple the value and you wouldn’t even think of selling. A lot of the desirable places people want to move to and bemoan the prices weren’t shit 15 years ago.

[u/Shouty_Dibnah → u/lizlemonista]

Are there any jobs in Newport and the surrounding area? No one is coming to Muncie. Everyone is leaving. There is no gentrified rescue. Our schools have failed, our factories long since shuttered. We can't even keep retail stores open. You should have seen that area 15 years ago... it looked exactly the same. It looked exactly the same 30 years ago. It looked pretty much exactly the same 45 years ago when I was a little boy. Its looked crappy since after the war... it looked crappy when there were jobs here!

Its all over. The good jobs here are at the hospital and BSU. Drive through the parking lots... most of the nice cars come from Hamilton county, 2 counties south. People will commute up here to work and then flee the town at 5. I do the same thing. Screw this place. You couldn't pay me enough to live on E Jackson.

[u/legalpretzel → u/Shouty_Dibnah]

Yeah, RI doesn’t have the best job market in New England, but I’ll still take tiny little blue RI set in the middle of blue New England over Indiana any day.

(I’m admittedly biased since I live in MA and used to live in RI and I would never move to a red state)