Anarcho-communists? :eek:

Anyway, to bring this thread back on topic, I analyzed the minimum that my car is costing me, not counting repairs, registration, etc., etc. in another thread.

Came out to $275/mo ($40/wk on fuel, $115/mo on insurance.) I bet that'd get me into someone's spare room, and close to work.

A person making $1000 a month shouldn't (in my opinion) have a $500 month lease. How about a $350 mortgage, $100 real estate taxes, $50 insurance, and rent out the spare bedroom for $300? That's exactly the kind of good decision making I'm talking about. Brings about a whole change of the calculation, plus you could have a small yard/garden to reduce the food budget.

Now you would be at $9600 after housing, -$200 pm for food would leave $7200 ($600 month) for incidentals.

$350 a month for a mortgage? What decade is this? In the entire state of WA, you can't even rent a really crappy one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood for that, let alone actually buy real estate. And a garden for growing your own food, too? I'm sorry to be so blunt, but what you describe is pure fantasy, at least in any western state. Hell, a lot of people in my city (foolish ones, to be sure) spend more than that every month for their car payment. You can live on a $1000 a month here, but you'll be sharing a house with 5 other working adults, you'll be taking public transportation, you'll be buying your clothes in thrift stores, and you won't be going on any nice vacations any time soon.

A $350/mo,mortgage would get you a decent trailer out here, LOL.

Of course, this would be 25 miles from civilization, and 50 miles from anything major. If I go anywhere, really, by car, it's 50 miles round trip, and usually 100 miles round trip.

^^ ohio right? actually right here in Columbus there are houses for sale in that price range, less than 2 miles from downtown too

they are in crappy neighborhoods and need lots of work, but they do exist, I just looked at one on grubb st a couple of days ago, and currently my rent is under $300/month for a 1 bedroom apt

cost of living here in Ohio is dirt cheap

Hmm... closer in than even I thought.

Although, out here, you get 5 acres of land and a double-wide trailer for your $350/mo...

(I'm about 50 miles by car from Columbus...)

Hmm... closer in than even I thought.

Although, out here, you get 5 acres of land and a double-wide trailer for your $350/mo...

(I'm about 50 miles by car from Columbus...)

We can't do quite that good down here...5 acres will cost you $40k and up depending on the proximity to the larger cities... I own 40 acres with a barn, house and trailer on it, current tax value has increased 10 fold in the past 12 years:rolleyes:

Which brings up an interesting problem for the poor. There was an article about a woman in the DC area that lived in a Habitat for Humanity house. She had been there 11 years, made all her mortgage payments on time, but was going to have to sell the house because the tax payments were more than the mortgage payments. The problem was if she sold the house she would be unable to replace it with a similar house because of the extreme rise in property values in the area, the only houses available in comparable value were 50-60 miles away, well past where the mass transit lines stop. I realize this is unusual occurrence, however if it is happening there it will be happening other places too. The woman in question is semi-retired and lives on a fixed income. Is there affordable housing out there for the minimum wage crowd? Yes, but is it in an area that is fit to live in, and close to working mass transit? Debatable.

I live on the outskirts of a city of around 140,000 with a "mini-metro" area of around 300-400k depending on how you count it. The mass transit system is a major joke. If you work at the local mall which closes at 9pm you better get off work before 630pm when the last bus runs, and you better not need a transfer and live along that bus route. The bus route is set up in a typical spoke system, with no connections on the outer rim. If you want to go from an outlying point to an outlying point it can take up to 3 hours. The area is also what I would consider low wealth with around 20% of the population living at or below the government poverty level. And of course it is a car centric area...and not particularly cycling friendly unless you like riding on high speed narrow roads with no shoulders and gravel everywhere.

Aaron:)

It's either in an area unfit to live in unless you're packing heat, or it's 50 miles from jobs that are better than burger flipping.

^^ ohio right? actually right here in Columbus there are houses for sale in that price range, less than 2 miles from downtown too

they are in crappy neighborhoods and need lots of work, but they do exist, I just looked at one on grubb st a couple of days ago, and currently my rent is under $300/month for a 1 bedroom apt

cost of living here in Ohio is dirt cheap
Is cost of home maintenance for a fixer upper dirt cheap too? Especially for the $12 K/yr person, paying this no money down $350/mo mortgage? Is electricity and heating fuel and home owner/fire insurance dirt cheap too for an older fixer upper?

Tools and building materials dirt cheap too as well as craft labor? (I assume anybody real handy with home rebuilding and a set of tools and means of transporting them could do much better than $12 K/year.)

Get over it, the kindest explanation for the suggested real estate investment plan on this thread for the $12K person is a cloud of wacky weed smoke.

Is cost of home maintenance for a fixer upper dirt cheap too? Especially for the $12 K/yr person, paying this no money down $350/mo mortgage? Is electricity and heating fuel and home owner/fire insurance dirt cheap too for an older fixer upper?


yes, those dont cost much either

just pointing out that not all places in the country have high costs of living, nor do you have to be far from the city

for less than a cheap house you can be trailer trash too, $10-$12k for trailer, $80 month for the lot

ya at post 156, thats becoming quite common here too, property tax payments on many of the old but big houses round here are higher than the mortgage payments ever were

thats another thing about owning a house, you never really own it, not if your paying property taxes

ya at post 156, thats becoming quite common here too, property tax payments on many of the old but big houses round here are higher than the mortgage payments ever were

thats another thing about owning a house, you never really own it, not if your paying property taxes and there are only a few locations in the country where you don't pay some type of property taxes. FWIW my current tax bill is only around $1200 a year (they tried to bill me 6 times that last year:rolleyes: but that is another issue) and I expect it to continue to increase as the area continues to urbanize. I have lived very close to the bottom of the wage scale and it isn't easy. One of the reasons we did okay was we tried to plan ahead and regardless of the amount coming in we always tried to live on 80% of our take home, gave away 10% and saved 10%. It worked for me for years and still works today, but with a great percentage going into savings.

Aaron:)

Talking about very smart:
Monthly payment: 30 Years
Current overnight Interest rate: 6.190%
Loan amount: $ 59,000.00
Monthly payment $ 360.97 a month

Of course you forgot that no bank will make a 1% down loan without mortgage insurance. If it would make such a loan at all to a person with only 1% down and an income of 12,000/year, which I seriously doubt no matter how dang "smart" the customer.

And of course you forgot about the money requirements for fire insurance, and water, sewer, trash and utility bills, furnishings, appliances, and maintenance and exactly what kind of house, garden and neighbors $60,000 buys.

If I were you, I would cease boasting about your real estate investment or sociology "smarts."
I am totally on your side on this one. But we'll never convince these fortunate but arrogant "libertarians" :rolleyes: about the realities of life. They're young, either in years or in real experience, and very ignorant of the way that the vast majority of people live in this world. They chalk up their own good luck to intelligence, and the misfortune of others to laziness. It gives me a kind of queasy feeling to read some of the posts on this thread, so I'm gonna stop now.

$350 a month for a mortgage? What decade is this? In the entire state of WA, you can't even rent a really crappy one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood for that, let alone actually buy real estate. And a garden for growing your own food, too? I'm sorry to be so blunt, but what you describe is pure fantasy, at least in any western state. Hell, a lot of people in my city (foolish ones, to be sure) spend more than that every month for their car payment. You can live on a $1000 a month here, but you'll be sharing a house with 5 other working adults, you'll be taking public transportation, you'll be buying your clothes in thrift stores, and you won't be going on any nice vacations any time soon.


Who are the people that are affording all of the (overpriced?) real estate? Are so many people really doing that well? Or do they just look like they are doing that well?

Most of Colorado's house sales are in the dump right now except for here, where there is an oil drilling boom. House prices here have gone nuts. They are building subdivisions, condos and mini mansions like crazy, like there will never be another bust here in the Grand Valley :rolleyes: By the looks if it there should be standing room only for all the "millionaires" here.

...Thing is, if the US had dedicated the money spent in Iraq, to transit within it's own borders, the economy would be on fire, inner city ghettos would have lots of vibrant new development, and all those dollars now flowing into the Middle East, fuelling the other side of the war on terrorism would be drying up. ...Yeah...it kills me. I read something about how just stopping the war for a week could pay to rebuild New Orleans. Not that you COULD just shut off the war for a week, but just imagine...

Who are the people that are affording all of the (overpriced?) real estate? Are so many people really doing that well? Or do they just look like they are doing that well?
Maybe all these people are reaping the benefits of following the advice of the "smart" guys who post about get rich schemes on $8-12 K/year.

I wish someone would teach me how to "make it rich" while earning 8-12K/ yr.
I earn a substantial amount more than that (a whole lot more than the "average" which is about 41K/yr) and I am not rich nor do I seem to be getting rich.

Having taken a spin through the posts, I haven't seen much of a critique of municipal authorities unwillingness to provide reasonable resources for people who choose or are required to live "car-free".

Certainly in Toronto, low income earners have been displaced to the periphery of the city by the condo boom in the downtown area making it unaffordable to live. Homes in the area where I rent start at about $500,000 CAD and no ones building rental properties if you can make more $ building a condo (one in the neighborhood I work start at 1 million Canadian). This displacement also effectively removes folks from good access to public transit and, unfortunately, many of the services they access. The lack of public transit access also reduces accessibility to the industrial cores where many of these folks work as well as placing them in areas with lower densities of, for example, grocery stores etc. That may be less of an issue for those who live in less urbanized areas of course. The bulk of jobs in this area are in Toronto, which is expensive to live in and not easy to get around in, depending where you're located. I'm lucky in that I'm fit and skilled enough to commute to work by bike.

The city of Toronto's municipal response, if you could even call it that, has been pathetic to say the least. Cycling infrastructure has been stagnate for years, there's no apparent willingness to require developers to provide mixed income housing, etc. etc.

Anyway, the gist is that, at least locally, there is not always an option to set up your life the way you want to. Certainly if you have the benefits of a good education, are born into a good socioeconomic strata and are white (and I'm all those things), you have a lot more lattitude in the kinds of choices you make in the options available to you.

I wish someone would teach me how to "make it rich" while earning 8-12K/ yr.
I earn a substantial amount more than that (a whole lot more than the "average" which is about 41K/yr) and I am not rich nor do I seem to be getting rich.
Take all the excess money you don't spend on needless/useless consumption for the next 50 years and put it all untouched without withdrawing for 50 years in sure fire can't lose guaranteed inflation protected investments of at least 8%. You can live the good life then if you are patient. At least that's the way I gather its done by the car free financial wizards. "Needless/useless consumption" as determined by the wizards.

Take all the excess money you don't spend on needless/useless consumption for the next 50 years and put it all untouched without withdrawing for 50 years in sure fire can't lose guaranteed inflation protected investments of at least 8%. You can live the good life then if you are patient. At least that's the way I gather its done by the car free financial wizards. "Needless/useless consumption" as determined by the wizards.

I myself am trying to figure the balance between enjoying my hobbies now (spending money) and planning for the "good life" in the future.

Hmmmm, would i rather have the killer new (insert object of desire here) now?

or be able to sit on my rich ***** a year or so earlier? :rolleyes:

I'm leaning towards working as the corporate wage rat till I buld a comfortable nest egg, maybe 1/2 mil, then let ride in safe investments while i go get a job in a bike shop, build trails, work for the water dept, drive a bulldozer, something lo-stress and fun.

cheers

I myself am trying to figure the balance between enjoying my hobbies now (spending money) and planning for the "good life" in the future.

Hmmmm, would i rather have the killer new (insert object of desire here) now?

or be able to sit on my rich ***** a year or so earlier? :rolleyes:

I'm leaning towards working as the corporate wage rat till I buld a comfortable nest egg, maybe 1/2 mil, then let ride in safe investments while i go get a job in a bike shop, build trails, work for the water dept, drive a bulldozer, something lo-stress and fun.

cheers
Good luck on your plan and planning. I hope you are successful and wish you well. It ain't easy as I'm sure you know.

I myself am trying to figure the balance between enjoying my hobbies now (spending money) and planning for the "good life" in the future.

Hmmmm, would i rather have the killer new (insert object of desire here) now?

or be able to sit on my rich ***** a year or so earlier? :rolleyes:

I'm leaning towards working as the corporate wage rat till I buld a comfortable nest egg, maybe 1/2 mil, then let ride in safe investments while i go get a job in a bike shop, build trails, work for the water dept, drive a bulldozer, something lo-stress and fun.

cheers


Not sure how old you are acroy, but I'm 40 yrs old. I've already calculated based on some basic assumptions (3% inflation for non health related expenses, 8% inflation for health related) that it will take a nest egg between $2.5 mil USD and $3.5 mil to comfortably retire and not worry about running out of money should you live past 85 or 90. Some project that we may see life spans in the 100+ year range and running out of money when you're 90 mean 10+ years of destitution when you may be too frail to work.

That said, I think our plans are somewhat similar, but I am not stopping at .5 mil nest egg.

Good luck on your plan and planning. I hope you are successful and wish you well. It ain't easy as I'm sure you know.
Thanks and same to you!

Not sure how old you are acroy, but I'm 40 yrs old. I've already calculated based on some basic assumptions (3% inflation for non health related expenses, 8% inflation for health related) that it will take a nest egg between $2.5 mil USD and $3.5 mil to comfortably retire and not worry about running out of money should you live past 85 or 90. Some project that we may see life spans in the 100+ year range and running out of money when you're 90 mean 10+ years of destitution when you may be too frail to work.

That said, I think our plans are somewhat similar, but I am not stopping at .5 mil nest egg.

I hear you, i guess i should clarify -
i'm trying for the .5mil savings i can actually touch before i'm 55 or whatever "retirement" age is...
once at .5mil the tenative plan get a job that'll cover expenses, and enjoy life more (no more than 40hrs/wk!) till i can't work no more. let nest egg & 401k grow in the meantime, maybe move to a condo on the cheap side of Hawai'i & pray the volcano don't blow:)

we'll see if it actually works out, a lot can happen between now and then. but that's the plan.

I plan on never "retiring" as known in the common vernacular, i.e. sit around watching tv, getting fat & diabetic & voting myself benefits. I consider that a social disease! :)

fyi i hit the "big three-oh" next month. then I'll officially be "old" :rolleyes:

not sure what calculators you're using, but to to get actual rate of return, i subtract expected inflation from expected return. i.e. assuming 3% inflation and long-term average of 13% return, net return is 10%. then the calcualtions work out in "todays" dollars. i use a simple Excel spreadsheet.

good luck to you as well.

I hear you, i guess i should clarify -
i'm trying for the .5mil savings i can actually touch before i'm 55 or whatever "retirement" age is...
once at .5mil the tenative plan get a job that'll cover expenses, and enjoy life more (no more than 40hrs/wk!) till i can't work no more. let nest egg & 401k grow in the meantime, maybe move to a condo on the cheap side of Hawai'i & pray the volcano don't blow:)

we'll see if it actually works out, a lot can happen between now and then. but that's the plan.

I plan on never "retiring" as known in the common vernacular, i.e. sit around watching tv, getting fat & diabetic & voting myself benefits. I consider that a social disease! :)

fyi i hit the "big three-oh" next month. then I'll officially be "old" :rolleyes:

not sure what calculators you're using, but to to get actual rate of return, i subtract expected inflation from expected return. i.e. assuming 3% inflation and long-term average of 13% return, net return is 10%. then the calcualtions work out in "todays" dollars. i use a simple Excel spreadsheet.

good luck to you as well.

Acroy, I did what you're describing but now the old habits and social pressures are still there. I'm just working for health coverage its almost volunteer work, but instead of chilling out I'm taking the excess money and getting another degree with the intent of starting another career- just because I want to, not that I need to. When I was 30 I thought I'd just kick back and "have fun" when I got there but going to school is fun too. I could have a fancy car or boat, big house, awesome vacations move to Hawaii but why? After years of being happy working hard and living frugally why change? The difference is that with the money cushion I can be more selective about what I do.

As for inflation, I just ignored it. Here is why. If inflation goes up pay and returns on investments tend to go up too. Besides I knew I was going to save somewhere no matter what inflation did. If I hadn't saved in conservative vehicles I'd have a lot more money now but I didn't want to worry or work hard at investment selections.

Acroy, I did what you're describing but now the old habits and social pressures are still there. I'm just working for health coverage its almost volunteer work, but instead of chilling out I'm taking the excess money and getting another degree with the intent of starting another career- just because I want to, not that I need to. When I was 30 I thought I'd just kick back and "have fun" when I got there but going to school is fun too. I could have a fancy car or boat, big house, awesome vacations move to Hawaii but why? After years of being happy working hard and living frugally why change? The difference is that with the money cushion I can be more selective about what I do.

As for inflation, I just ignored it. Here is why. If inflation goes up pay and returns on investments tend to go up too. Besides I knew I was going to save somewhere no matter what inflation did. If I hadn't saved in conservative vehicles I'd have a lot more money now but I didn't want to worry or work hard at investment selections.
Excellent, I envy you. I hope to have the same freedom at some point in the not-to-far-off future. No firm plans on what to do when i get there, but by jingo, i'd like to get there.
Cheers

We had a local news story about Gas prices on NPR today. Our governor was one of a handful of governors who signed a letter to president Bush asking him to ease gas prices for the sake of the unfortunate poor and to keep the economy from faltering.

I get so mad thinking of my tax dollars being used to support other peoples gasoline habits! :mad: Hurry up and let your ellected officials know if you don't support this sort of thing (I don't have much hope, at some point there will be subsidies) :mad: :mad: :mad:

This is the sort of thinking that created tax funded support funds for tobacoo farmers after people stopped buying their product. Or relief for people who find they have to much debt. People should be forced to adapt to the changing situation or be allowed to continue down whatever path of suffering they lay out for themselves without help or hinderance from the goverment with MY MONEY.

We had a local news story about Gas prices on NPR today. Our governor was one of a handful of governors who signed a letter to president Bush asking him to ease gas prices for the sake of the unfortunate poor and to keep the economy from faltering.

I get so mad thinking of my tax dollars being used to support other peoples gasoline habits! :mad: Hurry up and let your ellected officials know if you don't support this sort of thing (I don't have much hope, at some point there will be subsidies) :mad: :mad: :mad:

This is the sort of thinking that created tax funded support funds for tobacoo farmers after people stopped buying their product. Or relief for people who find they have to much debt. People should be forced to adapt to the changing situation or be allowed to continue down whatever path of suffering they lay out for themselves without help or hinderance from the goverment with MY MONEY.


Welcome to the libertarian view point.

I ride my bike lots of places I go around town just to boycott the cost of gasoline today! It use to take me $20 to fill my tank, now it costs me $35 just to get 3/4 tank!!! If I could ride my bike to work I would!!

I would almost say I'm not a libertarian, I'm a Darwinist.

Adapt or die.

I would almost say I'm not a libertarian, I'm a Darwinist.

Adapt or die.

it is a tempting viewpoint, is it not? :)

We had a local news story about Gas prices on NPR today. Our governor was one of a handful of governors who signed a letter to president Bush asking him to ease gas prices for the sake of the unfortunate poor and to keep the economy from faltering.

I get so mad thinking of my tax dollars being used to support other peoples gasoline habits! :mad: Hurry up and let your ellected officials know if you don't support this sort of thing (I don't have much hope, at some point there will be subsidies) :mad: :mad: :mad:

This is the sort of thinking that created tax funded support funds for tobacoo farmers after people stopped buying their product. Or relief for people who find they have to much debt. People should be forced to adapt to the changing situation or be allowed to continue down whatever path of suffering they lay out for themselves without help or hinderance from the goverment with MY MONEY.

i do wonder , how much tax support this would be: the federal tax something like 18 cents per gal? how much would this knock off? if the fed wanted to lower prices, it would seem simple to lower or the tax. don't see it happening though, since at 380 million gal per day, that's $69 million dollars a day in fed gas tax

i do wonder , how much tax support this would be: the federal tax something like 18 cents per gal? how much would this knock off? if the fed wanted to lower prices, it would seem simple to lower or the tax. don't see it happening though, since at 380 million gal per day, that's $69 million dollars a day in fed gas tax

In the big picture it adds up, but to someone putting $30 in the tank it would be $1.20. Not really enough to make a difference worth talking about as that dollar or two will be wiped out by rising prices very soon. But the gov't would still be out millions per day.

"adapt or die" can I use that one in my sig :D


Darwinism - the new world religion.

Go for it. :D

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/5158/2214ta6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

If your budget has been squeezed so tightly that you cannot afford the gas for your commute then what money do you have to move closer? Closer to work usually means higher housing costs not to mention the costs of moving and down payments on the new housing! If you just making ends meet before the gas crunch then you are really up the creek!

Yes and people lived to be 35, 70% percent of children died before age 10, and a minor ailment could mean death. Do you want to go back? I don't.

Then how come most people in ancient Rome lived into their 70's? About the same as today..

Most of this we live longer now than back then stuff (baring plagues & such) is a load of codswallup..

:)

Then how come most people in ancient Rome lived into their 70's? About the same as today..

Most of this we live longer now than back then stuff (baring plagues & such) is a load of codswallup..

:)
Proof?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/viewarticle.cfm?page=2&article_id=9

Here's your Roman life expectancy
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/lifeexpectancy.htm

"Historic Life Expectancy
During the Roman Empire, Romans had a approximate life expectancy of 22 to 25 years. In 1900, the world life expectancy was approximately 30 years and in 1985 it was about 62 years, just two years short of today's life expectancy."

OK, I have to jump in here, because I did a lot of social history and population studies in university. My degrees are in Biology (including statistics) and in Classics (primarily Roman history). This is one of my hobby horses...

Life expectancy at birth and maximum lifespan are two very different things. Throw in a high infant mortality rate and you can drag your entire population's life expectancy (which is the average age at which people in that population will die of ANY cause) down by several decades; a high maternal death rate can also drag the average down. The rate at which human beings physically age has not changed; even in the Roman Empire, people were routinely living into their seventies IF they made it past childhood (50% infant mortality rate in some areas). It's a common misconception that people aged faster in the past and that everyone was wrinkled and ancient by age forty.

Modern life expectancy figures are high because we have been able to address childhood mortality rates (infant deaths, contagious childhood diseases, and accidental deaths have all been reduced in the developed world). When an infant is born today, he or she has a pretty good chance of living through things that would have been fatal a couple of generations ago. Maximum lifespan may be changing as well, but it is a little early to tell since we are only about four generations in. We will need to see what the twentieth century cohorts look like.

^^ Of course you're right, who cares if babies die, we shouldn't count them, you're right.
Dead is dead, people live longer now. Doesn't matter why.

Um, sorry, I don't really understand what you are saying, Maddyfish. Could you clarify please?

I was just trying to shed some light on the way the statistics of life expectancy are calculated (a simple average of the age at death of each member of a population). Babies ARE counted, then and now, that's why the average has been changing upwards. Of course it is a good thing that we are now able to treat childhood illnesses (I'd have died of measles at age 12, or of a concussion at 4, without moden medial treatment), but it's a simple fact of history that being a young human being has always been a very, very risky thing.

Statistics are a wonderful thing, but can be used to the delight of the person choosing them:p What I find interesting is that Cuba which is supposed to be a backwards 3rd world country actually has a lower infant mortality rate the USA and appears to have a pretty decent health care system based on prevention. So much for supposedly being one of the richest nations on the planet.

Aaron:)

Lol you guys in the states complaining about gas prices, cracks me up (well actually makes me question WTF your complaining about, you have some cheap a$5 fuel there)

Simple. We're not used to $3/gal. We're used to $1-2/gal.

You guys are used to the higher prices.

For us, $3/gal IS expensive.

Chatting with a friend in the Netherlands yesterday...if we have the conversion rate right he is paying close to $9 a gallon, said they have cut back to one car trip a week. The rest of the time they commute on bikes, said something about digging his grandfather's old bakfiets out of the barn:rolleyes:

Aaron:)

Simple. We're not used to $3/gal. We're used to $1-2/gal.

You guys are used to the higher prices.

For us, $3/gal IS expensive.

lol so hows 9usd a gallon sound!!!

The thing is people who own huge heavy fuel WASTING cars complain. Just get a frekin car that uses less fuel, or better yet get bike lol. Oh and one thing that sucks in the states (or so i hear) is public transport. Also im not sure i would like to ride on a bus with all the advertised crime over there.

lol so hows 9usd a gallon sound!!!

The thing is people who own huge heavy fuel WASTING cars complain. Just get a frekin car that uses less fuel, or better yet get bike lol. Oh and one thing that sucks in the states (or so i hear) is public transport. Also im not sure i would like to ride on a bus with all the advertised crime over there.

Some areas are better than others, but you have to remember we have a lot of distance to cover. For example The Netherlands is about the size of the state of New Jersey...and we have 50 states many are much larger. Mass transist exists and is viable in many of the large cites but the smaller the town the less likely it is to have decent mass transit. The town I am moving to doesn't have mass transit, doesn't really need it because it is only about 12 square miles (31 square kilometers) and fairly flat. What irritates me is that we have an Interstate, 3 major US highways and a double mainline rail through town, but no Amtrak, or interstate bus service. If we want to use any of those it is a at minimum a 35-45 minute drive.:( Hopefully that will change in the future as fuel prices rise.

As far as safety in riding mass transit...again it varies from area to area.

Aaron:)

Also im not sure i would like to ride on a bus with all the advertised crime over there.
just buy yerself a gun :D