Tell me about Ohio....

[letsread]

i grew up in columbus (i relocated to chicago for college and stayed because i like big cities).  it's kind of under-cover awesome.  there are a zillion really good movie theaters and way more really really good restaurants than a city of columbus's size has any business having.  if you move to the clintonville/campus area you can surround yourself with college students and cheery liberals and lots of nice little locally-owned businesses.  if you're rich you can get the same feel without the college students in german village, and there you get the added bonus of brick streets and fancy old houses.  i wouldn't move back but i think it was a pretty good place to grow up and i love visiting.

yellow springs is indeed very cute and fun--my mom always described our visits to yellow springs as time travel back to the 60s--but it is also very, very small.  i think columbus is small enough that you can get a nice "ohio-y" feel without running out of stuff to do.

[Joaniesgarden]

I've lived in Dayton most of my life.  I enjoy the Dayton Art Institute, Second street market, Neon Movies, Wegeryzen Horticultural center to name a few...  I'm only an hour away from Cincinnati or Columbus .  I enjoy the zoo's, Art Museums and a fantastic fireworks show on the Ohio river on Labor day in Cincy.  Dayton isn't a big city, but the cost of housing is lower than in other parts of the country.  Five Rivers Metro parks have a nice bike route that will allow anyone to get to Yellow Springs viva the bikepath.  Shuster Center downtown offer varied entertainment and the Fraze in Kettering can have some great concerts.  If gardening is a hobby there are multiible greenhouse nurseries.  I'm sure I could think of much more but I'm drawing a blank...must be getting late?

[nicolicious]

Columbus [and the greater Columbus area] aren't all that bad. There's a bunch of little restaurants around and the Short North is a neat place. Anyone who's grown up here thinks it's about the worst place on earth, but I beg to differ.

Also, Yellow Springs is a neat place, I always ask my boyfriend if we can stop by when we visit his hometown, but it is a bit small. The shops are awesome and the atmosphere is great, but it's got that quaint little college town feel to it. [Columbus has that to an extent, but it's not quaint or exactly little...] I don't think I could live there, but it's only about an hour or so out from columbus.

[Jack E. Ohhh]

I don't know anything about city Ohio life, but I did find this document that I had written about Ohio.
In a wierd way, it really is meant to be a positive outlook on my life in Ohio.
Sorry it's so long:

Strangely enough, there IS something to be said for the endless romance of this little heart-shaped state.
 
I was born, raised, and tarnished here; it has seduced me into calling it home.

On a crisp spring afternoon, when rain falls for no reason, the light can catch the leaves and grass in ways that make your world seem mysterious and furiously bright.

When the rain pushes harder and the sun disappears, you may wonder if it will ever come back.
You might wait for eight or nine days, pleading with invisible strangers. 
You may forget what sunshine ever looked like, and then feel silly when it eventually comes back.

As your car passes along an endless state route, you might see orange in the distance on the horizon, and you might see a group of cows that remind you of compassion, love, and tenderness.

I have cried in my car watching cows straggle along the thin roads. 
I have insisted that cows looked like people I know and made cellular telephone calls to loved ones about such sightings.
“I saw a cow just now that looked so much like you for some reason,” I might stammer onto an answering machine, “it was so goddamn beautiful.”
You might begin to find it hard to pass by a house, the only in over five miles, and not assume there is a perversion of normalcy inside.
I suppose this could be true with any state, any town, any house. 
Normalcy is less and less realistic every day anywhere in the world.
There are no hidden inbred sanctuaries, you will know the collected sons and daughters when you see them.
You might see something true behind the black of their eyes for just a moment, and then it will disappear.
This is hope in the “heart” land.

Driving, I can always sense that someone is 15 years old nearby.
Someone is in a room, with the door shut, growing their hair long and wild.
Someone is bored and huffing gasoline with a good friend.
They might have an old Metallica album, or it might be something equally as uninteresting.
There’s likely a chance that they even have  matching combat boots and maybe long jackets, their fashion sense frozen in some post-nuclear nineties fantasy.

Basically, they have no other choice.
Even together they are alone.
Aspirations lay with the convict gathered garbage on the sides of the thin gravel streets.
Someone in Ohio is kicking a cat,
and they don’t have to push compassion aside.
Like blindness from an eclipse, it’s been washed away.

It could be chipping white decade-old paint, or plastic, dust free siding.
Every house has completely endless secrets...
And no one in the heartland will admit their pain.

Any pain that countryside Ohio life may bring really can disappear at the sight of something lush, real, and green.
That eerie glow between scattered raindrops and partial sunlight can bring anyone to their knees.
The bowie-esque glamour and unearthly power of a greenish morning mist reveals honesty just long enough....
 to make knowing that you will never lose face to your demons all the more painful.

As a child, I spent almost every evening jumping off a hill in my backyard.
I took plastic grocery bags outside and jumped with them in my hands.
I was hoping the wind would catch beneath them and I could fly.
I didn’t want to fly away, I think I just wanted aerial perspective.


Good luck.
It will welcome you with an unreasonably sensual grayness...Just be prepared...

Or head for a city if you aren't.

[f1focus]

I second the motion about Lakewood.  Close to the city. Very walkable city.  Rent and housing prices are cheap.  I own a house and couldn't afford to do that in a lot of other cities.  Great restaurants.  Fun shops.  Big ol' lake for watching sunsets, boating, whatever.  Great houses if you like older architecture.

[rrb21]

I live in Madison ohio ( nothing really here) but now I really want to visit Yellowsprings!

[scrills]

I live in Lakewood Ohio, it's the first suburb west of Cleveland, you don't really have to leave this city for much, it has fantastic family owned shops, cool bars, parks, the lake, fun places to eat... so forth.
Lakewood is actually one of the most populated cities (by area) between ny and chicago... so it might not be for you... there are 60,000 people in 5X5 miles, but it's super fun, very laid back.... You are right by Cleveland where there are tons of art gallaries and fun things to do...
Yellow Springs reminds me of Lakewood a lot except more of a hippie town, I work for an environmental group, so I'm down with that, but the area is too small for me, and the closest big city is Dayton Ohio, which isn't too big at all.
I moved to Ohio three years ago from Orlando Florida and I absolutely love this state, most people that I know that were born and raised here don't, but perhaps it's because they haven't experienced other places?
The rent is pretty cheap, the people are friendly, there's culture, and neat little things to see and do, plus it's Cleveland is close to all kinds of major cities that are fun to visit (Chicago 5 hours away, DC 5 hours, Detroit 2, Pittsburg around 2).

I was going to mention Lakewood. Cleveland Heights is also good.

[sewincbm]

I live in cincinnati (which i absolutely hate, and i have wasted like 17 years of my life here, but luckily i'll be leaving in a year), any way, if you look, you can find artsy places.  We have clifton, which rocks the house, and downtown you can find some fun shops and museum (the contemporary arts center is a thumbs up).  Any way, just wanted to say even in a big city, you can find those artsy places too.

[spurtiic]

my boyfriend grew up in yellow springs ohio.  myself, i'm from kansas. but we both live in cincinnati now. we live in northside. if you can stand the ghetto, the art part of it is pretty cool. a couple of the "thrift" places such as stage craft and casablanca (old old clothing and fabric) are across the street from me. plus all the best bars.

clifton is the way to go for art IN cincinnati. its affordable, its near the college/university campuses, lots of trinkey type of stores we would go to... its awesome.

yellow spring is beautiful and way better though.  i'm a small town girl myself. i hate the big smell and noise of the city.  its disgusting. 

[BethyG]

ahh yes, ohio.
i've lived in diffrent parts of ohio for all my life. i was born in canton and currently live near cleveland. for a boring state, it's pretty interesting if you know where to look.
there's lots of just about every kind of living. there's citys, countryside, and everything in between. i've been all over this state, and there's really something for everyone if you know where to look.
there's alot of cool non-chain stores too. like in berea or on coventry road.
hmm...
not too bad in general.
weather ususally gives you something to talk about tho...