• Where do you live? Where have you lived? Where are you originally from?
I was born and raised on the Jersey shore, left when I was 17 for college in Syracuse,New York, then lived in the Philly suburbs for a really long time, and finally moved to south-central Vermont about 8 years ago.
• Name a a few things that makes your city great.
I can't address the term "city," since I really live out in the sticks. The nearest town (6 miles away) has about 2,000 people, and the nearest large town (Rutland, about half an hour away), about 16,500. That said, I absolutely love Vermont. Let me count the reasons why:
1) It's gorgeous. The landscape is beautiful. There's the (aptly-named) Green Mountains, there are tiny villages with homes clustered around a village green, lots of covered bridges, and Lake Champlain -- you've all seen the images. Truly, it's like living in a postcard.
2) I love how unpopulated it is. That was one of the things I hated about suburban Philly -- tons of traffic, strip malls, fast food joints, housing developments, one town bleeding into the next. Just ugly, ugly, ugly. You don't have that here. The only big box stores are up in Burlington, 2 hours away (and by the way, Burlington is a really cool town. It's right on Lake Champlain and has a terrific downtown pedestrian mall, lots of good restaurants, the University of Vermont, and lots of stuff going on).
3) There are loads of ski areas; I live about five minutes away from Okemo, within an hour of Stratton, Bromley, Killington, and Pico, and within two hours of Sugarbush, Stowe, Burke, and Mount Snow.
4) There are tons of things to do in the off season: bike, hike, kayak, etc. For someone who loves the outdoors, I can't think of a better place to be.
5) I feel politically at home here, which is important to me. Vermont is small enough (the state's population is around 650,000) that we can try things that could be difficult in larger states. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, but it makes life interesting.
6) And fifth, there's a huge locavore movement here. Even the smallest villages have a weekly farmer's market, so you can find all sorts of terrific things fresh from the farm.
•.....and not so great?
While I love that it's very rural and there aren't a lot of stores, it does make buying things difficult. Anything I want is a long drive away. Take food: even though there's a small grocery store in the closest town, it's pretty limited and somewhat expensive. For more selection and better prices, I have to drive to Rutland, about 35 minutes away, which can be a bit of a pain. Flying out is pretty difficult, too; I'm two hours from any airport, and these are pretty much second tier: Burlington (VT), Hartford (CT), Manchester (NH), and Albany (NY). Boston is 3 hours away. So flying anywhere isn't easy or economical. And don't get me started on cell phone service. We have a LOT of dead zones, which can be pretty frustrating. Also, this is pretty much a cultural backwater. Burlington has a lot of neat stuff, but as I said, that's 2 hours away. So if you like museums, concerts, etc., you have to be prepared to travel. And I have to agree with bounceswoosh and altagirl: Vermont is very, very white. So diversity-wise, it sucks.
• Do you foresee a lot of change coming (economics/diversity/development, etc...) ?
No. Vermont is not a very rich state, mostly because it's so rural. That said, the trend toward smaller businesses, like micro-breweries (Magic Hat! Long Trail! Harpoon!) and artisan foods has really helped the economy. Cheese is big, as is maple syrup and dairy (Ben & Jerry's!). Tourism is important, too. But as for change? I don't see anything in the offing.
• Name cities/regions you are interested in living.
As I said before, I love Vermont and consider myself very, very lucky to be here. And even though the skiing is bigger out west, I'm an east coast sort of girl. Plus my daughter and her family live in the northeast, too. So I'm not going anywhere.