{"id":8634,"date":"2012-04-30T10:11:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T14:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=8634"},"modified":"2012-04-30T10:12:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T14:12:45","slug":"whats-so-great-about-living-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=8634","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s so great about living here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A great deal, actually, from culture, to nature to great schools, Chester County has a lot to offer<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jill Goldman<\/strong>, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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With natural beauty, great schools and one of the great cities of the world just a short car ride away \u2014 Philadelphia \u2014 Chester County has a lot to offer.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week we promised to write about why Chester County is such a great place to live.\u00a0 We often write about this and, as realtors, have the opportunity to talk about it with folks from out of town. Our hypothesis is that we have a unique community and that is why our housing market is so attractive.<\/p>\n

For instance, how about the plethora of arts organizations in and around Chester County? Perhaps it is the Wyeth influence, or perhaps it is the proximity to so many major cities (Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, D.C., New York) but I believe that many of us wildly underestimate how rare it is to live somewhere with so much opportunity.\u00a0 We have for profit, non-profit, professional, regional and community theater, institutes of higher learning with arts degree programs, and galleries in great number.\u00a0 If you think it\u2019s like this everywhere, think again. It\u2019s not.\u00a0 And we are fortunate \u00a0to have it. So maybe that\u2019s why our housing market has withstood the recession better than many communities. It\u2019s just a thought, but I think it has some merit.<\/p>\n

Not an arts fan? Well, it\u2019s also not a common event to live in a city with all four professional sports teams, ranked Division I college sports and a myriad of minor league sports. Believe it or not, some cities do not<\/strong> have arena football. Really!<\/p>\n

And geographically, we happen to be in an enviable location. It may not seem it when we are doing the serpentine through construction cones on I-95, but do you know many people in this country can only reach a beach by flying? In fact, many people in Pennsylvania can only reach a beach by flying (think Pittsburgh).\u00a0 And many people in this country do not live anywhere near an International airport.\u00a0 They don\u2019t. \u00a0Some of them don\u2019t even have the option to hop on an Amtrak train and we can pick one up in Paoli, Wilmington or Philadelphia\u2026And then we can take it to any of the other major cities I just mentioned.\u00a0 Try doing that in Santa Barbara or Fargo.<\/p>\n

So, this may explain the following fascinating and optimistic housing statistics: The national average home sale price in March, 2012 was $228,300. By comparison, Chester County\u2019s median home sale price in the first quarter of 2012 was $270,000. And for just the month of April, 2012, the average home sale price in Chester County was $344,356. This is a pretty impressive statistic.\u00a0 Furthermore, Yahoo recently compiled a list of the best places to live. Eastern Pennsylvania fared very well! Specifically, among the top 20 best places to live in Pennsylvania, 10 were in Chester County (I am including Chadds Ford, which is technically in Delaware County) and 6 of the top 10 were in Chester County. You can see the full article at http:\/\/voices.yahoo.com\/best-places-live-pennsylvania<\/a>, but these are the highlights.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve seen these statistics before \u2013 Philly Mag has a similar ranking.\u00a0 Not impressed?\u00a0 Heard it all before? Perhaps you\u2019ve become blas\u00e9 about living here and that\u2019s why you haven\u2019t been to Philadelphia in ages.\u00a0 Or why you groan when your kids suggest going to Inner Harbor because the tunnel is so congested. We all do it.\u00a0 We have become desensitized to how fortunate we are to live here.\u00a0 Still not convinced it\u2019s better here? Well, just think about how you can choose to drive to New York to see a show, or if you wish avoid a $60\/day parking fee, you can just wait until the show travels to Philadelphia. I have even waited to see a show until it gets to the Kennedy Center in D.C.\u00a0 The parking is not cheaper, but the museums are free (mostly).\u00a0 See? If you live in some parts of the country, the only major city within driving distance is 6 hours away. \u00a0And it might have one museum. And no traveling Broadway show.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I ran into a couple at a hotel I was staying at in New York and they told me they were from St Louis.\u00a0 Every year they came to Manhattan and saw four Broadway shows.\u00a0 They took a ferry ride, shopped on 5th<\/sup> Avenue and ate in the Village.\u00a0 Every year!\u00a0 For at least 10 years in a row when my kids were little I never went to New York. Not even once.\u00a0 Eventually, I made my way back, but apparently forgot to take my kids to Philadelphia.\u00a0 I realized at some point that my children had become familiar with the subway system in New York and D.C., and had even been on the \u201cT\u201d in Boston, but had only been to Philly on school trips. That\u2019s because I started to take for granted that I could be in one of the country\u2019s great cities in 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

So, I say to all of you, our relatively stable housing market is not a fluke.\u00a0 It\u2019s because we live HERE.\u00a0 Enjoy it, take the kids to The Kimmel Center or the Hagley Museum.\u00a0 Train to New York this summer to see Shakespeare in the Park and don\u2019t forget, when you\u2019re complaining about traffic on your way to the beach (that\u2019s \u201cdown the shore\u201d for some of you), if you lived in the Midwest you would probably think that the strip of sand around the edge of the lake was<\/strong> a beach.\u00a0 Sure, Chicago\u2019s a great city, but if you can\u2019t drive to the actual shore, it\u2019s not quite as nice as here!<\/p>\n

Share your thoughts on this article by posting to The Matson Goldman Facebook Page or on our Blog at http:\/\/chaddsfordblog.com\/<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great deal, actually, from culture, to nature to great schools, Chester County has a lot to offer By Jill Goldman, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com Last week we promised to write about why Chester County is such a great place to live.\u00a0 We often write about this and, as realtors, have the opportunity to talk about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,342],"tags":[29,1196,1195,1163],"class_list":["post-8634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-home-real-estate","tag-chester-county","tag-culture","tag-philadelphia","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}