Looking to move near a tribe

[Mike M]

My family and I are beginning the process of choosing where to move next. We're currently in Oswego, NY and my wife is an CPA. Our boys are 5 and 2. We can move pretty much anywhere in N. America as her job skills will translate into any market. We're thinking right now that we'd look to move in the next year or two.

We're looking at cost of living, taxes, weather, local resources - all the usual stuff - and are also going to include the availability of a local unschooling tribe in our decision.

So, please tell us about your tribe. Where are you, what's cool about your area, how big is the local unschooling tribe, anything else you think would be good for us to know.

We'd like to find an area with a healthy and active unschooling community so your help is very much appreciated.

I've read the threads here about WhiteHawk near us, tell me about your tribe - go ahead, brag a bit....

[Mike M]

Ithaca is a nice area, very pretty, two colleges, progressive community, active green-building community, active local unschoolers - it's actually about an hour south of where we are now and we go down and plug in periodically.

My wife and I are both from this area, and our families are all less than two hours away. We're both life-long New Yorkers. Getting further from family as we integrate more fully into whole-life unschooling would be helpful. They all love us very much, and they've all thought we were a bit weird in how we function as a family for years, now we've just gone around the bend ;-)


Where we are now is a beautiful four-season area. We're in the country, there's lots of lakes, rivers, farmers markets, great children's and science museums, zoos, the arts, college scenes, cool funky small touristy towns, a large and growing wine region, good skiiing, wonderful outdoor activities, great coffee, etc... Syracuse (half an hour) has a good sized homeschooling community, decent amount of unschoolers. Rochester (hour and half) has very active homeschooling community and large group of unschoolers as well. Their both within two hours of Ithaca as well.

Within a couple of hours of here are significant sites from revolutionary times, the first women's rights conferences, the underground railroad, the erie canal that opened the rest of the country to the coastal cities, the birth of mormonism, the Iroquois confederacy from which many of the ideas the founders built into our form of democracy were copied, gorgeous terrain formed by the last ice age, a variety of spiritual groups originated from here, and scads of other history for those into that kind of stuff.

I'd actually recommend this area and like it here (in part because it's all I know). Reading my own description I'm wondering a bit why I'd consider leaving. Here's some reasons.

Taxes are high and probably going up - New York is very dependent on the financial markets for tax dollars with NY city financial firms providing billions in taxes. Our projected deficit with the current financial mess is as high as 60+ billion dollars next year alone. Property, sales, gas and other taxes are high as well. State government has been dysfunctional for decades, it's known locally as the 'three men in a room' government as that's who actually makes most of the decisions. Local governments are many, overlapping, expensive and very territorial.

Homeschooling paperwork includes annual plans of study, quarterly reports to the local school district and bi-annual mandatory testing after 4th grade. Not really onerous or homeschooling-unfriendly (depending on the cooperation at the local district level), but not doing that much paperwork would be a plus.

So, we're considering moving for work/career reasons and want to consider the larger picture. We are lucky to have the freedom to consider other areas and are looking at what's the best fit for all our needs, financial, social, cultural, unschooling-wise, climate, etc. It may be that we stay in NY, but we don't want to rule other places out this early in the process.

Thanks for all your replies, it feels very supportive.

[greenlee]

Mike, thanks for your info about Ithaca & surrounding areas. I've heard all those things before, and it's great to hear it from you.j

I really want to be in an area with a good strong winter. I love four good strong seasons with a lot of differentiation between them.

Really the only thing that holds me back from NY are the laws. Here in MI there is nothing, and I think I would have to fly under the radar in NY. The testing is what really gets me. I do not think I could do that portion.

[jill]

we are in a similar situation right now. we can pretty much live where ever we want, but its alot harder than it sounds! we just moved from boulder colorado to northern new hampshire because we knew we wanted to be in the northeast. mostly bc of climate and also family here. so we're renting and trying to figure out where to move permantly (hopefully).

we want to be pretty rural (we want to be able to afford a few acres) but be close to a larger city. and of course we want to be near other unschoolers.

southern nh has an active unschooling group, im not sure how spread out people are. theres lots of small cities around and then theres boston not far too. i love the idea of portland me (ocean) too but there doesnt seem to be many radical unschoolers. maybe we should just move to corvalis! :)

i would LOVE to get an intentional community together. not really like cohousing just like a regular neighborhood but full of unschoolers.
i have no clue where to start though. wouldnt it be awsome to just walk out your front door to hang out with others living this life?!
this is a great thread, id love to hear from more people in the neast.
jill

[Jane B]

Massachusetts would be a good fit; or any of New England. Homeschooling laws are nice and the seasons are amazing. Also, southern Maine seems to have an amazing unschooling network and its such a beautiful area ... (but all of New England is way too cold for this desert girl!)

[Julie B]

Excellent description of NY, Mike! I think it's much easier to accept NY regs when you've lived here all your life. I don't feel too burdened by their future impact on me because of all the other NY unschoolers I've seen going about their business with no problems or complaints. From where I stand (parent to a 3yo and not affected yet), it seems as though they look much worse than they actually are.

[Julie B]

-=-we want to be pretty rural (we want to be able to afford a few acres) but be close to a larger city. and of course we want to be near other unschoolers.-=-

What do you consider to be a larger city? Our future home is five minutes outside of Ithaca (on a bus line) on 120 acres with space for 29 other families/households. It's one of the things were were aiming for in our ideal place to live--good balance of rural/urban.

Ithaca also has an unschoolers group that I'm going to join once we get settled.

-=-i would LOVE to get an intentional community together. not really like cohousing just like a regular neighborhood but full of unschoolers.
i have no clue where to start though. wouldnt it be awsome to just walk out your front door to hang out with others living this life?!-=-

That's exactly what we wanted, too--a close-knit community, friendly neighbors nearby, plenty o' kids home during the day. I'm don't necessarily need us all to be unschoolers, but it would be nice to have us healthily represented!

Our houses (three so far, each designed by owners) are in a circular formation around a central recreation area. We put our kitchen window in a place where we can see the kids playing while we do dishes. Can't wait to move there!

It is a bit more than just a neighborhood because we make decisions by consensus and agree to split up community work like maintaining the future common house, land, etc. What I'm really enjoying is have people right there who share your interests so you can try projects together. I'm thinking about trying a cut flower market garden this summer, and I know my neighbors will also want to pitch in.

On 120 acres of land, there's plenty of room for us all to tinker. One friend wants to set up a blacksmith's shop. Another wants to build a sauna. Our play area committee is going to build a hobbit house. I'm looking forward to seeing all kinds of interesting things popping up around us.

[Jane B]

<<wouldnt it be awsome to just walk out your front door to hang out with others living this life?!>>

Yep! Let me know where you end up. :)

[jill]

that sounds awsome but a little more structure than what i want. im picturing no shared land or common building or anything like that. and a lot smaller than 29 families. cohousing can be a great thing though.
is it white hawk that your talking about?

[Julie B]

Yup--White Hawk. :)

[Alison B.]

Oh wow, Julie, this is exactly what I've been looking for. But it's too far from a big (like NYC) city for my dh. That's so cool that you're in the process of creating what you want. I'd love to hear updates.

[Paige]

I <3 Sunnyside Up cafe...just based on what I've read about it. :-)

[De Smith]

North East Ohio is good, too. There's a large group of unschoolers in the Cleveland area and just this past autumn, I started a Yahoo group for the Akron area. We haven't done a whole lot, yet, but we're growing slowly. We have some *good* folks in the group!!

NE Ohio is pretty diverse, too. You have cities 20 minutes from farmland, all races, creeds, beliefs, etc. Oh, and the weather's diverse, too. LOL The laws are rather middle-of-the-road when it comes to homeschooling, and we've not had any trouble adapting them to unschooling.

We also have a couple groups in the Akron area that are general homeschooling groups that are pretty diverse in the styles of homeschooling and pretty accepting of each other. It's nice to have enough folks in groups like that to get a "minimum number" or discount for different "group" things like museums or such.

Cool thread!!