How is MO???

[mamamia]

Living in California for 16 years and traveling as an ER nurse along the West coast for one year now. I had enough of Cali... and West coast! Me and my wife (both of us RN's) where thinking about Missouri. We drove through when we went to my in laws in Pennsylvania. We fell in love with it. We want to start a new life in that part of the country. How is it there as a nurse? I do ER and my best half is a dialysis and PD RN. What areas do you recomend in the state? We like it in a city but we prefer a rural setting also. I heard Ozarks are magnificent... any advice?

I know, we are from Cali and have a "different" mentality... as some local Washingtonians said to me once. We promise that we are not going to complain about anything, if we move there... Can somebody give me an advice?

[BeccaznRN, RN]

I know what I'm about to post isn't going to be popular and it's not a personal comment to you or anyone else, but geez I don't like when people say this! I don't care if people move here and I'm not telling anyone to not move here because this is a free country and Missouri is a great place to live, but it saddens and angers me to see all the beautiful land and trees ripped up in the counties so they can stick in more cookie cutter homes in every inch of free land and then traffic gets bad because the roads aren't made to accomodate more cars. The worst part is when they want all the city convienences so they keeping building and building and building. Then no one wants to live in the city and it falls apart while there is no land left in the counties! It seems to be spurred on when people say things like "Oh you can buy a huge home here for the same price you can buy a small home there!" and it's always the cookie cutter subdivison homes in the county they're talking about. It perpetuates the building because people keep moving here and buying them for that reason.

I remember one winter it rained and then the temperature dropped so quickly the water froze on the tree branches. When the sun came up the next morning it looked gorgeous! The trees were sparkling. I will never see that again because the new people here voted for "progress" and now those trees are gone and a shopping center is in their place. That's so sad.

I'm sorry if this post is offensive to anyone, but that's how I feel.

I completely understand where you're coming from. However, with the US population now topping 300 million, it seems like we have very little choice to accomodate all of our citizens and their needs anymore. I have watched my little town in Jefferson County become victim to suburban sprawl over the years. I don't like it, but what other alternatives are there? People still need housing, food, jobs, etc. I could even try to argue that all these new shopping centers have no place in my town, but I'll be the first one to gripe when I'm waiting in line at the grocery store because there's only one store for everyone in town to shop at.

Not trying to discount your feelings, because believe me, I certainly miss my old town that has changed so much over the years. But I can also see the other side of the equation.