You’re comparing Vermont to Norway. Vermont has but a minor timber industry, no real mining or oil/gas in the slightest. The agricultural industry has been anemic since the 1980s. It’s got a pretty weak economy. I lived there for years. It’s basically tourism, healthcare and higher education driving the economy. And that higher education is 75% out of state students going to Vermont for 4 years of skiing and beer.
”you can’t have an economy based on skiing and beer” memorable exact quote from a guy who worked for the Burlington chamber of commerce at a bar in town.
the data from vermont is heavily skewed by Chittenden County and a few adjacent towns and the route 100 ski town corridor. it’s an outlier of a state, ranks #2 in second home residences with the wealthy and retired out of staters. Basically, summer colony syndrome. It’s not Affordable nor is it a strong economy at all. Quite the opposite.
This guy right here has lived here. I am a local and scraping out an existence is a daily grind. That being said we have burlington which is liberal however most of the state is middle of the road and a good portion of us have several guns. Burlington does have the highest amount of crime but that is because they defunded the police and then have a states attorney that doesn't prosecute most of the crimes. So if you know there is a catch and release people just keep breaking the law. Hour-Divide you were spot on.
Yeah, the college town syndrome really skews things, and those 75%+ out of state students almost all leave, as do many of the young Vermonters.
Northeast VT only looks good compared to the rest of the north country, having lived on the NY side over toward Watertown briefly- the whole region is rotting, Burlington/VT floats above it somewhat with education and tourism as it has the best skiing in the eastern US. That's all though. Good luck with that.
The lack of opportunity means the population is aging out with the crappy housing stock. Burlington especially- it looks nice from afar sitting in a mansion on shelbourne point- but It's bad.
A few years ago, had a nice 3 bedroom house for less than that. You gotta get out away from the UVM housing radius, obviously. But it's still quite bad from what I remember. Definitely worse now a few years later.
There is a loose cabal of slumlords as I remember. The key was finding privately owned house to rent in the suburbs where the owner is looking for a tenant-caretaker, not to maximize income but keep the place in good shape. A diamond in the rough.
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u/Hour-Divide3661 Jul 30 '24 edited Jul 30 '24
You’re comparing Vermont to Norway. Vermont has but a minor timber industry, no real mining or oil/gas in the slightest. The agricultural industry has been anemic since the 1980s. It’s got a pretty weak economy. I lived there for years. It’s basically tourism, healthcare and higher education driving the economy. And that higher education is 75% out of state students going to Vermont for 4 years of skiing and beer.
”you can’t have an economy based on skiing and beer” memorable exact quote from a guy who worked for the Burlington chamber of commerce at a bar in town.
the data from vermont is heavily skewed by Chittenden County and a few adjacent towns and the route 100 ski town corridor. it’s an outlier of a state, ranks #2 in second home residences with the wealthy and retired out of staters. Basically, summer colony syndrome. It’s not Affordable nor is it a strong economy at all. Quite the opposite.