I've spent most of my life in a sort of medium-sized city in Southern California, and I'm realising recently what a strange relationship I have with my town.

There's things about it that I love. It's politically liberal (for the most part). It's naturally gorgeous. We're surrounded by beautiful beaches and mountains. The weather is amazing. Even in the summer, it's the rare day that gets hotter than 90, and in the winter, it's rare that it gets down to freezing, even at night. We have a huge tourism industry, so we have really, really amazing restaurants, great local wine, all kinds of shopping, health food stores, nice hotels and resorts (which provide work for a freelance musician like myself) and the like. And, of course, since I've grown up here, my friends and parents live here.

But there's aspects of it that make me seriously consider leaving on a daily basis. It's expensive. You have to pay through the nose for all those nice things I mentioned above. My boyfriend and I pay $950 a month to share a room in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. The house I grew up in recently sold for almost 2 million dollars. And I mean, it's a nice enough house, but it's no mansion. It's in a pretty average, quiet suburban neighbourhood. Not in the ritzy part of town or anything. My grandparents in Oklahoma recently bought a beautiful three-bedroom house on an acre of gorgeous land for about $300,000....and my father recently bought a mobile home in this town for the same price. Cost of housing here is infuriatingly ridiculous. As much as I love most aspects of living here, I have to admit that it's tempting to go somewhere else with my boyfriend when I think for three seconds about all the other things we could afford if we didn't have to come up with almost $1000 a month just to keep a roof over our heads.

Am I the only one who is often torn on whether or not to love or hate where they live?

I've been to Maine a couple times. It's absolutely beautiful.

Yeah, one thing my town does have going for it is that minimum wage is...I think either $8 or $8.50 an hour. I've never had a job that payed less than 9 an hour. Which would be awesome anywhere else, but here, it all goes to rent and food.

And gas. Gas is expensive, too.

Hey RachelnJoe, PM me  - what town do you live in? I live on Long Island too .

I really don't like Long Island. Never have. I have always wanted to live in upstate NY. However, my husband got a tenured position at a local college, and that's hard to do nowadays. A lot of teachers at his school live hours away (one in Massachusetts!) and commute in for 4 days a week. I didn't want to do that, because I'd never see my husband, so I had to suck it up.
I live in pretty nice town. It's an old beach community, so it's very eclectic. My backyard is very wooded; everybody burns woodburning stoves and for some reason is pretty much child-free, which I like. (To each his own, but I like that). So it works for me.

But, New York (like California) is very expensive. Our house cost us $490K, taxes $8200/year! I have a tenth of an acre. My husband is a teacher and I work in a non-profit wildlife hospital. It is our entire paycheck. Many of you are probably passing judgment with "well why did you buy such an expensive house?"..
My dad passed away a few years ago and we asked my mother if she wanted to buy a house with us;she agreed and we found a mother-daughter house. We bought it, she put her house on the market and...the market crashed and she's had her house up for 2 years. It is appropriately priced, but they aren't giving out mortgages nowadays, and there are a lot of foreclosures in her area; people are looking to get a cheap foreclosure.
Once she sells and moves, she is helping us out a little, but not as much as before since it is a whole different economy than when we first bought our house, and she has a lot less money now too. So, everything changed.

I love our house, but it will continue to be the majority of our paycheck for the next 28 years (we will be in our 70's when it is paid off). Good thing I did all the travelling I wanted, and I'm OK with staying home watching movies.

So, I hate Long Island, but I do like my house and my neighborhood. I would like to say that when we retire we could sell and move upstate then, but that makes me nervous because to move away to the "country" when you're in your 70's...well, the hospitals are farther away, etc...
RachelnJoe, you'd kill me..I live .25 mile from the beach (that's another thing..I'm high up on a road, 1/4 mile from a HARBOR and they make me pay $1000 in flood insurance).
But I never go to the beach because I have skin cancer. Hence why I wanted to live upstate! I wasn't looking to be by a beach, it's just the house we found happened to be here.

I can't really complain living in San Diego right now. It costs me $25 to fill up my car since gas has dropped so much, and now I have a roommate so rent has gotten cheaper for me. Plus with all these great local breweries...life is good. I don't really have to worry about the housing issue since I'm in my mid-20s and I'm who-the-hell knows far away from even CONSIDERING purchasing a home. My only concern is the construction market since that's the industry I'm in...but luckily I'm on the service side and it wouldn't even matter which city I lived in, since construction is slow everywhere. There are some issues I have, but they don't outweigh the pros. So I'm not really sure if I have a love-hate relationship. Heh.

I like where I live, but it might just be because I'd be afraid to leave. I'm not a big fan of drastic change, and I've lived in the same house since I was two. I'd be fun to move somewhere out of state, or even out of the country, but I don't see it ever happening.

I like the small population, it isn't crowded, and you can always find somewhere to park the car, haha. In Soldotna its only crowded when tourists come in (I hate tourist season!) The summers are ok, warm enough to be outside all day, and light enough too. We all put on our shorts and tank tops when it hits about 65 degrees. Other than the cold dark winters, and not a whole lot of places to go, I do like it.  Oh, and when I went to regular school, it was always fun (sarcasm alert) to walk to the bus stop in a foot of snow while it's pitch black out and below freezing, and hope you don't run into a moose or possibly a bear, or worse, a moose with a baby...  

Another complaint I have is that a lot of things you could easily find out of state doesn't get sold here, and if it does its EXPENSIVE. We don't have health food stores, dollar stores, etc.. We have a Safeway and a Fredmeyer for groceries, a small Gottchalks for clothes, one movie theater, ONE Small Jo-Ann's, ONE tiny and very expensive pet store (free SDA though!), we don't have hardly any 'fun' or craft stores. Everything at stores cost a lot.

And the worst thing of all.... The rat law. Colored rats are illegal, which means at petstores all rats born or accidentally shipped with color are killed, NO reputable breeders, and any rat turned into a shelter is euthanized. We have one rat rescue in AK, which is where I got two of my girls, but the rescue is a 4 hour drive away, so it's not easy to get there.  I'd give almost anything to just get rid of that stupid law that some uneducated person made up to keep Alaska rat-free.

Living in Northern California I feel pretty much the same as the OP. I love it here. Absultely hands down love it, although I could do with slightly warmer weather and slightly less fog, but all in all it never snows, and it's never scorching hot, so I'm pretty happy.

The cost is incredibly high. We barely manage to make ends meet and pay $1300 in rent for a very nice one bedroom apartment, and believe it or not that's actually a good deal in this market. I do think about moving from time to time, but I'm afraid if I leave we'll never be able to afford to come back, and this is where I want to raise a family.

I think all places have their good and bad points. I guess you just have to decide which ones are more important to you.

That's one reason my boyfriend and I decided to move away from Los Angeles.  We grew up in houses with yards, and if we have children some day, we want them to have the same "luxury" without paying a million dollars for it. 

My parents don't have a lot of money, but the house they have would go for hundreds of thousands in Los Angeles, and that really amazes me.

I live in South Carolina now, though I prefer North Carolina.  (there IS a difference!)  The problem with where I live is that I live off of one of the most busy streets in the entire area.  Beyond ridiculous and will get worse with the holiday season. I can't stand it.   

My relationship with North Carolina is primarily hate. It isn't nearly as warm as people say, it's humid so my hair does NOT stay straight, and it rains alot 

However, I have a LOVE LOVE LOVE relationship with all the places I've lived in Canada! I'm such a proud Canadian, it's just the most beautiful, friendly country imaginable. Sure, it gets cold in most places, but it's worth it  .

I have more of a hate relationship with Phoenix Arizona. I really hate waking up here everyday.
We moved here last summer for my husbands job transfer. We had been living in St Louis MO and with the high crime, high unemployment, large companies closing or being bought out left and right the job market was at an all time low. I lost my job with a fortune 500 company and spent a year working temp jobs just to make ends meet. It was a drastic life style change. When the oppurtunity came for my husband to get a promotion and a relocation package we decided to go for it. Husband has a great job that he likes a great stable company and he works from home a lot. We have a stable good income that allows us the time and money to travel, afford a new home, new autos, pets, and a comfortable life.
However the weather here is so hard to live with. The summer temps are so hot it takes your breath away. Its alful. The winter is mild and sometimes nice. But I miss seasons, rain, snow, thunderstorms anything except hot and sunny and warm and sunny 365 days of the year.
The main concern I have here is that my allergies and Asthma made day to day life misreable. I can't exercise at all outside due to the allergies. I have gained 25lbs in over a year since I can't breath enough to even walk a mile on the treadmill most days.
I have been diagnosed with a slight case of Valley Fever and am on meds. I have a cat with feline asthma who is on monthy steriod injections as well.

I hate the dust and cactus that is all you see. Very little grass or trees other than palms. We used to love camping and have a camper but I can't deal with the weather. The camping here is costly if you can find one with hookups. There are no camp fires allowed since its so dry. Its not fun to camp in the desert with no water to play in.

Another issue that I am dealing with is that I went back to school to become a Medical Assistant with plans to further into RN school at some point. However since a very large percent of the population speak spanish here its hard to find a job in the medical field unless you are bi lingual. Which I am not. I was lucky to find a job working in an office with staff that are wonderfull. The Dr I work for is spanish and a lot of the patients are as well. Even if they speak english during the procedures they have conversations in spanish with me standing there. I have no clue what they are talking about and most of the procedures are about an hour. So for an hour there I stand helping the Dr listening to an hour of spanish and feeling like I am in a foreign country. Its depressing.

We are considering moving somewhere along the west coast perhaps oregon in a couple of years when the market is better and we could sell our cookie cutter house ( another thing I hate is all the houses here are brown and look the same)

I live in St. Louis... well, right outside of St. Louis, not downtown. It's fun sometimes... like there's always something to do mostly, but I would love to move farther south. St. Louis has the highest crime per capita in the US, and the first ten minutes of the news every night is going over all the murders, then the high-profile crimes. We also have "midwest weather" so it's like the hottest summers and the coldest winters, never a happy medium. Specifically where I live isn't bad though, fairly low-crime and the people are halfway decent. I think a lot about moving but knowing me, I'd get homesick even though I can't stand it.

I live in Northern Arizona. I have been here for 3 years and I HATE it here. I can't wait until my fiancee joins the Navy (now joining a year from now instead of in January). I am from Upstate New York and would die to go back to the east coast. I have no friends here, this town is really ridiculously boring, you have to travel to PHX (2 1/2 hours away) just to *maybe* do something fun.....and I could go on and on and on.

I'd die to see the seasons change again! I miss NY like crazy and don't even have the time/money to go back and visit.