Expert: David Beckett - 8/19/2007

Question
Thank you so much for this forum! My situation is this - my partner and I and two pre-school kids are potentially moving from an urban big city in the Mid-Atlantic to the Burlington, Vermont area in two years. We both have terminal (JD, PhD) degrees and would consider ourselves mid-level professionals; we also may start a business but one thing at a time!

We want to be in a place that will accommodate our current lifestyle reflected in our 3000+ square foot home on .33 acre land and excellent schools in a place that is less rat-race and congested and more green and community-oriented. We can be a little forgiving on the material aspects of our lifestyle, so long as we can find good responses to this question:

As a multi-racial family and a strong commitment to diversity, how can we find both a place that values community as a core living principle as well as provides services and support to specific ethnic communities who are Asian, Black and essentially non-White? It seems that many have a response like, "it's a supportive place" or "strong sense of community" - but, what are some examples, trends, and stories that might boost our confidence about Vermont as a diverse place to live?

If you have any thoughts about the job market, schools, and community activities, we would love to hear about those thoughts, too!

Answer
Hi Don -

I hope this is helpful. Please let me know how I can be of further help!
David Beckett
david@askdavidbeckett.com
1 802 264 1888

I wish I could truly do your excellent question justice, but, frankly, every time I attempt an answer to this sort of question, I realize I'm limited by my own experience.

Having been brought to Burlington as a small child when my father came to UVM to teach - I've seen enormous changes here. Almost all of them for the better! In fact Burlington is perhaps the only place I can imagine living, because it offers so many things that are important to me - and it's so easy to get to the other places I want to go. Montreal's less than 2 hours the scenic route, Quebec city is an easy half day drive and is like a trip to Europe in a car, Boston is 3.5 hours and Jet Blue flies to NYC frequently and inexpensively. Then there are the 5 ski areas near enough to drive to first thing in the morning...

While statistically, The Greater Burlington Area is still very homogenious, I'm firmly of the opinion that the overwhelming majority of people here embrace diversity.

I've collected a few web links for you at the bottom of this message.

In the last couple of decades, there have been many more people of colour here. The University of Vermont, other local colleges, Fletcher Allen Health Care(the huge regional hospital on the hill), and IBM have all attracted people of all sorts from elsewhere, as has Vermont's reputation for quality of life. The sense I get is that the overwhelming majority of people in Chittenden County see this as a great thing and welcome diversity for all sorts of reasons.

My kids go to Burlington High School, and have friends who are Tibetan, Somali, Bosnian, Vietnamese, Italian, as well as African American.

There's also a significant Latino community here in The Burlington Area.

To get the flavor of Burlington, I might suggest a visit to the Burlington Free Press web site, as well as that of the local news and arts weekly, which is called Seven Days. The Free Press is owned by Gannett (USA today) and is the closest thing to a local daily.

Also - check out www.flynncenter.org if you're at all interested in the performing arts. Burlington gets an amazing variety of concerts and so on which just don't happen in other cities of it's size - this is partly due to our geographical location in relation to Boston, NYC and Montreal. Montreal is less than 2 hours drive, Boston is 3.5 Hrs drive.

Please let me know if there are specific interests of questions I may be able to help with. Having lived here all my life, and having been a business person for 19 years I can often find people to help with various things in the area...   

Lastly - You'd asked about Jobs, Schools and Community activities: I think most people would counsel you that jobs tend to pay less here than in many places, and that they are somewhat scarcer then elsewhere. I think Burlington's schools have a very good reputation, and as to community activities...I find there's simply not enough time for me to do a tenth of the things that are offered here! The sheer amount of arts/culture/performing arts/outdoor recreation/sports activities on offer here is much larger than most cities of this size!

http://crs.uvm.edu/education/ This is the best source of school info I'm aware of...

http://www.hrc.state.vt.us/

http://www.cedoburlington.org/neighborhoods/racism/Anti-Racism_Facts.htm

http://bsdweb.bsdvt.org/News/boardretreat20070626.php
Here's some info on a recent proposal for Socioeconomic integration in Burlington's Schools.

http://www.uvm.edu/~alana/