Expert: David Beckett - 5/2/2004

Question
Hi David...thank you for being an expert!

I am considering moving to Vermont from Colorado.  I am trying to decide whether to move to a place like Burlington, where I assume jobs to be plentiful, or more towards a place like Montpelier, which I know little of.  Which place am I more likely to be able to land a job in?  And what are the differences between the two places?  Any assistance you can offer would be greatly welcome.

Thank you very much for your time!

Erin

Answer


Erin,

Sorry for the delay. Tough week!

Burlington is the largest city in VT. But it's small. 40,00 or so, with another 100,000 in the county, so it feels like a larger city. A much larger city.
I live in downtown Burlington and wouldn't live anywhere else. There's an embarassment of cultural riches here, including a great deal of live music, theatre, performance and so on. The city is just packed with clubs, restaurants cafes and shops. In fact there are few cities of ANY size that rival Burlington in this way. And it seems there are more creative people here than most places. Everybody's starting a boutique bakery or a little gallery. There are 73 non profit cultural organizations in Burlington. Even so, the major employers are the 5 colleges and universities, the regional medical center and a few other large firms. There's an IBM plant here and a few other manufacturers.But most business here is, by national standards, quite small. Even Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Ben And Jerry's are, after all, pretty small. Or like B&J, they get bought.

From my little place in town I can walk to a real live European style pedestrian friendly main street which hasn't been thrashed by the suburban malls. I can walk to the lake, the movies and a decent book store. There's a 1440 seat Art Deco theatre here which often hosts the Vt Symphony....and everything else imaginable. We have a HUGE Jazz festival in June, a massive singer songwrite/traditional music festival and quite a music scene in general. We even have a triple A baseball club! Vt was the first State the create a Symphony Orchestra via an act of it's State legislature.

Still, I'm only an hour from 5 major destination ski resorts, and I can drive to the second largest French speaking city (Montreal) in 1:45. Boston's 3:30 minutes drive and I can fly to NYC on Jet Blue.

We keep winning awards here, so people keep coming. Burlington's a little bit like Seattle was 15 years ago. For some it's THE place to move.

Montpelier truly is a small city. It's in fact the only State capital in the nation without a McDonalds, and it's likely to stay that way. It's charming, and has its own excitement. There are loads of good places to eat, and a rather famous art house movie theatre. But it's just too small a city for me.

Neither will strike you as cheap places to live. And high paying jobs are not easy to find. But Vermont's where it's at. We're still rural, still human scale, but there's way too much to do on the weekends. You simply can't get bored here.

Call me with questions if you like.

David Beckett, CBR
1 800 488 5609x215