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Omaha's cost of living is not that great due to high taxes...
An average house in Omaha is $170,000 verses $600,000 in Los Angeles, a fews measley thousand dollars does not
offset the cost, and as a matter of fact the cost of living is so low here that we have to charge higher tax amounts to be able to exist as a state...
There's nothing to do in OMaha...
Whatever!!! What is it that your looking to do, there is so much here to do, We get the top concerts (Qwest Center with the eigth heighest amount of concert ticket sales in the world) and large conventions, we have nationally ranked college sports here, minor league teams, A great indie music scene, a world reknown zoo, the college world series, the opera and symphony is huge here, many many many miles of bike trails, we have casino's, state and national parks nearby, more golf courses per capita than any city in the us including the nationally seen Cox Classic, many campgrounds nearby with boating facilities, hunting grounds, the largest furniture store in north america, Bass Pro and Cabela's here, great restaraunts here including the Cheesecake factory, many YMCA's for amatuer sports, a great riverfront park stretching for miles with marina's. Every year there are several major NCAA tournament events at the well-publicised Qwest Center, 5 major indoor malls and several outdoor malls, Kansas City is just a couple of hours away, a proposed theme resort with an amusement park in between Omaha and lIncoln www.portnebraska.com, A great child's museum, three bar-gaming facilities dave and busters and inplay and an amazing pizza maching, there is more, but these are all I can think of off-hand... so there goes that theory....
Omaha's education is not that great...
Whatever, Omaha's education is great in all areas including the small ghetto that it has. Omaha is home to Creighton University which is ranked as the best university to get an education in the midwest, also UNO, UNMC, Bellevue University, New Horizons, ITT, among others....
The pay is low in Omaha....
This is a terrible stigma, Omaha's average wage is $3,000 average higher than the national average and the cost of living is 12% lower than the national average... so much for that...
Omaha is a cow-town....
What-ever.... Conagra, Union Pacific, Berkshire Hathaway, Valmont, Peiter Keiwitt all fortune 500 company's are headquarted here, and that doesnt include TD Ameritrade, First National BAnk and many the presence (but not home to) many other fortune 500 companies.
Omaha is small...
Depends on what your definition of small is actually...
If you think 859,000 for a CSA is small then your right.. Lincoln is just around the corner and soon the CSA will
include it, that would put it between 1.1 and 1.2 million people
Omaha is cold...
It's not that bad here, you get used to it like anything else, I will agree that at times it does get terribly cold but usually no more than a couple weeks a year otherwise it can be considered pretty cold for about 3 months a year, it really depends on what you consider cold, but has humans we adapt
Miscellanious...
Omaha is a 20 minute city, that means that from one end to the other you CAN get there in 20 minutes, one of the largest cities to be able to claim this, the traffic is mild...
The Downtown is booming with 2 recently built skyscrapers, there is a 32 story condo tower that is going to be built, a new corporate headquarts from an insurance firm is moving there, and the ex-mayer Hal DAub announced on grow omaha that a new scraper is going to be built from yet another corporate headquarters move...
Omaha has average-above average growth in population and jobs boasting a current 3.2% unemployment rate
Other cities from around the country and even the globe of come to Omaha to see how exactly the city officials have
cause this once dying city into a boom-town and on the plains none-the-less..
I can provide proof on any of these, and this is all that I came up with within just a couple of minutes, i think the locals that complain, just don't look and want to complain about something...
Any questions??
Last edited by ehenningsen; 01-21-2007 at 12:35 PM..
Yeah, I love how people compare Omaha's housing prices to those in Los Angeles. Omaha might be much cheaper then Los Angeles, but its about the same as other midwestern cities such as Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis and Kansas City but yet it offers far less amenities. Does Los Angeles have dozens of square miles of neighborhoods of extensive blight. Omaha also pays much less on average then Des Moines, Indianapolis or Cleveland despite housing prices very similar to those three metros.
No doubt that Omaha cost of living is very favorable compared to the coasts, but compared to other Midwestern metro's Omaha isnt attractive at all. Also Omaha's housing costs are weighed down substacially because of the tremendous amount of very cheap run-down for rent and for sale on the East Side of town that sit on the market for years.
One main difference between Omaha and many cities is Omaha has many neighborhoods that have tremendous blight and have lots of boarded-up vacant buildings. Most areas East of 42nd street in Omaha are in terrible shape but then again Omaha doesnt care about the older areas because the movers and shakers mostly live in their wealthy enclaves in West Omaha in those McMansions.
Omaha maybe cheap, but visitors here should see how desolate, empty and blighted Omaha's older neighborhoods are.
Also Omahans like to hire there own for decent jobs, I have noticed and people have talked about this on here that Omahans frown down upon people who arent from this unattractive, unmaintained community.
Additionally, parts of Omaha have such a tremendous crime rate the police chief ordered barricades at night for certain areas of the city. Omaha was so embaressed by their high crime rate that they refused to release crime figure either because people considering moves to Omaha would think twice about moving to a city thats good with public-relations but is in-fact a very low quality of life area.
If visitors or prospective people moving here wanna see the real Omaha go North 16th, North 24th, North 30th and South 17th street in Omaha.
Downtown Omaha is the most boring, depressing downtown ive been in also. The several corperations down in that area have cafeterias where the workers eat lunch. Usually the only people you will see in the sidewalks in downtown Omaha at mid-day is people waiting on buses and after 5pm the downtown turns into a ghost town. Those few highrises (which are actually nice architecturally) have not increased the amount of nightlife in Downtown Omaha as most people park in the garages, go to their apartment and watch TV all night.
Downtown Omaha is very depressing, I have wondered why the local leaders in Omaha arent ashamed of the Downtown because it pales in comparison to most Colorado downtowns of less then 10,000 people.
Ive lived in five different cities also and talked to some people in Omaha who are not from here. Omaha has a large influx of rural people who are extremely arrogant and like to show their trucks by revving up the engines at stoplights.
Omaha does have 4 or 5 very large companies but all the wealth is concentrated in a select few exclusive neighborhoods. Rich Omahans unlike people in my hometown Denver love to flash their wealth. Most affluent Omahans will not go East of 72nd street into the crime-ridden, declining, low property value East side of town unless they abseolutely have to because Omaha believes that the rich and poor should be segregated by very large distances.
Why with several large companies in Omaha so much blight?
People when considering Omaha need to understand why property taxes are so very high, quadruple of what Denvers rates are and much, much higher then other cities.
Omaha's high property taxes are mainly due to the fact the property values are so very low over such a widespread area of the city (even though the city has liberal annexation laws and annexes constantly).
In Denver as an example or Madison, Wisconsin you love quaint, well maintained victorian neighborhoods adjacent the downtown in very high demand and that means property values are very high thus the cost of housing overall is higher. In Omaha you have extensive, extensive blight in the neighborhoods adjacent to downtown, plywood covers industrial, retail, residential alike in East Omaha. I cant underemphasize the incredible amount of blight that covers 25 square miles or so all the way from Florence area down to Harrison and from 16th to 42nd.
I think its good Omaha can annex, because if it couldnt theyd have massive budget deficits or even higher property taxes now because of the major state of dis-repair a majority of Omaha's older neighborhoods are in.
Omaha has just decided to annex property-tax rich Elkhorn more then 20 miles from the downtown mainly because the city would start running big deficits because it has an extensive area of housing stock which is abandoned, vacant and blighted.
In most cities you have alot of very high property value neighborhoods near the center of town with sidewalk cafe's, musums, coffee shops and restaurants.
Omaha has a three block area along Howard downtown where businessmen have three-martini lunches and a few places for the suit and tie crowd to smoke cigars (Omahans love using terms to make themselves feel like they are some major city, when in fact its a run-down midwestern city with mostly old-economy companies). Nightlife is awful in downtown Omaha also, alot of towns in Colorado with less then 10,000 people have a better nightlife then Omaha where everybody has one goal in life: Get married, have half a dozen babies and live way out in West Omaha in their 4000 square foor home more then 20 miles from the run-down, depressingly vacant neighborhoods of East Omaha.
Omaha also has a massive homeless population due to the fact that these incredible property taxes go for essential services only such as police and fire. Despite all this money Omaha spends on police it has homicide rate well above the national average.
Omaha has a downtown park but (because the city which is run by ultra-conservative cliquish people who are elected because of their corperate Omaha friends) because of the homeless problem smells of urine.
Matt your facts are completely wrong, OMaha pays $3,000 above the national average, every city has its bad neighborhoods, Omaha is on a roll. Your just one of those people that like to complain... I dont know where you are getting your facts, but I have several sources that say that Omaha pays well and has a low cost of living.... Many sources place omaha as a top city to live in, low crime, great education, good road system, good jobs, low cost of living, great parks, great amendaties, the only thing that omaha doesnt have that those cities your comparing omaha too is major league sports, well Omaha does have Creighton and the Huskers are not too far away, I dont know what your deal with Omaha is, but your facts are absolutely wrong....
Your downtown asessment is also wrong, recently the 44 story first national bank tower was built, Union Pacific headquarters, Harriman dispatch center, Omaha world herald office was built, Qwest-Center convention center and arena was built, the riverfront went from atrocious to beutiful, a new 32 story condo tower is going to be built a new insurance headquarters is going to be built there, a new corporate headquarters move to Omaha to downtown in a new highrise is going to be built, the Holland performing arts center was just built the vacancy rate is at 12.5% and lowering, many condos are being built with row housing, a pedestrian bridge being built that will link downtown to the casinos and riverfron development in CB, amongst other things... You couldn't be more wrong...
Last edited by ehenningsen; 01-22-2007 at 08:59 AM..
Crime is not high in this city, it is very low compared to the national average, and the neighborhoods are bad?? That is up to the people, not the city, the city has tax incetives for economic expansion in the "blighted" areas, which are few. This city is far ahead of many other cities and Matt you are a horrible representative of this city, and whatever crawled up you beep, you need to get it out, or leave this wonderful city or at least quit lying about it.
Being that I am not from Omaha (Im from Denver), I am not here to promote Omaha I am on here to tell about the two years I lived in the community in unbiased manner. Besides the small-economic devolopment projects in the older neighborhoods is laughable compared to what other cities do.
The only two good things about Omaha is the health care and topography, everything else could use major improvement.
Omaha MSA average wage per job: 36,667
Omaha CSA average wage per job: 36,307
National Average: 40,146
Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2005 figures
It seems like Omaha CSA average pay is 3,700 dollars Below/Under for the national average.
Its amazing how Omaha talks about their riverfront, but lets be honest how many people use it on a day to day basis. Creating a park on the riverfront just has no character and is architecturally insignificant and rarely has people using the park is not the way most cities go about urban devolopment but oh well. Guess if the riverfront park is ones idea of success then so be it.
Omaha could be a nice city, it has the resources. Omaha's main problem is the people are very arrogant, especially the city government.
Omaha also from what I heard used to have one of the architecturally significant neighborhoods until the 1980s but their brilliant city leadership decided to tear-down the entire neighborhood.
Being from Denver, Omaha is a very unvisionary, poorly run city where the politics is all about patronage. Basically, the people who run the city only care about the business elite and their neighborhoods and forget about the rest of the city.
I feel sorry for working-class people in Omaha paying 4 times the property tax rate Denverites do to subsidize the city which only works on behalf of the business community and their neighborhoods.
Id encourage visitors next time going from the airport to downtown, I encourage you to see North 16th, North 24th and North 30th in North Omaha and see what Omaha really is about.
From the abandoned apartment buildings on North 16th, to the almost empty retail corridor and vacant lots amongst 24th to the rows of run-down projects that have so much crime that they have street barricades because of all the problems amongst North 30th you'll see what the city of Omaha is like in a majority of areas.
I used to live around 30th and Ames in north Omaha. It's what many would consider a "bad" neighborhood in Omaha. I don't know what street barricades you're talking about. I've never heard about them or seen them. I doubt you've ever even spent time there and are just passing along second hand information.
There is actually new housing going in in north Omaha. Nathan Townhomes is a project that is done on 16th St. There is also another developer building new homes around 45th and Bedford. North Omaha isn't any different from any other cities "bad" part of town. It's an older neighborhood so it has seen better days but overall north Omaha isn't anything to be afraid of.
I cant underemphasize the incredible amount of blight that covers 25 square miles or so all the way from Florence area down to Harrison and from 16th to 42nd.
Would you--or anyone else who lives there--be able to take pictures of those blighted areas and post them here? I'm just curious, since I don't live in Omaha (the best I could do is fly there "virtually" via Google Earth).
I could show you pictures of where he's talking about and make him eat his words. There isn't any place in Omaha where there is a massive amount of blight. There aren't blocks and blocks of boarded up homes or buildings.
Plas that such a large area he listed that I couldn't show all if it. But trust me MattDen doesn't know what he's talking about.
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Why with several large companies in Omaha so much blight?
