There are many areas that a good living can be made and still have privacy, acreage, short commute (or none), and all the important stuff that families can enjoy. My wife works on a branch campus of a large university, the back of their property nearly abuts ours. We are 10-15 minutes from our childrens grade schools/daycare. We have a county seat city and courthouse of 15,000 within site of our highest hilltop. Lots of cool topography, forests, fields, nice mix stable (not boomtown)suburban/rural mix. We enjoy an hour drive to the Pittsburgh region to do zoo/museums/etc..... I serve on a non-profit board there. While a "remote" backwoods local has some advantages, I enjoy being on the fringe. We still have well/septic, I have access to both, but opt out due to the distance to road (3/4 mile)so we have I ran 1000' waterline when I ran natural gas line to our house. I LOVE heating with NG, if our well ever goes bad I can just tap into the public water. You can just hear the cars below our 20 acres on the road. I can WIZZ in the front yard, hunt on our land, log, etc.... We are "hidden" and many people (even public service providers) dont even know we are back here. We still need to be prepared for plowing snow (fire/EMS protection)road maintance....etc... There ARE gems out there, convienence, privacy, good schools/parenting networks.... you just need to look.


Ironwood