Locally, it is generally cheaper to buy than rent... you need the deposit and all that of course, but the per month costs, even after insurance, property taxes and mortgage still end up cheaper. Now other expenses such as upkeep, utilities and the like may go up, but given you can get into a super nice home in a good school district and good neighborhood, for well under $150k (under $100k and even under $50k for less good areas) and rent is still in the $450-500 for smaller apartments... ownership appears to be the better idea. More space, for less money. When I had a house, I went from a small one bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house, 2 stories, walk up attic, basement (minor leaks)... saved a bundle per month, though gas ended up being ultra high, and job changes caused me to lose it eventually. Still, it was per month cheaper.

Heck, I know somebody, not local, but in Pittsburgh who moved from an apartment to owning a condo, and even after mortgage, association fees and utilities, it all comes out cheaper than her rent was alone before utilities, and the places are the same size (if not a bit bigger at the condo)... and that is still in the much coveted North Allegheny school district . Obviously homes and the like there are much more expensive than where I live, but still, seems cheaper to own than to buy for equal square feet even out there.

Also, it is within rights of a municipality to ban drilling - for example recently Pittsburgh voted to ban drilling rights within city limits. Also, at least in Allegheny county PA, homeowners don't retain the mineral rights (including drilling), so other townships can vote similar. There is a distinction between homesteads and farmsteads though, but I don't own a farm so I'm not familiar.

Personally I'm not against natural gas drilling, but I'm against the contractors who are doing it, and the corners they are cutting to save a buck. And even if you installed a Dean-Kamen-style water purifier in every home, the contaminants and heavy metals in the run-off will go to all the streams, rivers, lakes, tributaries and have a definite negative impact on the environment.

Since you're so curious, Schmawy, it's called "free plate tuning", and it was developed by the recently departed Carleen Hutchins...

Carleen Maley Hutchins (May 24, 1911 – August 7, 2009) was an American former high school science teacher, violinmaker and researcher, best-known for her creation, in the 1950s/60s, of a family of eight proportionally-sized violins now known as the violin octet (e.g., the vertical viola) and for a considerable body of research into the acoustics of violins. She was born in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Hutchins’s greatest innovation, still used by many violinmakers, was a technique known as free-plate tuning. When not attached to a violin, the top and back are called free plates. Her technique gives makers a precise way to refine these plates before a violin is assembled.

From 2002 to 2003, Hutchins’s octet was the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Titled “The New Violin Family: Augmenting the String Section.” Hutchins was the founder of the New Violin Family Association[1], creator-in-chief of the Violin Octet, author of more than 100 technical publications, editor of two volumes of collected papers in violin acoustics, four grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, an Honorary Fellowship from the Acoustical Society of America, and four honorary doctorates. In 1963, Hutchins co-founded the Catgut Acoustical Society, which develops scientific insights into the construction of new and conventional instruments of the violin family.

The Hutchins Consort, named after Hutchins, is a California ensemble featuring all eight instruments.[2]

In 1974, Hutchins and Daniel W. Haines, using materials supplied by the Hercules Materials Company, Inc. (Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory) of Cumberland, Maryland, developed a graphite-epoxy composite top that was determined to be a successful alternative to the traditional use of spruce for the violin belly.[3]

Soutce

Interesting anecdote about her is that she once stole a piece of perfect maple from a university phonebooth, replacing it with a replica. Cool lady.

Anyway, nice Sift there schawmy, keep up the good work.

*promote