Hello from a fellow Hoosier..DC Transplant. I.U. 1984. M.S. 1987. I've been in DC 25 years and if my husband got a good job offer in Bloomington, I would be packed and ready to move tomorrow. Seriously. I am tired of the traffic here and the lack of civility. Oh what a house we would have too if we traded our house here for B-town prices. I never wanted to stay in Bloomington as a young single woman, but now I think it would be great to be settled with a family there. Good Luck!!
Anonymous wrote:I graduated from Indiana University about 15 years ago. I loved Bloomington. I imagine it has changed since then, but many of the amenities should still be there.
The cost of living is likely dirt cheap compared to Washington. You will have a bunch of college students looking to pick up money babysitting. You will likely live by some very interesting college professors. And I suspect that locals can take courses there. I don't know if you follow college basketball, but IU's team is number two in the country right now. They have a huge event every spring called the Little 500. Frankly, residents tend to leave because it used to get pretty wild on campus.
Bloomington was a cultural oasis: the campus auditorium hosted everything from major rock groups to Japanese Kodo drummers; the IU music school is world renowned so there are top-flight musicians giving free concerts constantly; there is an opera house on campus that produces about 7 operas a year and if you are lucky, a world-class performer will be serving as an adjunct professor and take the stage a few nights. I have heard that a number of excellent restaurants have opened in Bloomington.
There are many parks and lakes and wooded areas to go for walks.
The place never stopped surprising me. Outside of town there is a Tibetan stupa, built on land donated by Richard Gere.
Obviously a family with children will have a very different experience than a college student, but I think there are a lot of upsides to moving there if you have a good job and your husband can move fairly easily.