Why is Indiana a Good Place to Live?

Like most people I know, the great state of Indiana has been my home since the day I entered this world. I come from a long line of people on both sides of my family who were born and raised here. Could I have left? Sure. In my line of work, it's quite common for people to bounce around from city to city (or to use media industry lingo, market to market) as they try to work their way up to more populated areas. My wife often jokes about our "Five-Year Plan" where I was going to get some career experience here at home after college then start looking for a job in a bigger city. That was nearly 25 years ago.

Canva/ananaline

I consider myself a rarity in the radio world. I've been lucky enough to do everything I've wanted to do with my career without having to leave home. Plus, thanks to the internet and modern technology, if I wanted to branch out to a bigger city, I could do that from right here.

I've had people that used to work in our area and have since left ask me why I'm still here. Truth be told, I like it here. This is home. This is where all my family and friends are. Plus, we have a lot of great things to offer, some of which we may not quite appreciate because we're so used to them, that other states don't. And, I'm not the only one who feels that way.

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LOOK: Here's Why Indiana is Pretty Much the Best Place on Earth [As Told by Hoosiers]

Reddit user, u/youcanneverbanme recently asked their fellow Hoosiers in the Indiana subreddit what they liked about living here. The question received hundreds of responses and the vast majority of them were positive. Of course, there were some that were negative because there are sad people who are perpetually angry on the internet and want everyone to know it for some reason, but we won't concern ourselves with those. We want to focus on the good, and when it comes to the good, there's plenty of it to enjoy.

There you have it. Next time you hear someone dog Indiana, or say there's nothing here, show them this list and remind them there is plenty here. All they have to do is look.

40 Real Indiana Towns with Quirky, Weird, and Funny Names

Outside the major cities, the Hoosier state is full of tiny little towns you've probably passed through on your way to one of those cities. Most of them are likely 100 to 150 years old, or older, and have been around far longer than the large metropolitan areas such as Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Evansville. Typically, they were started by early settlers who found their way to the state and decided to make it home. Eventually, others would join them, and a community was formed. Over time, as the surrounding areas grew, most of them were folded into those areas and governed by the nearest city or county's governing body officially making them "unincorporated," meaning they did not have their own formally organized municipal government.

A scroll through Wikipedia's long list of unincorporated communities in Indiana shows several of them have names that by today's standards would be considered weird, quirky, or just downright right funny. These are my 40 favorities.