Yay, questions! :D Like I said, I really don't mind answering -- I love talking about it, but I'm never quite sure what people are curious about when they ask!
1. Actually, our unemployment is lower than the national average. The thing about Fairbanks is that it's the second-largest city (I use the term "city" very loosely here :D) in Alaska, and the only large town of any sort north of Anchorage. So, if you look at us on a map ... we are a hub for all the industries in interior Alaska. Fairbanks is a major supply depot for smaller towns within a radius of a few hundred miles east/north/west of here, and it's the main staging center for all the industrial stuff that goes on in the interior of the state, which includes gold mining, tourism, hunting/fishing, medical services, and stuff like that. There are also two military bases and a university. As well as having pretty low unemployment, we tend not to be as affected by the ups and downs of the economy as other places, because most of our industries aren't particularly volatile. People will always need food and supplies and hospitals, for example.
2. Yes, we do. There's a theatre in town that belongs to a major chain (Century) and we get the big blockbuster movies at the same time that everyone else does. It's the smaller art-house movies that are less likely to appear here. There is a little local theatre/bar that shows indy and artsy movies (the Blue Loon - and because it's also a bar, you can drink while watching the movie!) but they only screen one movie a week.
3. Yep, we have fast Internet for decent prices. It's not quite as blazingly fast as a lot of big cities have (I was so jealous when I was visiting a friend in Seattle and discovered that you can download a whole TV show in about 8 minutes!) but my household does have one of the cheaper packages, so I'm not sure how fast it gets -- but it's still DSL, plenty fast enough for Youtube and Netflix and downloading shows and whatnot. I'm a few miles out of town, on the highway, and we've had DSL ever since I've lived here (since 2004). We rarely have downtime. About a decade ago, it was possible for the Internet to the entire state to be accidentally cut off because there was one cable (!!!) connecting Alaska to the rest of the world (well, actually three cables, but they all ran along the same highway, and it was severed by heavy equipment one time, cutting off Alaska's internet for about a day -- which is how I know!), but I expect there's a lot more redundancy now.
A random comment along those lines: our power is locally generated -- we have our own power plant -- and it used to be extremely unstable; back in the '90s, even in the middle of town, there would be power outages, at least brown-outs, every couple of weeks. At my old office job, we just got used to it: all the lights would go out, and we'd roll our eyes and go hang out for half an hour or so, until the power was fixed. Well, that doesn't happen anymore, because THE TOWN HAS A BATTERY BACKUP NOW. There is a ginormous warehouse full of enough batteries to power the whole town for up to 20 minutes (I've been told), and it smooths out those glitches, so that you don't get constant power outages like you used to. Even living out of town, we only rarely experience outages, and that's only when something fairly major happens, like the lines going down or a transformer blowing up or whatever.
4. There really isn't a whole lot. In some ways, Fairbanks feels like a much bigger town than it is, because we are so self-sufficient in terms of what kinds of business and resources are available (we have to be!). But our night life is very, very small-town. When I was in college, we spent a lot of time hanging out late at night at Denny's (a chain restaurant that's open 24 hours) because it was the only place in town to go at 1 a.m. Restaurants, bars or the movies ... those are basically your options. Or Barnes & Noble (local chain bookstore; it's open 'til 11 and serves coffee and food), which has become one of the popular evening hang-out places for people who aren't bar-going people. And of course there are sports -- there are outdoor activities galore, if you're into things like skiing or jogging or playing organized amateur sports (some of my women friends do roller derby).
It's similar to most small towns, though, in that there isn't really a "going out clubbing at night" kind of mentality. People who live here are typically self-selected for people who are more into the outdoor activities, or quietly reading at home. But yeah, drug use and alcoholism are sky-high here.
5. Mail can be pretty slow -- and expensive! In the US, there is a flat rate for letters, but package prices are determined based on "zones", and the farther away an address is, the more expensive it is. For us in Alaska, everywhere else in the USA is Zone 9, the most expensive one. There is a "cheap" mail rate (parcel post), which in the rest of the USA takes anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to arrive, but can take MONTHS to get to (or from) Alaska. So, basically, if you are willing to pay for it, you can have packages shipped pretty quickly (still not as quick as in the rest of the US, though -- it usually takes the maximum amount of estimated time to get here), but cheap shipping is very slowwwwwwww, and some companies will not even ship to Alaska at all. (There have been times I've had to get stuff shipped to relatives in the lower 48 states, rather than to me, because the company I was trying to order from just would not do it!)
And that's where you run into the real downside of living here -- we are SO FAR from everywhere else, and there is something of a bottleneck because there are so few roads and other supply lines that go here. It makes everything a little more expensive and take a little longer to get here.
6. Yes, you can basically get any kind of regular food product that you can buy elsewhere. Aside from those minor shipping interruptions (which really are minor, in the grand scheme of things, and rarely last more than a few days) the stores are just as well-stocked as anywhere. Things aren't quite as fresh, and are a little more expensive, but otherwise are available just as anywhere.
7. Ahahaha, oh man, THIS is not a question with a simple answer. :D Actually, this is one of the big issues facing the state right now, especially our part of it.
The part of Alaska that I grew up in -- Southcentral Alaska, where Anchorage is located -- has large deposits of natural gas, which is widely used for heating and cooking and such. Interior Alaska, however, doesn't have that. One of our big political issues the last few years has been trying to get a natural gas pipeline built, to reduce our heating costs. The main fuel sources that we use are a) heating oil (which is HORRIBLY expensive for the amount of it that you need to get through the winters here), b) wood, and c) coal. The last two options are much, MUCH cheaper, but produce terrible amounts of pollution. The air quality in Fairbanks is horrendous in the winter -- like, actually life-threatening for people with asthma and other lung ailments. But the flip side is that a lot of people can't afford to heat their homes with anything other than solid fuel which creates a lot of pollution. My own household has a coal furnace, and we've been looking into other options (to make it burn cleaner, or just to replace it with something else entirely), because I hate contributing to the problem, but whatever we do is going to take a lot of money!
Those who are lucky enough to live near the power plant have another option -- steam! My cousin's house, which is downtown, uses steam heat through underground pipes from the power plant, and it's very cheap compared to just about anything else.
8. Yes, it is, although it's actually less expensive than you might expect considering how far everything has to come to get here. It's interesting, because in some ways it's hugely noticeable, and in other ways, it's mostly just like elsewhere. Restaurants and hotels, for example, are really expensive compared to other places in the US. (You really can't get a cheap restaurant meal here; even the diner-type restaurants are expensive.) But groceries are really not that much more expensive than anywhere in the US, except for certain things like milk and fruit. Our gasoline prices are comparable to elsewhere (and still way cheaper than Europe). Our heating prices are high, but probably wouldn't be nearly so bad if the winters weren't so severe; it's more a function of weather than remoteness. (Well, and the US is generally pretty stupid about infrastructure, so we COULD have cheaper heat if the government would invest more in alternative energy sources and pipelines and whatnot.) Big items like cars and appliances basically cost what they do anywhere else. But houses are very expensive because almost all the available houses are new construction and there is a tremendous amount of climate-related wear and tear on older houses; it takes a lot of effort and maintenance to keep a house in good shape here. And so forth.
Overall, it does tend to cost more to live here, but it's disproportionately concentrated in some areas more than others. When I first got out of college and was living in an apartment and not eating out much, I doubt if I was spending more than anyone living anywhere else. Now that I'm a homeowner and trying to run a home business, there is a lot more of a financial burden just for living here than when I was younger.
And ... I think that's it! Writing these was fun, though I do feel like I rambled a bit! I hope this adequately answered your questions. And I'd be happy to clarify any of this, or answer any more questions that you have. :D
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1. Actually, our unemployment is lower than the national average. The thing about Fairbanks is that it's the second-largest city (I use the term "city" very loosely here :D) in Alaska, and the only large town of any sort north of Anchorage. So, if you look at us on a map ... we are a hub for all the industries in interior Alaska. Fairbanks is a major supply depot for smaller towns within a radius of a few hundred miles east/north/west of here, and it's the main staging center for all the industrial stuff that goes on in the interior of the state, which includes gold mining, tourism, hunting/fishing, medical services, and stuff like that. There are also two military bases and a university. As well as having pretty low unemployment, we tend not to be as affected by the ups and downs of the economy as other places, because most of our industries aren't particularly volatile. People will always need food and supplies and hospitals, for example.
2. Yes, we do. There's a theatre in town that belongs to a major chain (Century) and we get the big blockbuster movies at the same time that everyone else does. It's the smaller art-house movies that are less likely to appear here. There is a little local theatre/bar that shows indy and artsy movies (the Blue Loon - and because it's also a bar, you can drink while watching the movie!) but they only screen one movie a week.
3. Yep, we have fast Internet for decent prices. It's not quite as blazingly fast as a lot of big cities have (I was so jealous when I was visiting a friend in Seattle and discovered that you can download a whole TV show in about 8 minutes!) but my household does have one of the cheaper packages, so I'm not sure how fast it gets -- but it's still DSL, plenty fast enough for Youtube and Netflix and downloading shows and whatnot. I'm a few miles out of town, on the highway, and we've had DSL ever since I've lived here (since 2004). We rarely have downtime. About a decade ago, it was possible for the Internet to the entire state to be accidentally cut off because there was one cable (!!!) connecting Alaska to the rest of the world (well, actually three cables, but they all ran along the same highway, and it was severed by heavy equipment one time, cutting off Alaska's internet for about a day -- which is how I know!), but I expect there's a lot more redundancy now.
A random comment along those lines: our power is locally generated -- we have our own power plant -- and it used to be extremely unstable; back in the '90s, even in the middle of town, there would be power outages, at least brown-outs, every couple of weeks. At my old office job, we just got used to it: all the lights would go out, and we'd roll our eyes and go hang out for half an hour or so, until the power was fixed. Well, that doesn't happen anymore, because THE TOWN HAS A BATTERY BACKUP NOW. There is a ginormous warehouse full of enough batteries to power the whole town for up to 20 minutes (I've been told), and it smooths out those glitches, so that you don't get constant power outages like you used to. Even living out of town, we only rarely experience outages, and that's only when something fairly major happens, like the lines going down or a transformer blowing up or whatever.
4. There really isn't a whole lot. In some ways, Fairbanks feels like a much bigger town than it is, because we are so self-sufficient in terms of what kinds of business and resources are available (we have to be!). But our night life is very, very small-town. When I was in college, we spent a lot of time hanging out late at night at Denny's (a chain restaurant that's open 24 hours) because it was the only place in town to go at 1 a.m. Restaurants, bars or the movies ... those are basically your options. Or Barnes & Noble (local chain bookstore; it's open 'til 11 and serves coffee and food), which has become one of the popular evening hang-out places for people who aren't bar-going people. And of course there are sports -- there are outdoor activities galore, if you're into things like skiing or jogging or playing organized amateur sports (some of my women friends do roller derby).
It's similar to most small towns, though, in that there isn't really a "going out clubbing at night" kind of mentality. People who live here are typically self-selected for people who are more into the outdoor activities, or quietly reading at home. But yeah, drug use and alcoholism are sky-high here.
5. Mail can be pretty slow -- and expensive! In the US, there is a flat rate for letters, but package prices are determined based on "zones", and the farther away an address is, the more expensive it is. For us in Alaska, everywhere else in the USA is Zone 9, the most expensive one. There is a "cheap" mail rate (parcel post), which in the rest of the USA takes anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to arrive, but can take MONTHS to get to (or from) Alaska. So, basically, if you are willing to pay for it, you can have packages shipped pretty quickly (still not as quick as in the rest of the US, though -- it usually takes the maximum amount of estimated time to get here), but cheap shipping is very slowwwwwwww, and some companies will not even ship to Alaska at all. (There have been times I've had to get stuff shipped to relatives in the lower 48 states, rather than to me, because the company I was trying to order from just would not do it!)
And that's where you run into the real downside of living here -- we are SO FAR from everywhere else, and there is something of a bottleneck because there are so few roads and other supply lines that go here. It makes everything a little more expensive and take a little longer to get here.
6. Yes, you can basically get any kind of regular food product that you can buy elsewhere. Aside from those minor shipping interruptions (which really are minor, in the grand scheme of things, and rarely last more than a few days) the stores are just as well-stocked as anywhere. Things aren't quite as fresh, and are a little more expensive, but otherwise are available just as anywhere.
7. Ahahaha, oh man, THIS is not a question with a simple answer. :D Actually, this is one of the big issues facing the state right now, especially our part of it.
The part of Alaska that I grew up in -- Southcentral Alaska, where Anchorage is located -- has large deposits of natural gas, which is widely used for heating and cooking and such. Interior Alaska, however, doesn't have that. One of our big political issues the last few years has been trying to get a natural gas pipeline built, to reduce our heating costs. The main fuel sources that we use are a) heating oil (which is HORRIBLY expensive for the amount of it that you need to get through the winters here), b) wood, and c) coal. The last two options are much, MUCH cheaper, but produce terrible amounts of pollution. The air quality in Fairbanks is horrendous in the winter -- like, actually life-threatening for people with asthma and other lung ailments. But the flip side is that a lot of people can't afford to heat their homes with anything other than solid fuel which creates a lot of pollution. My own household has a coal furnace, and we've been looking into other options (to make it burn cleaner, or just to replace it with something else entirely), because I hate contributing to the problem, but whatever we do is going to take a lot of money!
Those who are lucky enough to live near the power plant have another option -- steam! My cousin's house, which is downtown, uses steam heat through underground pipes from the power plant, and it's very cheap compared to just about anything else.
8. Yes, it is, although it's actually less expensive than you might expect considering how far everything has to come to get here. It's interesting, because in some ways it's hugely noticeable, and in other ways, it's mostly just like elsewhere. Restaurants and hotels, for example, are really expensive compared to other places in the US. (You really can't get a cheap restaurant meal here; even the diner-type restaurants are expensive.) But groceries are really not that much more expensive than anywhere in the US, except for certain things like milk and fruit. Our gasoline prices are comparable to elsewhere (and still way cheaper than Europe). Our heating prices are high, but probably wouldn't be nearly so bad if the winters weren't so severe; it's more a function of weather than remoteness. (Well, and the US is generally pretty stupid about infrastructure, so we COULD have cheaper heat if the government would invest more in alternative energy sources and pipelines and whatnot.) Big items like cars and appliances basically cost what they do anywhere else. But houses are very expensive because almost all the available houses are new construction and there is a tremendous amount of climate-related wear and tear on older houses; it takes a lot of effort and maintenance to keep a house in good shape here. And so forth.
Overall, it does tend to cost more to live here, but it's disproportionately concentrated in some areas more than others. When I first got out of college and was living in an apartment and not eating out much, I doubt if I was spending more than anyone living anywhere else. Now that I'm a homeowner and trying to run a home business, there is a lot more of a financial burden just for living here than when I was younger.
And ... I think that's it! Writing these was fun, though I do feel like I rambled a bit! I hope this adequately answered your questions. And I'd be happy to clarify any of this, or answer any more questions that you have. :D