| Ipswich is a small town on the east coast of England, about 60 miles north east of London. It has good rail links to Norwich, Cambridge and London, but is rather distant from anywhere else.
People in Ipswich tend to be a bit parochial, but it is generally a law abiding and quiet town, with good schools. A nice place to live your life and bring up children, but not a metropolis. Entertainment facilities are available in the form of two modern cinemas, an arts cinema, several night clubs (which are a bit tacky) lots of good pubs (the Lord Nelson and the Fat Cat are good) and two theatres- one of has pantomimes and popular shows (revival tours and that sort of thing) and the other has posh plays - but this is currently shut due to the indiffernece of the towns people to high theatre
The local countryside is pretty, but flat. There are some nice little seaside towns nearby, and some nice country towns too for sight seeing.
Ipswich used to rely on heavy industry for its economy, but the closure of the local plants scarred the town badly - possibly leading to the bitterness of the last writer. Nowadays the town is trying to go hi-tech (isn't everywhere). However Ipswich does have some advantages. BT has run a major research centre at Martlesham Heath about 5 miles from Ipswich for thiry years, and this provides a large pool of trained, underpaided, hi-tech labour. BT has renamed the site Adastral Park, and is now trying to attract other companies to the site. Also the problems that Cambridge is having finding accomodation for new companies mitigates for Ipswich. Aligent Technologies (formally HP) also has a large facility in Ipswich which it has announced it will expand in the near future.
Property is cheap at the time of writing (10/2000). A small terraced house will cost less than £70,000, a large detached house costs £140,000 rising to £500,000 for a huge one with paddocks and stables for horses. This compares to £200,000 for a small house in london, or £140,000 for a small house in Cambridge. | 
