I go to Union College in Schenectady, literally a stone's throw from Niskayuna. Niskayuna is a generally rather nice kind of suburban area...it's home to a lot of engineers and scientists who work at the GE R&D headquarters or the Knolls Atomic Power Lab, therefore the area is generally pretty nice. GE employed 45,000 people in Schenectady in 1945 and now employs 2,000, so the area has been suffering, but in the two years I've been at school it has definitely changed for the better. There is a good amount of development downtown, new higher-end restaurants and bars and so on. Parts of the area are still very run down and there are some particularly bad neighborhoods, but things are looking better. As far as I know life isn't particularly expensive in the area. Albany has some more life to it and it's not far away, either.
As for weather: Long, cold winters with a solid amount of snow. Fall starts early...it gets mighty cold at the end of October and doesn't seem to really snow until January. The snow stays on the ground until late March/early April and it slowly gets warmer until June, when it starts to actually feel like summer. Summer is hot and muggy, not dry like CO. If you're a skier, you're 1-3 hours from all of the best east coast skiing in Vermont, and directly connected to interstates that will get you to Boston and New York in 3 hours. Amtrak also stops in Schenectady and Albany. If you miss the mountains the Adirondack park is only a couple hours to the north. 😛
