Well, I've honestly not been to Carmel much before. I live on the southside of Indianapolis so it's a bit of a drive to get up there. It's considered kind of a "high-class" area if that's what you want to call it. High incomes and high property values are the norm.
From the Carmel wiki:
According to a 2010 estimate, the median household income in the city was $120,988.[3] Males had a median income of $93,340 versus $62,943 for females. The per capita income for the city was $85,320. About 1.6% of families and 2.5% of the population were below
the poverty line, including 2.5% of those under age 18 and 2.2% of those age 65 or over. The average listing price of a house in 2012 was $304,340.
Indy as a whole is a great city though. It's just the right size and the cost of living is very reasonable. Between sporting events, concerts and other social events there's plenty of stuff to do, and it's pretty clean and safe in my opinion. Things are spread out though, so don't expect to be able to walk everywhere.
No, I don't own a snowblower although that might change after the winter we just had.
h:
My driveway is like 12 car lengths too so it's a PITA to shovel. We probably don't get nearly the amount of snowfall as the Buffalo area on average though.