Travel to live in Changsha

For the cheap place, it is suggested to live near a univerisity. It is convenient for you to learn mandarin, too.
I hope all your dreams can come true in the end and have a nice travel to the city.

Thank you very much Nancy; your response is very helpful and I appreciate your sincerity. I will begin looking at rentals and jobs near those areas. I am thinking of teaching English Part-time as I did when I lived in Japan for 3 1/2 years. Would those same areas be good for English teaching opportunities? or even English for Mandarin exchange to help me with my language and cultural skills? Would part-time teaching be adequate to chage the visa from tourist/visitor to work?

Yes, it is easy.
I think you can go to Hunan University to look for som information. This university provide mandarin training classes and Chinese culture classes. While learning, I think you can ask the teachers there to help you to find some opportunites to teach English.
It is very easy for you to find a job to teach English in this city, so do not worry about it.

You give me much more confidence and I am gaining in my excitement to travel to Changsha. I have much to do before I can depart; but, I will be busy researching and I'll let you know what I find and how I'm doing.
Thanks for the great pointers.

John