Advice: If you could pick any city/area to live...
Based on your experience/word of mouth: If you could pick any city/area in the US to live, where would you choose?
Cost of Living and warm/mild climate are important factors to me; however I'd like to hear all opinions.
I've traveled pretty extensively for work... I was born and raised in New York City, but have lived in San Francisco, LA, Miami, and Denver, as well as London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munich.... places that i really loved, an always thought that I would like to go back and live there again... were SF, Rome, and Hamburg, I don't know what it was, but I just really loved those cities and go back every chance I get... but that's just me...
Now you asked about cities here in the U.S. right? Well I mentioned SF, pretty nice weather, but also pretty expensive too... but I had a GREAT time there!
San Diego has really great weather... I really like it there... I actually almost moved there, but wound up in Denver... oh, and while I'm on the subject of CA... I really like Palm Springs... the weather is great year round... but it was a little "old" for my tastes...
I'm a big fan of South FLorida... We have places in Palm Beach and up in Port St. Lucie so we spend a lot of time down there... I really like Florida... they don't have a State Income Tax and I think the cost of living is pretty reasonable, you can get a LOT of house for your money down there now... the market I think has pretty much bottomed out... the only problem is that jobs don't seem to pay very well down there from what I hear...
Do you have any places in mind yet? I'll be interested to hear what other people here have to say....
I'm picky so I look for certain things so where I might recommend may not be where I'd live. I live in the DC area and love it but the cost of living is high. My requirements are a large cultural diversity and living somewhere that has multiple large cities within a 100 mile radius. Excessive heat and humidity is also unacceptable. We get a few bad days during the summer here but I couldn't live in Florida or most SE states south of where I live now. Few areas in the US fit my requirements.
Denver is pretty temperate. You may get snow but the next day, it is 60 degrees and the snow is melting.
I've heard good things about Austin but Texas isn't my thing. It should be a warm temperate with a fairly low cost of living.
Portland, OR and Seattle, WA are fairly temperate. I think the cost of living in Portland is fairly cheap. Being further north, they wouldn't be exactly a warm temperate though.
I like North Carolina but the further south you go in the SE US, the more heat and humidity you get. Asheville, NC is nice and is a more temperate location due to the mountains.
San Diego is definitely a warm temperate but cost of living in CA is definitely higher than other parts of the US.
Some place I have considered moving is Albuqurque, NM. It is warm, cheap and I like the area. It has similar issues as Denver for me though.
My husband and I are dying to get to San Diego. We love southern California but I hate L.A. (traffic! unbearable!) and San Diego has lots of biotech industry, which is what we're both being trained in so there should be good job opportunities for us. Bonus: his extended family is in the L.A. area, so they'll be close but not too close.
You can't beat the weather but the cost of living is very high!
Call me a homebody, but of all the cities I've been in, my favorite is my home city of Columbia, South Carolina. The city is beautiful and easy to navigate (it's almost impossible to truly get lost; it's laid out in a grid), our cost of living is pretty decent, and the night life is pretty happenin' if you're into night life, lol. Our summers are hot, but our winters are almost never THAT cold and we get snow MAYBE once or twice a year.
Well, if cost of living wasn't a factor, I would say name a big, happenin' city and it would be great.
A lot really depends on what stage of life you are in too. Young? Single? Married? With kids? And then what type of career, is it good for anywhere, or are you limited to certain areas by your expertise? And then would you feel OK as a liberal in a conservative area or vice versa?
There's so many things to consider when thinking about where to move/live.
I love where I live now. I live in Columbia, MD, but I'm 42 with two kids and a spouse who works for the gov't and has a PhD that specializes stuff that only places like DC and NYC area would work for us. For the area, it's reasonably priced and there's a lot to do. HOWEVER, that's all relative - the east is expensive and the salaries aren't that much higher to make the difference in cost of living. There's a lot for ME to do and the kids and it's close to DC, B'more and not too far from NYC, but if I were young and single? This would probably be snoreville.
So, you need to think about things... and maybe share a bit more about what you are looking for, your age and so on.
i've only ever lived in alaska....i highly recommend it
however if you're not into outdoors or wildlife on your back porch, this might not be the place you'd like
like someone said above, it helps to know if you're single, etc....for example, where i live in Juneau is a great place to enjoy the outdoors, job opportunities are pretty good and the schools are great...but if you are single and dont like the outdoors, maybe not so much...it's also a small city (40,000) and doesn't have much in terms of cultural diversity beyond the Native Alaska culture
it rains alot....so for someone who wants sunshine, not the place...on the other hand, temps stay between 30-60 degrees nearly year round...for us, 65 degrees is "warm"...we get snow but not too much which i love, coming from a northern place where i shoveled snow all winter, every day
so anyhow...just think about what you're looking for beyond climate and jobs...would hate to be the only liberal in a conservative town, like someone said
berryblonde asked some great questions, and I'll echo some of them:
-Is your job dependent on a specific area?
-Where are you in your life? Age range, single/married, kids/no kids?
-Is public transportation important to you?
-Is a thriving night life important to you?
-Do you want access to a lot of museums/art galleries/theatre?
-Are you more into nature vs city?
-liberal vs conservative?
I grew up in the south (LA) and wanted to try something very, very different while I'm young(ish) and unattached and have the freedom. So I packed up and moved outside of DC. It's a change, and while I'm having a good time overall, I plan on moving back to the south within the next three years or so.
I thought moving to a big city with a lot of people my age would be great, but because of my job I don't meet the people my age! Everyone here rushes and works and the women settle down much later in life. I'm 27, but I want marriage and kids and that lifestyle. I like the suburbs more than the city. I don't need a wild and crazy nightlife. I'm already over the bar scene. It's just not my thing.
So while the city offers a lot (I very much enjoy playing tourist and visiting museums), I know that I want to own a home and settle down....and the high cost of living here doesn't mesh with that lifestyle. Also, when I start having kids I'd like to be closer to family.
I live in Phoenix, so I've always dreamed of living somewhere cool and green and rainy (bascially completely opposite of here)! I picture Oregon and Washington to be wonderful places to live.
I went to school in Ohio for 2 semesters. I was not a fan, but I'm sure that had a lot to do with home sickness.
I visted Georgia once, and that was gorgeous! I imagine many parts of the South are nice and green and rainy too. From what my friends say, the cost of living in Georgia (not Atlanta btw) isn't bad. I'm not sure about the Northwest though. I've never looked into it seriously.
I've only ever been to one place in the US - New York. (Unless you count driving into New Jersey for a minute and crossing the boarder to Pennsylvania for an hour) I have fallen in love with the city. I know, I know. Probably just a typical tourist feeling there but I really did just love the atmosphere there. I want to live there at some point.
Last edited by Dreamer2012; 09-06-2012 at 06:20 PM.
Advice: If you could pick any city/area to live...
