City Livability Comparisons

The location is really nice, if you look at what you have around you. Comforts of a big city, youre on the coast, napa at a distance, skiing isnt far away, being able to hike and be close to the wilderness.The only drawback is cost. But I envy all of those possibilities compared to Miami, where all you have is a big city and sea, maybe watersports but precious little of everything else... and Miami is still not that far behind in terms of cost of living.

>We’d likely both be happier in a town, living just off some Main Street with 20 or so shops. The city is great but honestly I don’t need more than a good diner, a supermarket, and a friendly bar. Nice to haves are a pleasant climate (not too cold), an airport within an hour or so, and decent public schools.Study. You can type "Las Cruces NM climate" into Google and get a free graph. You know your interests better than any of us, and you can look at local event listings, restaura

Certainly the Bay Area and quite a few other places on the West Coast (depending on your tolerance for clouds) are, to my taste, pretty attractive places beyond job prospects in certain industries. But NYC, Boston, Austin--add your other fairly popular cities in the US, much less Toronto in Canada--and cold/snowy winters or hot/humid summers haven't led to especially cheap housing.

Pros: incredible food, so much to do within a day’s drive, epicenter of tech and jobs a plenty, stable decent weather year round, steep hills that force you into shape, unique interesting people on the streets (not homeless, talking like people singing to themselves or dressed up in costumes)Cons: expensive, city bureaucracy, rampant nimbyismI love it. Now I got a family and may move to get some more space / be closer to family. But not an easy decision even after 10 yrs here.

He doesn't need to go all the way to the Midwest. Seattle and Portland are much closer and have plenty of cheap living arrangements. He might be in a far-flung suburb with an unfashionable address, or live in an area considered "dangerous" by locals (the "bad" parts of Seattle and Portland are nothing compared to those in Chicago and Detroit), but it beats sitting around in Yakima with no prospects.

They aren't more expensive. But besides real-estate, they are practical. You don't need a car; and an affordable 24H 7/11 is always downstairs. Also you can stay at the cheapest neighborhood and don't get stabbed; can't guarantee the same in NYC/LA/SF.

Granted, I've only passed through, but there were no homeless people shooting drugs in the middle of downtown, it was clean, apparently schools are quite good, and being in a middle of the country you can get to some more exciting places easily enough.When somebody was trying to recruit me there, looking at the offering range and housing prices, I could fly myself to the French Laundry pretty regularly, and still come out ahead.

Where do you get that idea from? Everywhere outside of major tech hubs the cost of living is significantly less and "quality of life" is actually better. I moved to Cleveland and yes there's less "trendy" things like restaurants but there's so many parks and places to go and activities and casual events

The housing is cheaper currently, the food is/can be cheaper. More transportation options exist. Taxes are mostly the same. Activities within city limits are much more numerous, varied, and unique than SF or any city in the bay area. The greater area having attractions too.

Boston was a very, very close second place.My feeling was that I could get out into the cheap countryside much easier in Austin, the cost of housing was generally much, much cheaper, and the traffic, bad as it was, wasn't up to par with the Boston area.I'd love to hear reasons why I missed something.