I'm with Robyn...
Even though I bi^c# about the snow, I love New England. I love the seasons and the nightlife and the fact I can be in the great state of Maine in under one hour:D
If I had to leave, I would head to New Mexico and live with Corsair. The sceanery (?sp), the weather, and the taco's would suit me just fine!!
karen
I don't like Coors Beer either
I'm glad you've marked Houston off your list. I'm 25 and lived there all my life until Febuary of 2005. My hubby and I moved to Oklahoma City as he is from here and all his family is still here. Most of the key qualities you mention are the same that we had. I really love it here. We moved to a town right outside OKC called Mustang. I can ride from the house on mostly quiet country roads. OKC is big enough to have all the things I like but not huge like Houston was. Aiport is 20 minutes away. Cost of living is cheap. Well there's my plug for my city....
http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/index.html#search
CNN and Money Magazine did a cool project on places to live. Lots of data here.
Just a brief review of Median Home Prices:
Benicia - $433,395
Boulder - $366,051
San Diego - $480,801
Boise - $162,804
Las Cruces - $144,946
Spokane - $118,287
This isn't to say that outlying communities don't have better prices.
Here is some info about air quality and city ratings. http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/28/air.pollution/
This article is from 2004 so things may have changed slightly - probably not for the better though.
PORTLAND!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lenusik
1) Yup, lots of high tech here. Intel, Xerox, HP. Nike World Headquarters, Tektronix, on & on. (Should I mention TE World Headquaters too? :) )
2) Yeah, it rains in the winter. But the rain is what makes it so GREEN! And we almost never have snow (insulating cloud layer, ya know) so we ride all year long. Summers? The best I've ever experienced. Months of warm, low humidity sunshine with almost zero rain. Temps in the 70s and 80s mostly. Can't remember the last time I got bitten by a mosquito. Cool evenings. Many homes have no A/C (like mine) and only miss it maybe 1 week per year.
3) Yeah, baby. Portland is a GOLD level city rated by the League of American Bicyclists. We have some of the highest rates of bike commuting in the country. Traffic speeds in town are very low (lights are designed to keep down town traffic moving at 12-15 mph, so bikes can take the lane and keep up) and bike lanes are everywhere. The wheelman and several bike shops in town do regular lunch time rides. The weekends, especially in warm weather are packed with organized rides, and if you want to race? I think we had more than 300 days of racing on the calendar statewide in 2005, centered on Portland. Portland has an urban growth boundary, so there's much less sprawl that in many communities. You can tell where it is, because suddenly development STOPS and you're out among the farms. The terrain is very varied and on weekends you see cyclists EVERYWHERE.
4) I'm childless myself, but the schools are OK. Funding tends to ebb and flow more dramatically here than in other states because we don't have a sales tax. Our income & property taxes fund everything. Without the stability of sales taxes, state revenues fluctuate more. There are some good private schools here too.
5) No problems here. On very rare occasions, we get a "air stagnation" alert when the weather stalls, but rarely. A month or so ago, we made the national news because our air quality was on par with Kyoto Protocal standards.
6) Yup, we've got that too. Portland has an amazing restaurant scene, a surprisingly good music scene - oodles of clubs with live music in every genre imaginable - and a low crime rate. Yeah, we have our issues like every city, but I've never felt unsafe here. I saw on the news last night that we had 26 shooting deaths last year, 3 of which were by the police. I'm a NY native, so this sounds really low to me. :)
7) PDX. The easiest airport to navigate I've ever been in. Then again, anything is better than Newark...
8) Don't play myself, but I've seen courts around.
I've lived here 8 1/2 years and I don't think I'd live anywhere else. Yeah, sometimes the rain gets ya down, but that's why you take vacations to warm & sunny places. I'll never go back to the East Coast.
Susan
Just rediscovered some long lost old friends who moved to Camas, WA across the river from Portland. Been there a year or so and they absolutely love it. Big cyclists. Couple of kids. Hubby still races and is now head of the Nautilus Institute.
SK
Amazing who you can dig up when you actually send out holiday cards.:rolleyes:
We do a GREAT ride that starts out on the East Side of Portland, crosses the Columbia River, heads west on the Washington side though Camas, crosses back over the Columbia in Cascade Locks, and heads back to Portland. 80-ish miles, amazing views, mostly lower traffic roads. We call it the Bridge of the Gods ride.
I'm not sure what employment there is in Camas other than the paper mill, but it's very close to Vancouver, WA. and in the middle of some excellent riding.
Lenusik - you and your hubby should ride Cycle Oregon http://www.cycleoregon.com/ It really showcases the state well, and you can fly into PDX and explore the area before and after.
Susan
Portland is on my short list of places I might want to retire to. :D
I can't answer your question, but I sure feel the pain. I moved to charlotte, nc a little over a year ago. It is something like the 20th largest city in the country. However, falafel and hummus? I've found ONE place. Organic? a little. A very little. Sushi? even less. Entertainment? growing but still weak. I miss Philly and Manhattan:(Quote:
Originally Posted by cindysue
I love the Carolinas idea and also hear that Boise is great. Thank you for all your help. Will appreciate more suggestions. :D
As a Midwestern transplant (raised in Duluth, Minn. and school in Chicago), I'm baffled by your husband's desire to leave Phoenix. The beauty of living here is that you'll never be cold again! :) But lately the pollution has really bothered me, too, and I can understand why you want to move.
I'd consider Raleigh, N.C. I was looking at a job there a while ago and the city was really attractive to me. Incredibly educated population (think the research triangle) and very active community (lots of bike trails). North Carolina has gorgeous topography, plenty of hills and real seasons!
I second Corsair's New Mexico suggestion. I keep thinking I'm going to move to Colorado, but I love New Mexico weather. We have mountains and desert, a river...lakes if you move to some other areas of the state. We have a booming IT market (Intel, Sandia Labs, Los Alamos Labs, Phillips, etc).
I put on my 2006 goals list to join Corsair's ladies ride, so you'd have two people to ride with. Although, I don't road bike, but Corsair is a maniac road biker.
$200000 will get you a swank house in ABQ. I paid $80,000 for mine and I have half an acre!
Crime's a bit of an issue, but all growing towns have problems.
I guess you'd just have to look at my name tag to see how I feel about Austin!;)
I lived in Scottsdale for two years (just moved here eighteen months ago) and besides my friends, and the daily hiking I did on Camelback or The Peak, can't say I miss much of anything else! You should see that brown cloud from the top of those mountains... it is enough to make you wonder how much damage you've just done to your body. Must have done something to the brain too as I kept returning each day for more!
There are so many nice places to live, your decision won't be an easy one. I've also enjoyed living in Boulder, Pleasanton & Diablo (near San Jose and SF) and Minneapolis. I wasn't much of a rider until I moved to Austin, so I can't really compare them to this environment, but the riding is great here, especially if you like a little bit of a hill challenge in your route.
Good luck and have fun researching!
Hey CindySue:
Pretty far from Fernie unfortunately, about 10 hours drive if not more. You must be flying to Calgary, right?
I don't ski much but it's supposed to be wonderful up there. Don't miss Kicking Horse, too.
And if you drive down to Vancouver let me know I'll find you a bike!
Yikes! Cross off Denver, but don't nix Colorado. I live in Boulder and lovelovelove riding along the front range of the Rockies. The air quality up here is great -- used to have year-round allergies back in Connecticut, including asthma, and that's all GONE. While real estate prices in Boulder are $$$$$, go a bit north and it's reasonable -- Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins -- and you have amazing cycling, reasonable winters (we're having 65 degrees and sunny today; past two weeks have been in the 50s and sunny, while the mountains are getting socked with snow less than an hour away!) My brother's desperately trying to move his young family here, partly because of my transformation in the 2 and a half years that I've been here. I can't imagine living anywhere else. (I write this while sipping coffee and gazing at the snow-covered foothills of the rockies. sigh)
The cycling really rocks here. Just amazing -- except when I get passed by professional cyclists like Tyler Hamilton who train here (for good reason) on the off-season. A little humbling.
Good luck in your search!