Help to choose a city to relocate (real estate, low crime)

[daniel82]

Hiya guys,
I was searching the internet and found this site, which seems really interesting and helpful for people like me looking forward to relocate to a city in the US.
Well, first off, I'll tell you a bit about myself. I'm a 31-year-old Cuban male who actually resides in Madrid, Spain. I have a law degree from the University of Havana (Cuba) and I'm quite fluent in English. As a winner of the US Diversity visa program I have the chance to live in the US under the category of a permanent resident. I am currently doing the paper stuff and hopefully by June I will be traveling to the US to start a new life over.
I was making a little research on which city would be a good fit for me, and though I have a few options in mind I would appreciate your help, you know you mostly find only good things about cities on the internet and it would be really helpful to have first-hand opinions from real people and not advertisement and real estate companies. So, what I'm interested in is finding a city with at least some or most of the following characteristics:
-population of about 300,000 people or more (the city itself)
-law crime rates
-four seasons climate with snow in the winter but not as cold as to make life miserable
-open green spaces and great opportunities for the outdoors (forests, lakes, rivers...nearby)
-liberal people
-proximity to Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal (I have family and friends in all those Canadian cities)
-relatively cheap house prices (country average or below)
-good job market
What would you guys recommend? Any insights will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

[ja1myn]

Upstate NY cities might work for you.

[montydean]

Syracuse is 3 hours away from both Toronto and Montreal. Is a liberal city with a very strong green movement (bicycle paths, many parks, etc..). Some may say the winters are bad, but I have lived all over the northeast and find them to be consistent with any other area (there is more snow though). City population is not 300k, but the central ny area is over a million. I find its a good mix of urban/suburban/rural. Housing is cheaper than other parts of the east coast, but taxes more than make up for it.

I've lived in NYC, LI, and NJ and I like Syracuse the best, so my opinion is somewhat biased.

Good luck to you.

[marothisu]

By proximity to Toronto, do you mean driving or flying?

If flying, then some areas not too far of a flight.. off the top of my head would be Minneapolis (although it gets pretty cold in the winter), Milwaukee, certain areas of Chicago, Madison (235,000 people but work checking out), maybe somewhere in upstate New York. If only driving then how long of a drive?

[ckhthankgod]

I think this has been asked before, but I agree with Upstate NY. If you could relax the population aspect, a small city like Ithaca would be a good fit.

I think the bigger cities in Upstate could work, but are still under the 300,000 population requirement. Each metro/region around these cities have over 1 million people though and are within a reasonable drive from each of those Canadian cities.

All of the areas mentioned have a strong college presence, which offers a more liberal vibe and there is a latino community in each of those areas as well, if that matters to you.

Crime rates can vary by neighborhood with any city mentioned and much of it is based on lifestyle. In terms of metro areas, the crime rates in relation to areas of the same/similar size are low. As for Syracuse, I would think that Downtown, Franklin Square or Westcott, along with other areas near Syracuse University would be neighborhoods you would be interested in. Westcott, I would say, would be a good fit due to being a neighborhood that is diverse, has a nice little business district with various restaurants, a couple of bars, a couple of coffee shops and a couple of parks close by. It is close to the University and has some nice homes close by.

Housing prices are under the national average, but you do have to look at property taxes. You can still come out paying less overall in that regard though.

You have plenty of parks in within and outside of the cities and mountains aren't too far away, to varying degrees.

As for jobs related to your experience, I would look at firms or related openings online in order to see if anything looks interesting.

[eschaton]

Pittsburgh would fit the bill in all ways. The driving commute from Pittsburgh to Toronto is around 5 hours, which isn't great, but the only larger cities which are closer are Cleveland (barely, as it's only 20 minutes shorter there) and Detroit, both of which are not doing as well as Pittsburgh economically. Pittsburgh meets your size requirements, is low crime, has wild areas nearby, and is very cheap (by national standards) to live in.

I dunno if you want to live in an area with an established Latino community, but Pittsburgh does sort of lack that, although there are a fair amount of middle class people from all sorts of Latin American countries scattered through the East End. Cleveland does have an established Latino community in some parts of the West Side, albeit it's lower income.

Upstate NY, as others have mentioned, might work. It's cheap, and progressive in the urban areas, but the biggest cities (buffalo and Rochester) are still under 300,000, and haven't been doing great economically either. I think Rochester would suit you more than Buffalo, given it's more of a white-collar town.