[rotwein]

We are a retired couple who are considering moving to either Escanaba or Marquette. Would like to know the good and bad about both places.

[futruper]

I can give you some general impressions that I have on the two areas. Escanaba will have a little milder winter (it's called the banana belt) than Marquette. You will most likely get more lake effect snow off Lake Superior than Lake Michigan because of the predominant direction of incomming storms.
Marquette has Northern Michigan University, maybe better shopping/restaurants, proximity to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Lake Superior, and a nice city park along the water. Escanaba has Little Bay De Noc (good fishing) and is located on US-2, a major East/West route up here.
I personally like Marquette because of Lake Superior, Pictured Rocks, Munising, etc. There are city comparison sites you can visit for different data on these two cities, as well as weather sites to compare average temperatures and snowfall totals. Both would be great areas to live. Best wishes!

[rotwein]

Thanks for the reply futruper. We have short subscriptions to both cities newspapers. Also we have been checking various web sites for about a month. We are going to drive up for a close looksee in the fall.