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Hi, My partner and I are struggling to find a smallish town where we can relocate, that meets our needs.
We are looking for the following:
Welcoming/ Liberal Community
UU Fellowship
Blue state with NO open carry laws
Natural beauty (prefer near ocean or mountains)
Good school system
Not super cold or super hot (I have a history of skin cancer and my partner doesn't like the cold)
Good restaurants, some culture
If you can get past the Blue State requirement and consider a liberal region of a Red State I think Columbia SC could be a good option for you. Columbia is a well-educated, progressive small city (134K) that besides the state capital is the home of the University of South Carolina. It's a very welcoming city from my experience and pretty LGBT-friendly as well. It's a pretty area of the state with a good amount of tree cover about two hours from the mountains or the beaches. The Richland School District 2 in NE Columbia is one of the best school districts in the state. Columbia also has one of the three UU congregations in SC. Weather-wise it's fairly mild in terms of winters and has a warm summer (like most anywhere in the US) but isn't overtly long beyond June-July-August. Columbia excels culturally thanks to USC and a progressive population that supports it. Restaurants are pretty good generally speaking and getting better as Columbia's downtown districts continue to evolve and currently are in a bit of boom mode. SC also prohibits open carry and is one of a handful that does.
Hi, My partner and I are struggling to find a smallish town where we can relocate, that meets our needs.
We are looking for the following:
Welcoming/ Liberal Community
UU Fellowship
Blue state with NO open carry laws
Natural beauty (prefer near ocean or mountains)
Good school system
Not super cold or super hot (I have a history of skin cancer and my partner doesn't like the cold)
Good restaurants, some culture
Would love some ideas. Thank you for your input!
Well, that's quite a list! You may have to decide which are dealbreakers. It's hard to find good restaurants and some culture in smallish towns. What's your size preference? Boulder, CO would meet some of your criteria, but it's around 100,000 and is basically a "satellite city" of Denver.
Ha, yeah, it’s a tough list. I think there are several places that qualify if we could do a colder climate but my partner really doesn’t want that. We really don’t want the Deep South, but do love Asheville... probably better as a vacation spot for us. I like the idea of Boulder and Colorado in general except maybe that there is more of a gun culture there?? Will look into it. Thanks for the input!
Welcoming/ Liberal Community
UU Fellowship
Not super cold or super hot (I have a history of skin cancer and my partner doesn't like the cold)
Good restaurants, some culture
CO, and especially Boulder, fails in these regards. It might be seen as liberal, but it's not very welcoming. You have to fit in with the typical person to be really welcomed. Probably no UU churches(?) there. It gets both very cold (subzero) and fairly hot (upper 80s and 90s), and is typically cold Nov-March. You're at high elevation, and skin cancer rings true, as I found out yesterday that I have skin cancer, and live near Boulder). Restaurants are decent, but nothing to write home about. Limited culture. Again, there's basically one or two archetypal people-types in Boulder.
Ha, yeah, it’s a tough list. I think there are several places that qualify if we could do a colder climate but my partner really doesn’t want that. We really don’t want the Deep South, but do love Asheville... probably better as a vacation spot for us. I like the idea of Boulder and Colorado in general except maybe that there is more of a gun culture there?? Will look into it. Thanks for the input!
Hot in summer, but summer is fairly short, basically June, July and August. Early June can still be cool, and by the second half of August it starts getting cooler at night. Very sunny if that's an issue with the skin cancer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thoreau424
CO, and especially Boulder, fails in these regards. It might be seen as liberal, but it's not very welcoming. You have to fit in with the typical person to be really welcomed. Probably no UU churches(?) there. It gets both very cold (subzero) and fairly hot (upper 80s and 90s), and is typically cold Nov-March. You're at high elevation, and skin cancer rings true, as I found out yesterday that I have skin cancer, and live near Boulder). Restaurants are decent, but nothing to write home about. Limited culture. Again, there's basically one or two archetypal people-types in Boulder.
C'mon Thoreau, we know you hate CO. That doesn't mean everyone will.
Ha, yeah, it’s a tough list. I think there are several places that qualify if we could do a colder climate but my partner really doesn’t want that. We really don’t want the Deep South, but do love Asheville... probably better as a vacation spot for us. I like the idea of Boulder and Colorado in general except maybe that there is more of a gun culture there?? Will look into it. Thanks for the input!
Boulder gets quite cold in the winter so not sure how that's going to work out for you given the health concerns and it's an open carry state outside of Denver, not to mention it's not the most liberal bastion outside of either Denver or Boulder. Four states (NY, IL, SC and Florida) and DC outright prohibit open carry so if you can't get your head around the many progressive spots in the "Deep South", that leaves NY or IL which aren't exactly known for mild winters. Is there some kind of stigma attached to a Southern location that actually fits your criteria which supersedes that, and makes you consider instead someplace else that fails a couple to a few of your main criteria?
Ha, yeah, it’s a tough list. I think there are several places that qualify if we could do a colder climate but my partner really doesn’t want that. We really don’t want the Deep South, but do love Asheville... probably better as a vacation spot for us. I like the idea of Boulder and Colorado in general except maybe that there is more of a gun culture there?? Will look into it. Thanks for the input!
As someone who's lived in FL, Western NC, Front Range and Western CO, and now Western WA- I'd say that hands down, your list has the Pacific NW all over it, from progressive culture to scenery to mild weather.
What size town do you think fits you best? You mentioned liking Asheville (as do I), and seem to be interested in Boulder... If that's the case, I'd also consider Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Missoula, Bend, and especially Eugene, Corvallis, Olympia, and Bellingham, WA.
Keep in mind, the higher elevation and desert cities get huge temperature fluctuations, and averages don't really tell the story of the extreme heat and cold that you'll encounter. Front Range weather, for example, is exciting and unpredictable, but mild may be a stretch, relatively. It may melt quickly but 80 inches of snow per winter and a few sub zero bouts or 90's/100's spells is still a bit extreme... Here in Bellingham, for example, we generally don't have any days above 90 in the summer or below 20 in the winter. And we're 20 miles south of the Canadian Border.
Regarding open carry, I wouldn't let that guide your decision, as Western states are a bit of a different animal when it comes to gun laws. For example, Oregon, Colorado and Washington have somewhat libertarian gun laws, but generally much less of a gun culture than other states nearby and (especially OR and WA) have much more progressive overall attitude than most states in the country. Again, the political divide- like the rest of the country- is along urban and rural lines. Keep in mind that all Western states all have rugged terrain, isolated towns, wide open spaces, and active industries like ranching and hunting. But it doesn't permeate into urban places.
Ultimately, any of the suggestions so far are reasonable places to live, but I do feel that progressive anomalies like Asheville or even Columbia are still somewhat affected the overall culture of the region and you're sometimes subject to state legislation, which in the South currently seems in a race to double down on conservative ideology. That may grow old over time, IMHO.
Again, I'd seriously consider the NW. People are very laid back, the major cities in the region (Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver) are all interesting and worth visiting regularly, the people are generally well-educated, and the weather is mild. The biggest negative may be that housing is expensive, but in the smaller cities I've mentioned the prices are more in line with the other cities their size around the country.
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