Western metro with most “bang for your buck” (rates, crime, compare)

[sub]

If Denver isn’t west, then Denver doesn’t really exist.
I’d say maybe Albuquerque for the thread. Bang for buck has to include some semblance of genuine affordability. Phoenix might have been at one time, but not anymore.

[nadnerb]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

Doesn't Albuquerque offer significantly less 'bang' compared to the other cities on the list?

Yeah Albuquerque is too small for this list. If it is included, then Tucson, El Paso, and Colorado Springs should also be included.

[Guineas]

I would say Portland suburbs.

[Gfitz1010]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

Austin is "western?"

I dispute Denver being in the west.


Phoenix and Vegas easily.

I think Austin has Western attributes but Idk if I’d consider it a Western city

That’s a new one. What would you consider Denver to be?

[dontbelievehim]

Funny seeing overpriced Austin and sacramento getting so much attention in here. Nothing in Austin is cheap. Sacramento still has cheap housing, but only in the ghetto parts. Anything decent in Sacramento will cost you.

The real answer is El Paso. You can buy two houses in El Paso for 1 decent Sacramento house.

[Losfrisco]

Originally Posted by Gfitz1010

I think Austin has Western attributes but Idk if I’d consider it a Western city

That’s a new one. What would you consider Denver to be?

If Denver is "in the west" then Kansas City is in the east.


Can't think of single western attribute of Austin, but I'm sure they prefer that designation to south Central U.S., Texas Triangle, etc.

[nadnerb]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

If Denver is "in the west" then Kansas City is in the east.

Don't think anyone will argue against the idea that Denver is in the west and Kansas City is in the east.

If you're driving from Kansas City to Denver along I-70, there is a point (around the 100th Meridian West) where the landscape goes from lush and verdant to arid and brown. This arid-humid boundary seems like the obvious dividing line between east and west.

[TheMarino]

I never hear anybody say Sacramento is expensive

[mrn0wh3re]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

Austin is "western?"

I dispute Denver being in the west.


Phoenix and Vegas easily.

What does Western mean? Technically everything on the western side of the Mississippi River is the West, and in American history Ohio and Illinois and Michigan were the Old West, being the the NW territories of the original 13 colonies after independence. It doesn’t make any sense to say that the West is synonymous with the Wild West and cowboys, just like the Northeast isn’t all mobsters in NYC and Boston and the South isn’t all plantations and cotillions or Tennessee Williams characters in New Orleans. LA and Silicon Valley are definitely some kind of Western, though a different kind of Western than cowboys in Arizona or Vegas casinos or Wyoming plains. Austin is named after the archetypical Western settler, the site was scouted on a Buffalo hunting expedition and was chosen because it was situated part ways between Santa Fe and the port at Galveston, seems pretty Western to me. Yes, it’s filled with transplants but so is New York City, is it now part of Middle America?

And Denver is a gold rush town in the Rockies, it’s not Tombstone but it’s very much “the West” just like SF is.

Vegas was established by Jewish and Italian New Yorkers in the 50s and nobody there is from Nevada, so I can’t even imagine how it could be more Western in your eyes than Denver.

[mrn0wh3re]

Originally Posted by TheMarino

I never hear anybody say Sacramento is expensive

It’s cheap compared to other big CA cities, a house in Elk Grove is 1/4 to 1/3 of a comparable house in Palo Alto, but a regular house in Palo Alto is like $3 million dollars, so it’s still insane compared to everywhere else in America.