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Hidden Gems..I love it!! Thats what I would love to find..a city I never thought of..Super cute dogs BTW!! but Im sure you know that
Thanks NanciLou! Here's to us finding our hidden gem!
I've researched Portland, Maine & Oregon, Asheville, NC, Greenville, SC, TN, Virginia Beach, Pittsburgh, PA and many, many other places. I've been been most places, but never long enough to get a feel for what it would be like living in those places.
Sometimes I feel like just picking a place and moving to it!
I am around your age and researched a lot about different places to live. I have lived in FL, CA, MI, NJ. I always lived in suburbs though because living in a big city is not my cup of tea yet I don't like living in a small town. I did research and went for a trip to check out NC. I wish before I moved from CA I would of visited OR.
CA is my favorite place but the cost of living is very high. I am not familiar with Redding though. Someone mentioned Asheville and I did not visit there but when I was researching NC it was brought up as desirable to live. The climate overall is moderate though you do get some winter and summer. I don't mind rain but in OR that is an issue so some people have a hard time with that.
What state do you live in now and have you thought of moving to a smaller town but in the state you are in?
Do you know anyone in another state that you can go visit and check out the area?
Such decisions become exercises in suboptimization. The place with optimal public transportation will be neither quiet, inexpensive, low-crime or low-traffic. A place with great climate will be expensive and is likely to be socially-conservative. A smaller place with a slower pace of life would likely lack amenities or good public transportation. Places with lower taxes will have fewer amenities and will be more conservative. "Suboptimization" means assigning a weight to each of the principal factors, then guessing a score for that factor, and tallying up.
Going through the "find my spot" site, I ended up as my top match the "big" city closest to my present location – Cincinnati. Coincidence? More like anti-coincidence. Personally I have no affinity to the Midwest, and yet the site found numerous Midwestern locations for me. The upshot is that it's hard to quantify one's preferences into neatly-pat criteria.
Like the OP, I'm a single middle-aged person. Demographics matter! What's better for older retirees isn't necessarily good for younger people. What's good for families with kids likely isn't the best for child-free singles. What works for fresh college graduates might not work for people with 25 years of service, taking early-retirement on a defined-benefit pension.
It is unusual to be single and middle-aged, especially if you don't have kids. That skews the preferences towards socially-liberal, affluent, techy areas. It is better, I think, to be younger and less vigorous than one's neighbors, than the alternative.
As for the question about ethnicity… well, it might come across as being louche and obnoxious, but having lived for decades in staid and homogenous middle-America, I see value of access to "my" community. I'm a first-generation immigrant, and wherever I settle "permanently", it is absolutely essential to find a large and vibrant community that speaks my native language, offers groceries and restaurants and social functions pertaining to my native country/language, and good international flight connections.
. My main goals are: moderate cost of living, decent public transportation and a good or improving economy. .please tell me about more cities! Salt Lake? DEnver? some hidden gemm somehwere? Especially someplace warmer !! Is there a city somewhere with decent weather, decent public transportation and decent cost of living?
Austin, Sacramento, Charlotte and Raleigh are good choices. If you want smaller, warm with good economy and moderate living costs maybe check out Greenville SC, Chatanooga, Savannah, Asheville, Wilmington NC or any university town/state capital in the southeast like a Gainesville, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge or Knoxville.
SLC I always thought was a gem if you can tolerate the cold winters. Smaller towns out that way like Missoula, Ft Collins, Provo and Santa Fe worth a look..
Well I'm guessing she's white. As a mixed race family, the cultural/ethnic diversity of a town was really important to us when choosing a town and being the only mixed race family would have been a total turn off. This tends to be something most people from ethnic minorities are at least very aware of in a relocation decision. I think it's a very valid question. Perhaps it should have been worded differently, but in 2014 it definitely does matter to a lot of people.
Just a FYI--I am FAR from naive (nor a flake) I live in a major urban area, have traveled widely..just was looking for feedback on different areas..from people who have actually lived there-- I dont think it makes me "naive" that I don't want to narrow down an area--quite the contrary it makes me (which I am) open minded. I thank those who gave me some solid suggestions.
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