Living in small cities near major cities

[Bill Loney]

Originally Posted by caphillsea77

Those are all nice little towns and upscale suburbs. With the exception of Olympia & Bellingham which would fit in to the criteria, in terms of what the OP seems to be looking for (comparative to the examples given) I would say Tacoma (45 min south) and Everett(45 min north) for Seattle.

I'm not following your line of reasoning.

For starters, Tacoma and Everett are both about the same distance from Seattle (30 miles, give or take). So traffic, which obviously can be bad will dictate drive times which can be as little as 30 minutes or over an hour easy.

Bellingham (80 miles) and Olympia (60) are certainly no further from Seattle than Sacramento(87 miles) is from SF as the OP gave as an example.

[nashvols]

Originally Posted by Phish Head

I look toward "alternative cities" as the best place for me to live. Basically, overlooked, less urban places to live that are within driving distance to major cities. If I really liked Chicago, I'd look to live in Milwaukee. If I really liked San Francisco (and I do), I'd want to live in Sacramento. To me, these places are far easier to live in on a day to day basis (cheaper, less traffic, less overall stressful living) but you can visit the major cities pretty easy and enjoy them, but then escape.

Kinda reverse to what has been historically popular (living in the city, escaping to the country).

Boston has Manchester NH, Portsmouth, NH and Worcester, MA; possibly Portland ME
NYC has Albany, Hartford, possibly Syracuse
Philadelphia has Harrisburg, Scranton, Dover DE

Anyone else here base their place of living on living in another cheaper city nearby with somewhat easy access to the big city (but not suburbs of that major city)? How does it work out for you?

I'm a little confused by your Milwaukee & Sacramento comments. Yes, Milwaukee is much smaller than Chicago, and Sacramento is smaller than San Fran/Bay Area, but I don't think there's any way you can classify them as "small cities"....same goes for some of the other places you mentioned (but not all).

Perhaps we can come up with a working definition for this? A city within X distance of a major city, which retains a completely separate identity (separate metro/not in combined metro), and is at least X times smaller than the major city.

Seems to me like one fourth to one tenth of the size of the main city, and 50-80 miles away might work.

[Lucario]

Originally Posted by Phish Head

I look toward "alternative cities" as the best place for me to live. Basically, overlooked, less urban places to live that are within driving distance to major cities. If I really liked Chicago, I'd look to live in Milwaukee. If I really liked San Francisco (and I do), I'd want to live in Sacramento. To me, these places are far easier to live in on a day to day basis (cheaper, less traffic, less overall stressful living) but you can visit the major cities pretty easy and enjoy them, but then escape.

Kinda reverse to what has been historically popular (living in the city, escaping to the country).

Boston has Manchester NH, Portsmouth, NH and Worcester, MA; possibly Portland ME
NYC has Albany, Hartford, possibly Syracuse
Philadelphia has Harrisburg, Scranton, Dover DE

Anyone else here base their place of living on living in another cheaper city nearby with somewhat easy access to the big city (but not suburbs of that major city)? How does it work out for you?

I am in Princeton, NJ, not a small city but very close to Trenton, which is a small city. I am equidistant from Philadelphia and New York, and I love my location. It, to me, is THE perfect location.