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The reason I live in a cool climate started with job and then became because of family. Every winter, I want to leave the PNW and then every summer I ask myself "what were you thinking?"
I left the cold north for sunny and warm Florida but have found myself questioning it lately. The biggest factor of my move was weather. Plain and simple i absolutely hate winter, every second of it. I hate snow, scrapping ice off my car, and bitter cold winds with a passion. However upon moving south, once the novelty of palm trees and beaches wore off, i realized i miss the north. There are no "roots" here, much of the population is transient (This is VERY common in most of Florida). There is no hometown pride like in Philly, NYC, Pittsburgh, or Buffalo. Everyone is just kind of living here for a time it seems.
The grass is always greener on the other side i suppose. Weather may be a huge factor in happiness for many but its not the biggest i have learned. The relationships and time spent with family and friends is much more important that shoveling snow a few times a year.
I left the cold north for sunny and warm Florida but have found myself questioning it lately. The biggest factor of my move was weather. Plain and simple i absolutely hate winter, every second of it. I hate snow, scrapping ice off my car, and bitter cold winds with a passion. However upon moving south, once the novelty of palm trees and beaches wore off, i realized i miss the north. There are no "roots" here, much of the population is transient (This is VERY common in most of Florida). There is no hometown pride like in Philly, NYC, Pittsburgh, or Buffalo. Everyone is just kind of living here for a time it seems.
The grass is always greener on the other side i suppose. Weather may be a huge factor in happiness for many but its not the biggest i have learned. The relationships and time spent with family and friends is much more important that shoveling snow a few times a year.
The issues you're describing - rootlessness, transience, lack of hometown pride, difficulty forming meaningful and emotionally dependable friendships, etc. - are, more or less, isolated to Florida and other low-cost states with warm climates and little industry, such as Arizona and Nevada.
These states tend to attract retirees and working-class people from the Northeast and Great Lakes regions of the US who, for varying reasons, are usually deeply woven into the fabric of their hometowns (retirees to due to age, and working-class people due to a deep embodiment of stereotypical hometown traits, behaviors and interests coupled with being generally ill-traveled and having lived nowhere else other than their respective hometowns) and often require the financial, emotional and/or psychological support of their families, long-time friends and the communities in which they've always lived to get through life.
Due to instability and a general lack of self-sufficiency for health, financial, etc. reasons, these people, more often than not, return to wherever they came from, usually within 3-5 years.
Since there are so few natives in these states and those that do exist have long been outnumbered by transplants, there's no real local culture that incoming transplants can assimilate to, so many retain their hometown affiliations, pride, accents, attitudes, etc. I found this issue to be more pronounced in Florida than Arizona, maybe due to all of the obnoxious, "died-in-the-wool" NY, NJ, Philly, Boston, etc. transplants there.
That's why there's greater turnout for away teams at many professional sporting events and no discernible accent or speech patterns in much of Florida. With regard to the latter, many kids who are born and raised in Florida sound more like they come from New York or the Midwest, depending on where their parents are from.
I remember when I lived in Florida, I had co-workers and neighbors from New York tell me their children, who were born and raised in Florida, would lie to people and say they were "from New York" instead of saying they were from Florida. I had a couple of classmates there who did the same thing. Really sad, IMO.
Also, Florida, et al. have service-oriented economies that offer college-educated professionals (who are often more stable due to lower rates of unemployment and underemployment, higher incomes, etc.) little in the way of career advancement and development, high earning potential, etc. Therefore, the most stable segment usually ends up leaving Florida for career and higher educational opportunities or just avoids the state altogether.
The reason I live in a cool climate started with job and then became because of family. Every winter, I want to leave the PNW and then every summer I ask myself "what were you thinking?"
Yes! This is me in Michigan. Here is how I break it down:
January and February are the worst, by far. This is the only time of year when my silly, sun-seeking self actually marginally questions whether we should move away from everyone we love in order to see green year round, and this year there is absulutely nothing to complain about, as there is not an ounce of snow on the ground right now (we've had one snowfall and December and January are already over... ). We were having dinner with our son and daughter-in-law a few evenings ago and I was thinking that moments like this trump the weather big time for me. Skyping is not being with family, no matter how you slice it.
March is tolerable because it gets a little warmer and with daylight savings time it stays light out much later, which makes it feel springy, even if the air temps are still in the 30s and 40s and the trees are still bare.
April-October are amazing here, no doubt about it. Early April can still be chilly and wintry looking, but from that first magical week when the brown grass turns bright green, the buds on the trees burst out into tiny leaves, and the sun feels warm on my arms, I am perfectly content and there is nowhere I would honestly rather be than right here in sunny, green, temperate Michigan. Don't even get me started on autumn here...absolutely amazing!!
November here is still surprisingly warm and green. The grass has been staying green well into November and the air temps remain in the 50s which is light jacket weather for me and still very comfortable.
December is hit or miss as far as wintry weather goes, but with getting ready for Christmas, etc. it flies by and I hardly even notice what the weather is like.
So for two months of the year I would uproot and leave everyone I love, a great job, a reasonable COL, and my lovely home for the weather? Nope. No way!
It is obvious to see why so many retired people who have the option are snowbirds, and that is very likely in our future when we retire, but only for January, February, and early March. Then we would truly have the best of both worlds!
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). We were having dinner with our son and daughter-in-law a few evenings ago and I was thinking that moments like this trump the weather big time for me. Skyping is not being with family, no matter how you slice it. 
No way! 
