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I live in Eugene and I'd probably scratch it from your list if I were you. You don't like or don't care about most of the things that make it special, like public transportation. And with the urban growth boundary, it won't be easy to find a big house on 2 acres. Also, jobs may be a problem. It's also smaller than your population range.
Thanks for all of the feedback! Sounds like a lot of people are high on CO springs. Anyone have any experience in how it stacks up against Boise?
Been to Boise many time but have never lived there. I mostly here good things. I believe Boise may get a little warmer in the summer and colder in the winter than the Springs. Both are nice, clean, outdoorsy cities. Population wise they're about equal. Boise appears to be a little more "cosmopolitan" being the state capital and having a major university (Boise State). Yes, we have the Air Force Academy, but definitely not the same thing.
The Southeastern cities listed are not at all dependent on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for outdoor activities, although it is a great nearby attraction for Knoxville and Asheville. There is plenty of hiking, water sports, and other amenities all over the southern Appalachian region. Also Roanoke is at least half a days' drive away from the national park, but it has local outdoor features including the Blue Ridge Parkway corridor, Smith Mountain Lake, and more.
The Raleigh-Durham area may be worth considering. It has a very strong economy based heavily on high-tech and medicine, excellent school systems and local universities, lots of green space and is more upscale and less socially conservative than other regional metro areas. I think it would offer a very different living environment from Chicago but it aligns very well for career minded, active young adults looking to downshift from the megacities but not go to the opposite extreme.
Thank you. I think Louisville is a bit too small and too conservative for me. As for Raleigh - I have visited and found that it was both too far from the ocean and too far from the mountains. That, and its already bordering on too large for my tastes. I used to live in Nashville for a time - and Raleigh reminds me of that in terms of size and proximity to outdoor activities. I enjoyed Nashville, but it was growing too large (this was ~2012, I imagine its much larger now), and was a bit too far to outdoor activities.
Part of the reason I am partial to the cities out west (Boise, CO springs, Bend/Medford, Spokane) is because there are so many opportunities for a long weekend. Crater lake, estes park, bogus mountain, yosemite/yellowstone/olympic national park etc - I would love to live somewhere where some of those locations are within 3-5 hr drive. Problem is - most of the cities in the region are quite large (denver, seattle, portland).
If Louisville is too small (metro population almost 1.3 million), the western cities you're targeting would be way too small. :-) That aside, Reno, NV may be worth considering in terms of proximity to scenic natural places, moderate politics and decent amenities, but it's not particularly cheap and there are a lot of brown landscapes away from the mountains.
Here is a link to the latest metro area population estimates - https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/...PANNRES&src=pt . Note that Nashville still has a lot of growing to do to reach 2 million, and that is including quite a few low density exurban counties well removed from the city proper.
Yeah 2 million is pushing it but I would do it if it was a well laid out city that offered a lot of other plus'es (like Denver or portland). Never knew Louisville was that large - I'll look into that - although I'm not sure it offers more than the other SE cities I am considering.
Big houses on big lots with a short easy drive to commercial ctrs, high paying jobs, green and not much brown. Here we go again. The interior west is not the place to be searching. More likely to find your set of Must Haves in the SE US.
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He says facetiously.
