Family is looking for a place to live anywhere in the US (home, school districts)

[Torreodora]

Hi everyone! We are a family with kids looking for a place to live. We have spent hundreds of hours already on this forum reading many threads and see that people are giving valuable advices. We would love to hear this community opinion on the best place for us to settle. I would outline our criteria as follows:

1. Should be a city with 200,000+ population with good walkability and public transportation. Preferably it should have some places interesting for growing kids, like museums, science centers, etc.
2. There should be good school districts with focus on academics instead of things that don't belong in public schools (indoctrination, woke stuff, etc.).
3. Should be reasonably safe and drug-free.
4. We both work from home, so we are quite flexible in this respect.
5. Ideally the place should be in a geographical area with forests and/or mountains as hiking is a significant part of our lifestyle and we would like to be within a reasonable driving distance from places to hike.

Thank you in advance.

[JDproAV]

I think you're looking for Utah (Salt lake area, even St. George), Idaho (Boise area, Coeur D'Alene), or Greenville, SC. I know you are looking for 200k+ pop. but hard to avoid wokeness unless you go smaller.

We were looking for similar, and found a home in "heaven" with fantastic outdoor recreation. Only 15k population, but just over 1 hour to a major city that has everything.

[Torreodora]

Originally Posted by JDproAV

I think you're looking for Utah (Salt lake area, even St. George), Idaho (Boise area, Coeur D'Alene), or Greenville, SC. I know you are looking for 200k+ pop. but hard to avoid wokeness unless you go smaller.

We were looking for similar, and found a home in "heaven" with fantastic outdoor recreation. Only 15k population, but just over 1 hour to a major city that has everything.

Thank you for your recommendation! We actually seriously considered SLC, but we were slightly turned away by the air quality problem. One of our kids is prompt to allergies, so we need to seriously consider that too. Will definitely the other two cities.

Would you mind sharing where you ended up living in a DM? Thank you in advance!

[FrankInPhilly]

Originally Posted by Torreodora

Hi everyone! We are a family with kids looking for a place to live. We have spent hundreds of hours already on this forum reading many threads and see that people are giving valuable advices. We would love to hear this community opinion on the best place for us to settle. I would outline our criteria as follows:

1. Should be a city with 200,000+ population with good walkability and public transportation. Preferably it should have some places interesting for growing kids, like museums, science centers, etc.
2. There should be good school districts with focus on academics instead of things that don't belong in public schools (indoctrination, woke stuff, etc.).
3. Should be reasonably safe and drug-free.
4. We both work from home, so we are quite flexible in this respect.
5. Ideally the place should be in a geographical area with forests and/or mountains as hiking is a significant part of our lifestyle and we would like to be within a reasonable driving distance from places to hike.

Thank you in advance.

Suburban Philly and the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton metro area (about an hour north of Philly) would fit most of your needs. Philly has many museums, lots of kid-oriented activity. Allentown area maybe less so, but is not far from both Philly and New York. The Philly 'burbs have great schools, but might tilt a bit liberal for you (if by "woke stuff" you mean "history as it really happened").
Both areas offer a huge range of opportunities for hiking - state parks, the Appalachian trail, bike trails, wildlife preserves, etc. After I moved here and started looking for places to hike I was kind of overwhelmed by the number of parks and trails. Literally hundreds of places for all skill levels within an hour's drive. And the Allentown area is close to the Poconos, which has some of the best parks in the state.

[FL_Expert]

Bellevue, WA could be a good option.

[EscAlaMike]

Huntsville, Alabama meets most of your criteria except for the good public transportation.

Honestly though, hardly any but the largest cities in the US have what could be called good public transit.

[Kmanshouse]

You can easily get all of this in many places except for the walkable/public transportation element.

If you want that, it's going to mostly be in older cities or bigger ones, and then some of your other requirements fall apart.

[Torreodora]

Thank you, everyone! Let me explain public transportation requirement a bit. Maybe it shouldn't be perfect (covering the whole city), but it should be decent enough to let me get to the nearby places (7-10 miles radius maybe). The thing is that I don't drive. And we can always get together as a family to drive to more remote locations, but having some kind of transport to get within certain proximity would be really great.

[Kmanshouse]

Originally Posted by Torreodora

Thank you, everyone! Let me explain public transportation requirement a bit. Maybe it shouldn't be perfect (covering the whole city), but it should be decent enough to let me get to the nearby places (7-10 miles radius maybe). The thing is that I don't drive. And we can always get together as a family to drive to more remote locations, but having some kind of transport to get within certain proximity would be really great.

If you don't drive, this is a harder ask. Most of your research should be in smaller cities with walkable urban cores and robust bus systems. You are likely not going to find your other criteria in a large city where there there are city rail systems, like that are found in NYC, Boston, Chicago, DC, SF

[ckhthankgod]

When you sat 200,000+, are you referring to the city proper or the metro population?

Also, what is considered "indoctrination/woke stuff" to you? I ask, because people have varying definitions when it comes to things like this.