Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Tough one, but I’m thinking SLC could be the best fit for you. You’d be compromising some in pretty much every area, but it’s still probably best. Next best might be a WA suburb of Portland.
Bonus points:
- I prefer the climate in PNW. Gloomy and cool summers. Rain and snow are not issues.
- Red or purple state.
Thx.
Western Washington has pretty poor internet connections. For that you need to go to eastern Washington, which has a high tech fiber infrastructure....in most counties. Others are still in dial up.
Check carefully, before looking for dial tone.
BUT it is sunny and very hot during the summer in eastern Washington.
North Idaho will fit your requirements the best I think. Somewhere around Coeur D'Alene and to the west towards Spokane, WA. Pick which tax is your most impactful. Idaho has a 6% sales and top income tax. Spokane does not have an income tax, but has 9% sales tax. Not sure about the property tax comparison, but that won't affect you much directly as a renter. Pick your side of the boarder where you find the best neighborhood and supports your tax and political needs. Likely both sides of the boarder are pretty purple, but Washington as a state is controlled by very blue Olympia, and Coeur D'Alene by Purple/Red Boise.
As much as I like Grand Rapids, it has unfortunately gotten kind of expensive and the airport is not very big. Thus, I'll make a controversial suggestion: Detroit's Downriver suburbs (particularly the more southerly ones). My reasoning is that it's near a big airport (DTW), near a city, conservative, near beaches (Lake Erie isn't as sexy as Lake Michigan, but Sterling State Park is a hidden gem), and crime is low. And most importantly, it is still very affordable.
Since the OP is renting Grand Rapids would be fine. If they were looking at buying I’d steer them away from GR given the absolutely brutal sellers market there. I agree that it’s gotten on the expensive side for the Midwest, but it’s still a bargain by national standards. The airport is smaller serving around 4 million passengers/year, but you can still fly direct to most hubs including both New England and the west coast. Unless the OP is needing to fly direct internationally GRR would suffice pretty well.
Based on the criteria I think the OP would be happier in metro Grand Rapids vs the downriver burbs which are decidedly more rust belt/industrial in feel and attitude IMO. The access to vacation country and nature in general is also much better from Grand Rapids as well. If being close to the airport is important I’d suggest looking on the east end in Cascade, Ada, GR Township and Kentwood. If you don’t mind driving 40 mins to the airport look on the west end in Hudsonville, Walker, and Grandville. Perhaps even Rockford/Belmont in the north. All of these places will have a lot of newer options for renters, as well as a live and let live mentality. They are also better kept and feel nicer in general than most of the down river options.
A couple of cities I found to be very nice are Toledo and Dayton, Ohio. I drove through both of them last year and was expecting some kind of post-industrial hell-scape, and they were nothing of the sort.
Toledo has two suburbs that I thought were very attractive, one called Ottawa Hills and the other Perrysburg. Ottawa Hills is full of historic homes and lush lawns. It was pretty. Perrysburg felt like a quaint small town that could be in a rural area.
Toledo has a very nice-looking university that is adjacent to the nicest part of town. Also, you could see that they are working hard to fix up their downtown area and riverfront. I was impressed. My only reservation about living there would be the winters and also I probably wouldn't be thrilled about being essentially in the orbit of Detroit. Those were the only points, but overall the quality of life in Toledo seems very high.
Dayton I found to be perhaps even slightly nicer. Unlike Toledo, going from Dayton's downtown you go directly into a nice area (the suburb of Oakwood) without having to go through any bad areas at all, and from that point on the entire town is clean and nice. Interestingly, the Dayton suburbs, which are along the interstate and have a fairly clean and new feeling, I found to be virtually interchangeable with the Cincinnati suburbs. It's hard to tell when you have crossed from Dayton suburbs into Cincinnati suburbs (in sort of a good way because the entire area feels kind of clean and new).
So the appeal of Dayton to me was that compared to Toledo it's a bit further south, from a weather perspective, and Dayton is in the orbit of Cincinnati rather than Detroit which to me is a positive. Cincinnati to me just had a nicer feeling with the hills and vast area of clean and safe suburbs. (That said I got to see Detroit's northern suburbs Rochester Hills and Lake Orion which were full of hills and lakes and every bit as beautiful or even nicer than Cincinnati.)
On the whole between Toledo and Dayton I would probably choose Dayton because of location and the clean and safe feeling in Dayton immediately after you leave downtown into the residential areas.
That said, my gut reaction to Toledo was that it would be a comparatively great place to live versus these giant megacities because of the nice scale and size of the metro area that feels more human-scale and manageable versus a place like Detroit or Chicago. And I was impressed with Toledo's character with elegant tree-lined streets and pretty homes.
For someone who likes gloomy winters and cool summers and wants an affordable and livable community, I think both Toledo and Dayton areas would be good choices.
Pittsburgh or a suburb of Pitt. Its a long haul but you can easily spend a few weeks renting at the beach anywhere from NJ to Virginia Beach in early September after the high season ends.
Camas, WA, on the Columbia River? An easy drive to Portland airport. Same with other towns, suburbs. Washougal, WA, outside of Vancouver. 20 minutes to PDX. Rents easily within your budget.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
