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Also, everyone includes thier own oppinion. Don't let that get you down.
Virginia is an awsome state with great schools, cities, low crime, great weather, beaches on the east and mountians in the west, affordable, beautiful, safe, and has great people. Virginia isn't quite in the south as much as it is in the mid-atlantic. Also has four seasons which are mostly sunny year round.
Wisconsin and Minnesota are always high among the list of states with good reputations; I would look at communities like the suburban Twin Cities and Madison, WI.
If you can stand 4 or 5 months of winter, 2 of which can be quite brutal, the upper midwest has always been a good area for raising families and has generally prosperous economies (and LOTS of lakes). The tradeoff for the winter is the spring, summer, and fall are generally perfect.
Because of the Scandinavian influence you'll also get a subtly different vibe as well - less materialistic, very community oriented, modest, and less class and status driven.
Every state has good areas, though, and it really comes down to four factors: climate, culture, cost of living, and jobs. For cost of living, it generally comes down to the high tax/high service model (north & east) vs the low tax/low service model (south & west). For culture, there's still a lot of baggage from the "old country" depending on where you move to, even centuries later, while in other areas ancestry is just an afterthought (generally areas like the west where migration patterns were from other parts of the U.S. and not directly from Europe. The south and upper midwest are alien cultures to each other, for example.
New Jersey, since we have the best schools in the nation, consistently. We have 4 seasons, I can choose from any kind of neighborhood from urban to rural in which to raise them, with a lot of suburbs that have a lot of varation amongst them, as well, as suburbs go.
Other than NJ, I'd choose California, since it offers a lot of variety, beautiful weather, good schools (and the best public colleges/universities in the nation where tuition is free for residents), plenty of opportunity/jobs, diversity of people... CA and NJ have a lot in common, but CA has warmer weather and more variety in terrain
I'd say in the east the other Mid Atlantic states would be good, too. Virginia seems really nice, but not too close to DC. Richmond area seemed nice to me. Maryland is a good state, same with Delaware, and PA and NY are good too. Out west I'd suggest Arizona if you're OK with the heat. For natural beauty I'd say look at Utah (just be careful of the Mormon theocracy there) and Nevada, also Washington and Oregon are OK. In the west, CA is really the state to be in unless you have a particular reason to prefer one of the other states.
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