So! I'm calling upon all of the city-data forum goers for some kind suggestions as to relocation. A brief background to help you understand more of what we're looking for.
My fiance and I will be moving this June. She'll be graduating with her degree, and we are ready to relocate. We're currently in rural Northwest Ohio, where it is cold, boring and particularly depressing.
We're 23 and would both like to move somewhere that is nice, but also provides stability and future flexibility. We don't want kids or anything for a while (5+) years, and will mostly be focusing on enjoying our lives together for a while.
She will be looking for a job as an Art Teacher (I know -- essentially impossible), and I will be attending Grad School online and finding supplementary work at the entry level for any kind of corporation. Eventually, I would like to work in Archive and Research Management, which is a glorified way of saying "Fancy Librarian". Contrary to popular belief, this is a relatively competitive and open field for people with the smarts and paperwork to find themselves a job there. For the time being though, I'll answer phones just about anywhere while I'm still in school.
We've spent the last month or so looking at places in the country that would be nice for us to relocate to. The problem has been, that when we've got down to it and researched each location, the overwhelming response tends to be, "It sucks here. Oh, and it sucks there too. A teacher you say? Move to Mississippi."
Well we don't want to move to Mississippi. And we are also aware that everyone everywhere feels as thought where they live sucks. But certainly, it must suck someplace less than it sucks in the others. Below, I've compiled a list of things in specific order of importance to us:
1) Weather - I know, I know. People will be quick to say, while weather is nice, it's not everything. But I am from Western New York, and she from Nowhere, Ohio, and so we have lived in the cold, wet, drab snow belt for our entire lives. We want to move to a place where it is nice in both the summer and winter. Great weather as often as possible is important to us -- more important than anything else.
2) Job Opportunities - While it's pretty much impossible for an Art Teacher to get a job as an Art Teacher straight away right now, without subbing first, one thing we also want to consider is fall back jobs. If she/I can't get jobs doing what we want with our degree, we would at least like to live in a place where there is enough work that we can get steady jobs doing something else besides flipping burgers.
3) Local Life - While we are young (23), and thus the predominant suggestion from many people tends to be that we would like places that are jam-packed with dance clubs, drinking holes, music halls and good eats, which are much older in spirit than in age. We like things like historical sites, national parks, hiking trails. We like it to be quiet early. We like, with the exception of a fast food joint or two, for the town to shut down at a reasonable hour. We prefer the calmness of a family environment, not the excitement of a 20-something hot spot. Also, scenery would be nice. Living in an area of the world with a nice view -- be it a cityscape or a landscape, would be great. No offense to my fellow Ohioans, but the lack of rolling hills or even rolling buildings here can, at times, be sort of depressing. The flatness sucks.
4) Cost of Living - While it would be great to pack our bags tomorrow and shuffle off to D.C. or something, the fact of the matter is, there are lots of places in the country that are simply too impractical and/or expensive to live. Living in the future off two likely-modest incomes means that places with very high rent rates or property values isn't going to cut it. Now this doesn't mean we're trying to move on *no* money. We have about $12,000 saved, in addition to working wages and housing from student loan, so we have money to make an appropriate move, but only *once* (we don't want to hate the place and have to move again in a year), and only to a place that would be sustainable.
5) Culture/Entertainment - As aforementioned. We don't really want a lot of loud bars/distractions. We don't need to be in a hot spot for young people, because we're not necessarily typical young people. But we do like our entertainment. Having lots museums (art/history) nearby (within an hour or two) would be great. I also like professional sports, and so being within decent travel time (no more than 3 or 4 hours) to a pro sports city would also be a welcome commodity. These things, of course, are not necessities, but luxuries.
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We are concerned with School District only to the extent that it may impact her job, and so living right next to a quality SD may not be as important as living close enough to some that are commutable.
Ideally, we'd like to spend between $700 and $900 per month on rent, with $1100 being the absolute ceiling. Our plan is to rent for a year or two in a place, assure ourselves that we like it and that we have secure jobs, and then start building toward buying a home.
So! We've looked at tons of places. Arizona...Texas predominantly. Everyone we've talked to, and all the people we've read on these boards, have more complaints than they do anything else about where they are. I understand that it's up to us to investigate further where we'd like to live based on these criteria, but I figured maybe some other posters here would have some suggestions as to where we may like to look. I'm not looking for anyone to do any of the work for us, just looking for some ideas of places to consider.
Thanks for reading.
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