Which state offers the best quality of life? (global warming, independent, school)
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best quality of life for me must include lower cost of living and sunshine.
which is why Washington state is out (yes i lived in Oregon and Washington for 20+ years)
depression is a huge HUGE problem in the gloomy gray of the Pacific Northwest. There is about 2 weeks of sunshine in the summer, and that's it. i didn't realize how much better i felt physically, mentally, emotionally, until i moved away to live where I see the sunshine on a regular basis.
i would say for me best quality of life is high desert of Northwest New Mexico or Southeast Utah.
the topic is purely subjective. so not sure how it qualifies as a great debate.
If I were filthy-rich, I'd be foremost concerned about preserving my riches (or was it my filth?), which paradoxically would mean avoiding the higher-tax places. It would just feel irresponsible to be hemorrhaging so much money for the privilege to be living near Carnegie Hall, when I could afford to fly-in to see excellent concerts once a month, all while living in a lower-tax locale.
At present I'm more filthy than rich, but even so, any comparative increase in wealth triggers a hoarding-instinct, Fafner over his treasure. When I was younger and poorer, it mattered more, to be in a vibrant and colorful place, a place rife with pleasant and stimulating activity, even if it's costly. Now such prioritization feels flighty and louche... youthful exuberance that one properly ought to outgrow.
Maybe, but California and New York still top the list of most billionaires, followed by Florida and Texas at a distant third and fourth. Sure, that could flip in 30 years or even 10 years.
At any rate, some people at those levels can cut out loopholes in the tax codes for themselves and their friends, while most everyone else is sleeping, happens at least once a year every year since I can remember and probably longer than that.
I almost think you have to reverse-engineer the question. What are your benchmarks/standards for QOL considerations and then explore places that may offer those. Internet research can help but boots on the ground is probably a better way to make this determination.
best quality of life for me must include lower cost of living and sunshine.
which is why Washington state is out (yes i lived in Oregon and Washington for 20+ years)
depression is a huge HUGE problem in the gloomy gray of the Pacific Northwest. There is about 2 weeks of sunshine in the summer, and that's it. i didn't realize how much better i felt physically, mentally, emotionally, until i moved away to live where I see the sunshine on a regular basis.
i would say for me best quality of life is high desert of Northwest New Mexico or Southeast Utah.
the topic is purely subjective. so not sure how it qualifies as a great debate.
I also need sunshine, after living much of my life in gloomy cloudy Ohio. I loved living in New Mexico and it was hysterical on the 4-5 days that were cloudy, people were so depressed and couldn't stop talking about the gloom.
I also need sunshine, after living much of my life in gloomy cloudy Ohio. I loved living in New Mexico and it was hysterical on the 4-5 days that were cloudy, people were so depressed and couldn't stop talking about the gloom.
Yeah, Ohio. I remember once, in the fall, looking down the bank of the Ohio River at the colors of the turning leaves and thinking, "if only the sun would shine on them." Because they could be as magnificent as the ones further east, if not for this awful light we had that day, and all that fall, and through that icy winter and most of spring. We'd get some sun in the summer but along with heat and humidity and bugs. Yuck.
I do recall that spring felt nice though, when I lived there. The air felt all fresh and damp and invigorating.
It was different, in my perception, from the less-blah/more-melodramatic gloom of the Pacific Northwest. That bothered me at first but mostly because I had overall problems that first year. I had trouble keeping a job and I had zero social life, we were stressed and broke. I was sitting home with the heat turned down and the lights off through the winter of 07/08 and trying to avoid eating or doing anything that would cost the household money. We had just moved there because of my husband's (now ex's) military assignment.
But once I got a job, and we were more financially secure, and we moved into a nicer place and I met people to talk to and started getting out more? I loved it up there. There was a span of time where I really had a blast. The arts and music brings so much color and life to things that it kinda offsets the lack of sun. And it isn't quite a gloomy, grey situation in the same way. It's more like a "secret garden" gloom involving loads of greenery, and ferns and moss everywhere. So they talk about SAD up there but I found it more avoidable than I did when I lived in Ohio. And light mist was more common than real rain...I did however miss thunderstorms, which I never seemed to get much in Olympia, WA.
I was doing alright through the middle of our stay there, but by the end of those 3 years of my life, some of my "friends" were starting to show their true colors and that was not pretty. I was ready to move on to someplace new.
I almost think you have to reverse-engineer the question. What are your benchmarks/standards for QOL considerations and then explore places that may offer those. Internet research can help but boots on the ground is probably a better way to make this determination.
Yep.
For the most part, every state offers a good quality of life for the people that choose to live in them - the population changes we're seeing is the final stretches of people filling out to the rest US in a more natural distribution. We still have after effects of the East > West settlement of the continent and the civil war and long economic lagging of the SE US. If we look at where people are moving over time and equating that to best, the only only area that's a laggard in the NE US, particularly the Boston > Philadelphia seaboard. In my view, this just means the area is oversaturated. Florida and Phoenix are questionable long term options, but the rest kinda makes sense why people are doing what they are.
The only people who can get good deals are work from homers and retirees. They are the ones who can get good locations at good COLs, though you have to give up urban amenities to do that.
Regarding the sun, it's a blessing and a curse. Nice for views, hard on the skin with dry air and high UV indexes. I get amazing sunsets out my window pretty much every day here in Taos, but I try to avoid going outside between 10-2 for UV exposure.
Yeah, Ohio. I remember once, in the fall, looking down the bank of the Ohio River at the colors of the turning leaves and thinking, "if only the sun would shine on them." Because they could be as magnificent as the ones further east, if not for this awful light we had that day, and all that fall, and through that icy winter and most of spring. We'd get some sun in the summer but along with heat and humidity and bugs. Yuck....
Indeed. The poor quality of the local climate is remarkable, is it not? Cold, wet, windy winters... and highly variable too. One day, somewhat above freezing. The next day, polar vortex brings lows around 0 F. Freak snow-storm in mid-April. Gloom. Then, the temperature rises from 45 to 85 overnight, and we're in air conditioning season... Hot, humid, rife with bugs... mosquitos, and those nasty bees that borrow into wood... until October, when suddenly somebody throws the switch, and it goes from the 80s to snow flurries, in about a week. Leaves? Colors are rare. Leaves go from green to brown, then drop. And from October to May, kiss that sun goodbye.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil P
For the most part, every state offers a good quality of life for the people that choose to live in them..
But that's the thing... we don't always have a choice. Military people get assigned to a duty-station. Executives get sent to company HQ. Fresh PhDs applying for professorship will take a tenure-track position wherever they can, even if it's an undesirable location. Nuclear physicists go to work for a national research lab - wherever that ends up being.
I spent 20 years in Ohio, because of the job. Otherwise I'd never have considered the place. So yes, we have doubtless to make the best of our situation, but even so, the place where we find ourselves, has much impact on our psyche... and not always for the best.
Indeed. The poor quality of the local climate is remarkable, is it not? Cold, wet, windy winters... and highly variable too. One day, somewhat above freezing. The next day, polar vortex brings lows around 0 F. Freak snow-storm in mid-April. Gloom. Then, the temperature rises from 45 to 85 overnight, and we're in air conditioning season... Hot, humid, rife with bugs... mosquitos, and those nasty bees that borrow into wood... until October, when suddenly somebody throws the switch, and it goes from the 80s to snow flurries, in about a week. Leaves? Colors are rare. Leaves go from green to brown, then drop. And from October to May, kiss that sun goodbye.
But that's the thing... we don't always have a choice. Military people get assigned to a duty-station. Executives get sent to company HQ. Fresh PhDs applying for professorship will take a tenure-track position wherever they can, even if it's an undesirable location. Nuclear physicists go to work for a national research lab - wherever that ends up being.
I spent 20 years in Ohio, because of the job. Otherwise I'd never have considered the place. So yes, we have doubtless to make the best of our situation, but even so, the place where we find ourselves, has much impact on our psyche... and not always for the best.
At 17 I went to Ohio because my Mom could not handle me and was exhausted from trying, and my Great Aunt somewhat reluctantly agreed to take on my care for the rest of my time in high school. I was in Cincinnati for 3 years, but it seemed like so much longer.
At 20, the man who would become my first husband, and who had fathered my first child, and I...we were not surviving well. We were living right on the edge of "Over the Rhine" which is now gentrified but back then was on the brink of national news over race riots. It was considered to be America's most dangerous neighborhood, in fact, according to magazine articles I read many years later. We struggled to keep employment and I was becoming dangerously underweight in the months following the birth of my baby because there was not enough to eat and breastfeeding my child was taking all of my nutrition.
So we got on a Greyhound bus with what we could carry and abandoned the rest of our stuff, and went to live in Des Moines, IA near his family. They offered us a limited amount of help, but enough. We were able to get on our feet and I was able to get a start on the path to my career. But my (now) ex was not happy. He still could not thrive in the civilian workforce. So he enlisted and we were sent to WA.
The first year there was rough, but I got a lucky break in the beginning of our second year there. A great job that advanced my career and let me add "Analyst" as a job description on my resume. Promotion and deployment for my fella, and the Army raining money on us. Things were good until he came back from Iraq a changed man and dove right into the bottle.
But still we worked for a better future. The Army moved us to Colorado after 3 years in WA and he got out of the military there. That marriage ended and I got a start in a new, happier life. Met another man, a much more stable and kind and peaceful one, and I remarried. I was in CO for 10 years. We moved to AZ to care for his father, which was important and necessary and not really a choice made because we much wanted to be here. But we followed our obligations and requirements as I'd always done.
Now his father has passed and we have money, my job is remote and he is retired. He says he doesn't care where we go, he just wants me to be happy. For the first time in my whole life I can think about where I might WANT to live. It's unbelievable. Also a little stressful because with so many possibilities open to us, I no longer have to think "OK I know what I need to do, just have to plan out how to make it happen"...now the whole decision and whatever comes of it is on me. It is very "first world problems" for sure, but it's tough to get my head around.
And from what I know about people, it's a pretty rare situation to find oneself in. You are right. For most people, jobs or family or something dictate to them where they live.
So I would kind of like to ask people, if you can live anywhere and money and jobs and family weren't a determining factor...where would you go and why?
And from what I know about people, it's a pretty rare situation to find oneself in. You are right. For most people, jobs or family or something dictate to them where they live.
So I would kind of like to ask people, if you can live anywhere and money and jobs and family weren't a determining factor...where would you go and why?
I'd stay right where I am in small town SC.
I think what you need to do is make a list of things that are important to you then spend the next few months traveling to areas on your short list and see what appeals to you. We used C-D and a couple of other sites when we did our search 15 years ago to really dig deep into several different factors.
best quality of life for me must include lower cost of living and sunshine.
which is why Washington state is out (yes i lived in Oregon and Washington for 20+ years)
depression is a huge HUGE problem in the gloomy gray of the Pacific Northwest. There is about 2 weeks of sunshine in the summer, and that's it. i didn't realize how much better i felt physically, mentally, emotionally, until i moved away to live where I see the sunshine on a regular basis.
i would say for me best quality of life is high desert of Northwest New Mexico or Southeast Utah.
the topic is purely subjective. so not sure how it qualifies as a great debate.
Did you ever even visit either WA or OR east of the Cascades? Come out here near Yakima or Tri-Cities in July and tell me if there is enough sun for you?!
Contrary to popular belief, all of WA is not just like Seattle.
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