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It does not matter if you have a job or family living nearby, I am just wondering why you owuld pick to live in a particular part of the country if you had nothing holding you back.
Hopewell, NJ/Hunterdon County, NJ: beautiful area, near family, friends, and jobs we like, plenty to see and do.
St. Joseph, MO: beautiful town, peaceful, a great community feeling
Area around Sequoia National Park, California: beautiful, peaceful, amazing place to camp, hike, etc. I felt incredibly at peace when I was there.
My goal is to retire and live in an RV, and travel the country, because I love so many places.
I'd stay about where I am, in the Pacific Northwest... but if NOTHING was a factor, either I'd buy a house in the city of San Francisco, Portland (OR), northern Washington state, or perhaps a more rural part of northern Calif. or Oregon. In my opinion, there's nothing like the beauty & climate of the NW!
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"81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies"
(set 25 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
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I'm the type of person who places the greatest weight on an area's combination of education attainment and open-mindedness. Mainly, this is because I have a fairly eccentric personality coupled with several somewhat off-beat socio-cultural beliefs (at least compared to many areas of the nation). Having said that, I've learned to look at subcounty, and even submunicipality-level statistics before judging a locale worthy or unworthy of my further attentions. To me, almost any metro area with at least 1/3 million people is going to have at least a small area of a few thousand people that minimally accommodates my standards - even the most conservative metros in this size category. I measure each of these as follows:
Openmindedness two measures, based on census data and political data
*% of "community's" ballots cast for Ralph Nader in the November 2000 Presidential Election - Though I didn't vote for Nader, I consider a higher than average percentage of ballots cast for him (2.74%) to signal a social environment open to controversial ideas of the non-traditional sort; values hugely unpopular with much of mainstream society. The way I figure it, if "THEY" can openly express their true beliefs without fearing widespread scorn, then I can do the same.
*% of all couples, married and unmarried, who are in same sex partnerships - Similar rationale as above: if there's a high % gays and lesbians (over 1.00% of all couples), then that signals openness to these groups - which strongly suggests I would be welcomed and respected as well.
However, tolerance alone is not enough to make a section of a city appeal to me; it has to have a large pool of educated people in or VERY near that section of the city (i.e. within reasonable walking distance, if I'm pressed to do so)
Education Attainment
*% of people 25 years old or older with at least one bachelors degree - for me, it's a minimum of 22.7% (90% of the USA figure, 24.4%)
AND
*% of people 25 years old or older who never completed secondary education (including GED) - For me, it's a maximum of 21.56% (110% of the USA figure of 19.6%)
Scoring highly on all four criteria is one thing - having a critical mass of population able to sustain such a community is quite another thing. If the population is too small, then it will have a hard time sustain its openness due to the sheer numbers of the larger community as a whole. This is where the total population of the Census Blocks and/or Total Number of Ballots casts in those precincts come into play. If the section of the city has a population of at least 2000 consistently sustained over time, with no apparent foreshadowings of future depopulation, then I consider the neighborhood a worthwhile place to live.
Ignoring all other factors involved, any section of a city that scores significantly better than the USA on ALL FIVE criteria is going to be a winner for me. Of course other factors are going to come into play, such as the job market, the cost of living in the area, etc. Plus, I have a strong personal preference for winters nighttime low temps above the freezing point at night at least 90% of all nights.
Other things I place a high priority on:
Avoiding hurricanes at near full strength
Avoiding seismic activity
Plenty of available water
Given all these, I'd say the best candidates are any medium to large city in the Southeastern Piedmont/ Interstate 85 corridor, the eastern half of Texas, the extreme NW part of Arkansas. Nashville? Yes. Perhaps Knoxville, Huntsville AL and E. Tenn.
Depending on the level of potential earthquake activity, I might even be open to the Pacific Northwest (I-5 from Eugene, OR northward to Canada), although you can bet I'll study the watershed maps for potential paths for volcano flows AND faults (the latter especially seems, to me, rather easy to predict - just look at a watersheds with volcanos and avoid them. Correct me if I'm wrong though).
Well, that's my take on the matter.
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