I live in Boulder, Colorado and love it. It has amazing natural beauty and is populated by smart, open minded people. The city is extrememly sucessful economically and has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state.
People think that it is run by hippies, but it is really full of engineers and scientists with a playful bent. The school system is amazing and the cultural opportunities are abundent. We have major college sports and all major professional sports are 30 mintes away.
What’s not to like about southwest Colorado if you’re an outdoor-oriented person? Mountains, deserts, rivers. Our house is beautiful, our 2 neighbors are only around in the summer, and obviously instant access to hiking and skiing. Town is about 20 minutes away, with a little grocery and great restaurants. There’s a lot going on if you’re into art and culture (not me, I’m a plebe). It is painfully liberal with a high quantity of woo, but I guess I’d rather be on the conservative side in a liberal place than the other way around.
I’ve been here close to 16 years and I still love, love it.
No. No, I don’t.
I’ve lived in the Phoenix area for nearly 25 years. I travel a fair amount, and even though I occasionally visit someplace that makes me think that I’d like to move there, no place I have ever been meets this area for pure livability. I have an acre property with horse privileges (I posted photos of my Llama awhile back), that is walking distance ti a large shopping mall. There are great restaurants (some say we have the #1 pizza place in the country!), the weather is fantastic for more than half the year, and there is plenty to see and do. There may be other cities (NY, DC) that have better museums, but that’s OK - that’s what vacations are for.
Greenville SC, since 1996. We’re only still here because my father passed here, but now I’m not terribly sure that I would want to be anywhere else.
For a mid-size southern town, we have the Peace Center for Broadway-type shows, The Warehouse Theater for little productions, Cafe And Then Some for dinner theater, Greenville Little Theater for amateur productions, a cool little art museum, a great library, a brand new children’s museum, a variety of good restaurants (I knew we were getting good and diverse when a Belgian restaurant opened and started doing some good business.), cool bars, two or three cool little gaming stores, the Bi-Lo Center, which has a stupid name but attracts most major concert tours, some good schools (and some terrible ones) and an attractive, safe downtown. And if all that still isn’t enough for you, just drive an hour and a half up north and you’re in Charlotte, another city I’m in love with. If you are looking for a little more, we’re only two hours from Atlanta.
It’s a little too conservative for me (usually not too big an issue with me, but conservatives down here can get downright mean and stupid.) and a little too religious, definitely way to damn hot. But all in all, this is a neat, safe little place to live. Bob Jones stays mostly to themselves, and truth be told, I like being a little different. Living in a mecca of atheist liberals would probably have me bored fast. This is a good place to live, and I’m happy to raise my kids here.
I currently live in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I would not want to live here for a long time, but a year or two will be OK. City hot water gets turned off one month a year, and you either take cold showers or hope the electricity is on long enough for your hot water heater to heat the water. In the winter there is no electricity between midnight and 5AM. Any other time of the year it still isn’t a guarenteed thing. I could handle all that, but I speak about 4 words of russian, and english has not made big inroads here. My boss here is fluent, and will be here for quite a long time.
My ‘home’ is Las Vegas Valley. Love the city. Can do anything at just about any time. No cold weather normally, but the mountains are close enough to go for a day of snowboarding during the winter. Lake Mead for swiming and boating during the rest of the year. Can’t wait to go back.
-Otanx
Oviedo, Florida - it’s warm, sunny, there’s no state income tax, there’s a giant state university right around the corner, so there are hot chicks everywhere, and we’re on the opposite corner of the Orlando metroplex from the theme parks, so there are no tourists clogging up the roads.
Still, it’s close enough to Walt Disney World, Universal, SeaWorld and Wet and Wild, etc. that we could go whenever we wanted, and only an hour or so away from great beaches.
I Heart Seattle. All the benefits of a large urban city, with nature abounding everywhere. Green year-round. Drizzle instead of snowstorms.
Not always; sometimes we go to a hotel.
Okay, my serious answer is: not especially, no.
Love it. Quiet street in Del Ray (Alexandria, VA). Close enough to DC that the commute is not brutal. Not yuppified as Clarendon has been. Small stores on Mount Vernon to walk to. Friendly neighbors and a genuine community feel. Parking situation much better than anywhere else near me.
My street is quiet and wooded. I live across the road from a bakery, so in spring/fall when I have the windows open I wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread. Lots of restaurants local, though we could do with another decent bar, but then again, Old Town is walkable or a $6 cab ride.
Housing here is solid (1930’s built) and affordable, at least comparatively. And, of course, we have The Dairy Godmother. Add on a butcher, a real hardware store, a cheese store, a fien wine store, good Mexican restaurants, good fine dining, a chocolate store, and a farmer’s market, and it took me about two days of renting here to fall in love with the place and start looking for a house to buy.
We love it! We live in the northern Rocky Mountains in Northwest Montana. Moved here 8 months ago from the SF Bay Area. We are 10 minutes from the town of Bigfork, which has a population of 1,500 people. We have 7 acres of forest that back up to the Flathead National Forest. The people here are nice, and there is never a traffic jam… ever.
Washington DC, ranked #7 on most walkable cities. That really says it all. “Most walkable” is a good way to summarize most of the reasons I like it here. From the walkability page:
Yes, I do love where I live.
I live in a suburban town about 25 minutes (40 in rush hour) from Philadelphia. The motto of my city, etched into a sandblasted sign as you drive in, is ‘‘Nice Town, Friendly People.’’ I have affordable rent in a very nice apartment complex with central air, a dishwasher, and my own washer and dryer. We have a pool and fitness center. About two miles down the road is an enormous shopping complex, including a Wegman’s, and about ten minutes the other direction is a Whole Foods. I am a five minute drive from several major freeways, including the New Jersey Turnpike.
Best of all, I am a very reasonable distance from Philadelphia, which allows me to spend a (mandatory minimum of) two days a week on Penn’s gorgeous campus in West Philly. When I drive over the B. Franklin bridge I can see all the pretty buildings and the sun reflecting off the Deleware River. I’m not gonna lie, I hate the traffic. But I really wouldn’t mind living in this area for the rest of my life.
I’m actually living in Tacoma, but same basic climate. We have an apartment located across from Tacoma Community college and is right near a bunch of stuff (and walking distance to a huge bus transport hub). The climate is famous, but mostly exaggerated. More rainy days, but most of those days it doesn’t pour, or even rain all day (sun comes out quite often, but is counted as an overcast or rainy day).
Hopefully if I get a job in Seattle my wife will compromise in where we live, like somewhere in between. I think I could be happy living here my whole life too.