You know how they “nice place to visit, but I wouldnt want to live there” well KC is a nice play to live but not such a cool place to visit. Yes, it has the basics like nightlife and some museums and historic areas but I think its real great feature is its lower cost of living and fewer traffic problems. The Kansas suburbs have good schools and safe neighborhoods. Frankly I like boring anyways.
My city, Overland Park, has been voted as one of the top 10 places to live in the country.
Its also popular with veterans because of nearby Ft. Leavenworth and its PX, a good VA hospital, and generally pro veteran vibe.
I’m another KC area resident. Most areas outside of the KC city limits are low on violent crime. Like a lot of metro areas there are pockets of blight which tend to shine a bad light on the whole area. But even within the city limits there are lower crime zones.
My preference for a “settle down” location includes being close to a beach but I live smack dab in the middle of the continent. I’d say the Kansas City area is still a great place to live. You have major and minor sports teams, big name entertainment venues, air transportation from the center of the country makes for shorter flight times, four full seasons, lower cost of living etc.
Some of the smaller outer cities like Olathe, Lenexa, Leawood, Lees Summit, Blue Springs, Liberty, Mission have a small town vibe with large city attractions just within a 30 minute commute.
You also mentioned Wichita which I visit often. There’s a great variety of restaurants in that town. It’s got a great mid-sized city flavor to it. An arena to bring in large venue attractions, good semi pro and college sports teams. A thriving aeronautics industry and a decent mid sized airport. Cost of living is very nice.
Lived in Indy for 3 years and liked it well enough. It’s a small town masquerading as a big city so you definitely feel at-home no matter where you go, but it’s big enough to have cool sports teams (fair weather fans tho) and some good concerts and things to do.
Look at Waco… cheap, but not too far to Austin for a good time. http://www.tstc.edu/ Texas State Technical is there. Space X and L3 are there. It’s hot. And it’s Texas. But if you can get by those two, it might be a good fit.
I live in Morgantown, WV, about an hour south of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is a great choice. It has grown a lot over the past 20 years, so traffic now has that city congestion feeling, though hardly as bad as any of the mega-cities. Housing is still fairly affordable and schools on the south side are excellent. There are neighborhoods that are worse than others, but I don’t think anywhere is insanely bad for a city. Personally, I like living where I do since going to Pittsburgh is a breeze and I’m there fairly often, but I don’t have to bother with the negatives of a city and live in a town big enough for most of the amenities, but right on top of nature. It’s also nice since I’m only 3 hours from DC, so if I want really big city, I pop down there for the day.
The only thing I’d recommend as you narrow your choices is to spend a chunk of time wherever before you commit. I’ve heard tales of folks who talked forever of retiring to Florida, only to discover that living there isn’t the same as doing a week at Disney or the beaches.
So find an extended stay hotel or something similar and audition your choices if you can.
Are you staying in the military until then? You need a LOT of money to retire. And then there are women and children…
Anyway, if you are staying in, why are you thinking about your retirement location now? A lot can change in a decade. If you want to invest in property, that’s another matter.
Personally, if I were forced to retire to North America, I’d choose somewhere on the West Coast in Canada, north of Vancouver.
Chattanooga, Tennessee has low cost, and being in the mountains, is less humid than the rest of the South.
TVA makes electricity cheap.
Museums, a Zoo, & some Federal Parks nearby.
The TVA Hydro Dam offers a lake, for fishing.
A local University offers college, & thereby college football.
There are a lot of small towns around Minneapolis, including quite a few just across the border in WI. A lot of people commute to the Cities for work, including one of my sons. You can find a decent house in his town for $150-200K
What do you have against Indy? I’ve lived there or in a suburb for the last 30 years. It has, and continues to get better every day. There is a good reason it made Amazon’s short list for their HQ2. There is a big FedEx hub at the airport so jobs in your field should be available.
I’m from Cincy 90 miles west of you and I totally agree with you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Indianapolis (although it’s fair to note how different your winter weather can be from ours for such a short distance away) and I have always enjoyed my visits there. There’s plenty to do, people are generally friendly and it’s clean.
Amazon and I do not have the same criteria for a place to setttle. Indianapolis is growing too fast, trying too hard to gain recognitiln. Bedsides, it’s in Indiana.
You’re in your twenties. What appeals to you for “settling down” now may not be what appeals to you in your 30s and later.
That said, what do you like to do, and how does that juxtapose with A&P schools and, more importantly, places to obtain A&P jobs?
I had thought that North Dakota was, weirdly, a good place to start one’s aviation education, especially if you don’t mind the cold and you want a lower cost of living, but I don’t know how the A&P schools are there.
There’s always Embry-Riddle. It’s in the South, (LOL.) A lot of the “best A&P schools” on this list don’t strike me as great for low costs of living.
