Hi all, for my own nefarious purposes, I’m trying to find a city/suburb that fulfills the above three criteria.
Walkable! Bikable too, flatter the better, with grocery stores within walking distance. I mean a proper store, not the Circle K at the gas station that walkscore.com sometimes counts as a supermarket, grr.
Cheap rent! I’m thinking of compact downtown apartment kind of living, 1br is fine, but dogs allowed is necessary. I’ve perused countless lists of Cheapest Rents in the US, but most of the lowest of the low tend to be places without the additional requirements herein. How cheap is cheap? No idea, I currently live in Silicon Valley, and SF and San Jose are #1 and #4 on the Highest Rents lists. $500/month? Is that even possible? In the same vein, at least some availability - San Jose also has a huge dearth of rental properties available, and it would suck to decide on a city then not find an apartment.
A game store, with Magic tournaments if possible, and/or some amount of geek board gamer subculture. Decent coffee, interesting restaurants, also walkable.
Good libraries, parks, open space, especially river or waterfront walks, nice-looking green spaces for birding. Even better if free, and dog-friendly too.
Wifi. I know, ubiquitous, but thought I’d better mention it. What’s the deal with Google Fiber?
Space to garden would be nice, community or guerilla is OK!
Things not really in consideration include job market and/or commute, politics, school districts, weather, airport access - don’t much care about these.
*It’s a mid-sized city (the city itself is around a quarter million, the metro area is a little over a million).
*Driving is good but you can certainly get around the core of the city on a bike.
*Great shopping. Wegmans is one of the best supermarket chains in the country.
*Rents are borderline. You can find an apartment for $500 a month but that’s going to be lower end.
*Major gaming community. There are eight or nine different gaming stores in the city and most of them have regular groups.
*Good coffeehouses, restaurants, bars, etc.
*A great library system.
*Great parks, including ones along the Erie Canal, the Genesee River, and Lake Ontario.
*I have to admit I can’t really tell you about local Wifi or gardening.
Things you won’t have:
*Year round good weather. Rochester winters aren’t as bad as Buffalo’s or Syracuse’s. But they’re definitely harsher than anything in California.
*Major league sports. Decent minor leagues, yes, but no local major league teams.
*Independent bookstores. They’re used to be several but the decline of print hit Rochester hard. All that’s around in the city is Barnes and Nobles and used book stores. (But there are still several good independent bookstores out in surrounding towns. They apparently survived because the big chains never reached outside the city.)
*Good fresh seafood. It just doesn’t travel this far.
I think Richmond, VA fits your criteria. My neighborhood is less than a mile from four grocery stores (two regular supermarkets, one health food supermarket, one gourmet grocery store), a game store, a $2 movie theater, an art museum, a history museum, a library, two candy stores, and a slew of boutiques (if you’re into fashion). This neighborhood is called Carytown.
There’s a dumpy apartment building around the corner where the rent is relatively cheap ($650 for a 1 bedroom, I’d guess). But most of the rentals in my area are going for $950-$1020. I would not say the rent is “cheap” here, but it is a lot cheaper than what you’d find in DC or NoVa.
The Five Colleges area of Western MA- Northampton/Amherst/Holyoke. I went to Hampshire College and never needed a car; the hiking and other outdoor activities are amazing, and it’s a reasonably affordable area.
I live on the coast in the suburbs south of Los Angles, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, Torrance, Redondo, all nice cities, rents are not too far out of line with wages. About $1,500.00 for a nice 1 bedroom.
You’d probably like Gardiner, Maine. You can rent a place downtown for $500/month including all utilities, there are parks along the Kennebec River, there is a gaming store, and there is plenty to do nearby.
You wouldn’t be able to get down as low as $500/month (more like $800-$1000 for a one-bedroom), but the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis would fit the bill otherwise. It’s the area just south of downtown, and just north of the Eat Street restaurant district, so there’s lots of coffee and restaurants within easy walking distance, and a grocery store in the northwest corner of the neighborhood.
Minneapolis is consistently rated among the top five park and biking cities in the country, so those bases are covered. (Flat, too, except for the trails right along the river.)
There’s a game store, Mead Hall Games, with Magic tournaments several nights a week.
Loring Park has what appears to be a large community garden, but I’ve got a brown thumb, so I don’t know much about it.
Assuming that by Wifi you mean internet access in general, Loring Park itself is stuck with Comcrap for now, but local Google Fiber competitor USinternet has gigabit fiber in the neighborhoods directly to the south, and plans to expand into Loring Park next summer. If you do mean actual Wifi, USinternet has a citywide wifi network you can subscribe to, but I’ve heard it doesn’t penetrate buildings very well, and isn’t great for most people’s primary internet access.
Other than the rent requirement, you’ve described parts of Portland. I live in the Sellwood neighborhood and walk to: dentist, doctor, two groceries, a weekly farmers’ market, post office, restaurants, food carts, veterinarian, clothing store, deli, shoe store, theater. . . you get the picture. Also three beautiful parks and a 40-mile bike trail. There is a neighborhood not far from here called Woodstock, where the rents are lower. They don’t have as large a number of walk-to businesses, but there are more opening there every year. Cheapest rent around here is about $900-1100, depending on what you’re looking for.
Except that rent would be higher than the number you threw out there, Savannah, Georgia might be a contender - the downtown area, anyway. Lots of green space, dog-friendly, loads of folks bike there, interesting restaurants and stores and stuff. At least one “real” grocery store downtown (Kroger,) plus a weekly farmer’s market at Forsyth Park. The entire downtown fronts the river, plus it’s only a few miles from the beach at Tybee Island (no dogs on the beach there,) or a little farther to Hilton Head, South Carolina (where dogs are allowed on the beach.) Most downtown rentals have some bit of green space - a courtyard or such. And the downtown area is the campus for the Savannah College of Art and Design, so plenty of gamers. (I don’t know where the nearest gaming store would be, but there’s now a gamer’s pub.) Flat as hell, too!
Rent can be had in the downtown/Historic district for less than $1000 for something small, or for a bit less money/more space in the adjacent Victorian district - still pedestrian-friendly and all, walkable/bikeable to downtown.
New Orleans technically fits all of your criteria but it is not a normal U.S. city. I have known many people like yourself that came down for vacation and then just canceled their plane ticket back to their former home because they just didn’t want to leave. It is very historic, as fun as you can find in the U.S. and the rents are cheap even in the French Quarter. Service industry jobs are plentiful and enough to live on quite well for young people. The downside is that it is unbelievably hot (seriously - like African jungle hot) during the long summer, crime is still fairly high and it has a very distinctive smell. Still, if you want to go for the most exotic city in the lower 48, New Orleans is the place to be. The problem with it is that it consistently lives up to its reputation a little too well and that is exhausting after even a few months.
I had to admit it but ------- parts of Pittsburgh work. I’m thinking of the South Side and Deutschtown sections spring to mind first. And you could actually go cheaper maybe looking at parts of Manchester and other places but they could have drawbacks (crime, slight hills).
Stroudsburg, PA. College & tourist town in the Pocono Mountains (but the town itself is flat) – comic book / games store on Main Street has MTG tournaments, lots of trendy pubs, cafes and restaurants, bunch of artsy and craftsy galleries, one and even some two bedroom apartments available under $600/month, bike path connects several parks and runs along the levee by the creek, all walkable and there is even very decent bus service for a small town (library is out of town but on the bus route).
The OP is currently in the Silicon Valley so how about Davis, California? I’ve heard it’s very bike-friendly and it’s a college town. Plus it’s not too much of a move from the Bay Area.