My sister lived in the Great Lakes area for years, and would tell stories about driving around in Chicago and somehow getting lost in “dangerously bad areas”, like places that you wouldn’t feel safe just driving through. I guess that freaked me out, because aside from Gary, Indiana or E. St. Louis, or some nasty areas in LA - I’ve never heard stories like that about other places.
Then again, she could have been overblowing it.
Depends on how paranoid your sister was - and I must admit as a 6’+ male I am limited in my ability to completely empathize with a woman’s concerns.
First off, Chicago has a grid of main streets running N/S and E/W every 1/2 mile. I’m not sure there is a single main street that you would be unsafe driving down anywhere in Chicago - certainly not during the day. It is not as tho there are wilding gangs roaming the streets looking for prey. Most poor people - whatever their color and ethnicity - mind their own business the same way wealthy people do.
Now if you were driving down a main street, you might feel less comfortable if you turned off into a side street. They tend to be narrower with parking on both sides, may be in worse repair, and with less traffic and fewer pedestrians, you might feel more exposed and vulnerable.
But here’s the thing - you’d have to be seriously turned around to get off the main streets and into the really crappy areas. For the most part, if you are nervous about that kinda thing, you really can get from most points to most other points via expressways or main drags, and not even be aware of whaever hellish neighborhoods you are passing by.
Just about every city of a certain size has its lousy neighborhoods. For example, Cincinnati has some crappy areas and within the last decade had some ugly murder stats. When I was in Atlanta a couple of years back, folks said everything in one direction from the hotel was fine, but they strongly recommended that folks not go too far in the other direction. I’m sure the same is true for Nashville, Cleveland, and some other towns on your list.
I’d be a lot less frightened by Chicago’s criminal element than by its real estate prices - ye gods! $300,000 for 2,000 s.f. kinda blows my mind.
Way higher than that in a lot of suburbs, probably including Palatine these days (I grew up there, and it’s sad to say that my parents could afford it back then…on one income, but not sure I could, now, even with both of us working). I love it here in Chicago, and truly appreciate the nice things that you & the raindog have said about it…it’s a great city. But it is getting expensive. The suburbs the raindog mentioned…Evanston and Oak Park…are getting to be mind-blowing. They are fantastic places to live, but because they border the city and have easy commuter transportation to downtown, they are getting really out of range for regular folks…unless you are prepared to buy a real fixer-upper. Of course, there are a zillion other suburbs, and they are not all so out-of-range.
As far as the crime here, there are definitely areas I would recommend staying away from, but generally speaking, I think it’s as safe as a lot of the smaller midwest cities. (A friend of mine was held up at gunpoint in Minneapolis…I NEVER would have thought to be afraid of that there!) I think a lot of people associate being run-down with being dangerous, and there are some parts of the city, even right around the Loop, that are just old and don’t look so great, but aren’t dangerous. Also, a lot of out-of-towners drive into the city by way of the Dan Ryan expressway (it’s pretty much the only way to get to the city from points east), and it goes through the worst of the south side. Doesn’t make a great first impression on people, but it’s not that easy to find yourself actually driving through those neighborhoods accidentally.
flat: From Alpharetta north it is pretty hilly, with mountain views in the distance (well, Rocky Mountain folks may not call them “mountains”). Our neighborhood of 600+ homes is quite hilly (more than rolling, for certain), and we’re just north of Gwinnett/Fulton.
humid: I grew up in Florida, and to me it is MUCH less humid in Atlanta, at least on average. There are certainly humid days in the Summer, but there are also drier days; in Florida (and Houston) it is ALWAYS humid every day.
drivers: I can’t dispute that, but I see idiot drivers in every state.
Ok, I’ll chime in for Nashville and Huntsville.
I’ll start with Huntsville, I know you said you weren’t that excited about it but you should think about reconsidering. It’s an interesting place, really. Small, it’s not going to have the kinds of things and variety that a Chicago or even Nashville would have but it’s not so small that it feels like you have to go someplace else to do things. Tons of very educated people live there, thanks to the aerospace industry. Very reasonable cost of living. My wife and I will probably be relocating to that area sometime this year ourselves. It’s a neat place to live from what I know.
Nashville. I’ve lived my entire life here and I really do love it. I’ve been to other cities that have the same stuff, same size and the same kind of numbers on paper but Nashville really does have a unique feeling and identity. We have good parks, many lakes nearby, pro football and hockey, a music scene unrivaled in many ways outside of NY and LA, a really wonderful main library and new symphony hall, many universities… just alot of things going on. That said, schools here suck, crime is getting bad and cost of living is rising. It’s also a southern city with all that entails, if you want to experience a change in lifestyle it will do that for you (same with Huntsville).
I’m in the software field (video games). I lived most of my life in Austin, until I moved here to central Oregon three years ago.
Basically, if you’re going to live in Texas, live in Austin. It’s damn hot during the summer, and there’s a goodly amount of traffic, but other than that, it’s a good place to live. The pay’s pretty good there, and there are TONS of software jobs there.
The main deciding factor, though, should be the house prices. My house back in Austin would be equivalent to my current home, in size, neighborhood, and quality. However, the house here cost me three times as much as I sold my Austin house for.
Woah, wait - it cost you more to buy a house in central Oregon than it did in Austin? Or am I more tired than I thought and reading that wrong? 
I do remember Austin having a very low cost of living. Also, Texas has no state income tax. (Unless that’s changed since I left the state.)
Thank you for mentioning Huntsville, I was hoping someone would chime in on that one. My attitude toward the city has improved after a few days of reading up on the place, and your comments help too.
We can’t move for another 5 months (apartment lease), but it looks like its a matter of what place responds first. Portland would be the easiest move as its only two hours south - and we really do love the city. However, banking on one place could mean waiting and waiting.
Huntsville would be the next likely candidate if Portland isn’t very responsive when its time to really start job hunting. There is also the fear that Portland will become the next Seattle (like Seattle’s trying to be the next San Francisco) and prices will increase.
If you’re looking for work in software development, don’t even bother with Cleveland unless you know someone who is going to do a start-up in the near future with little to no local competition. (There are good developers, here, but Cleveland was a manufacturing town going bust and it’s hard to find new work.)
Depending on what aspect of “software development” you are talking about, Columbus might or might not be worth looking into. Ohio State has not attracted quite the amount of high tech that one might desire. OTOH, Columbus is a huge insurance industry magnet and anyone doing business programming can pretty much walk into town (or cruise around the I-270 loop) and find some sort of job pretty easily.
It’s pretty hard to live anywhere without a job, so I won’t bother digging up more info unless Columbus sounds like a possibility. (Metropolitan Cleveland has a lot of really good features; it is simply not a good place for programmers to be seeking work at the moment. Columbus is routinely mocked for being a “white bread” community, but that is not necessarily a fair characterization.) Cost of living is quite reasonable in both locations.
I dinn’t even know the Securities and Exchange Commission had a football team. American or European football?
I can tell you about:
Virginia Beach, VA (lived there for 12 years)
Raleigh-Durham, NC (live here now)
Cleveland, Ohio (grew up there, go back every year to visit)
Crime rates
In all these areas, it depends on where you go. Virginia Beach is part of a bigger area known as Tidewater or Hampton Roads. Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have the lowest crime rates, while Portsmouth and Newport News are higher. Norfolk is somewhere in the middle. None of them are high-crime rate areas in comparison to other larger cities nationally.
In the Raleigh-Durham area, your group of cities/towns are collectively known as the Triangle. Durham probably has the highest crime rate, while Cary and Chapel Hill are the lowest. Again, they fall under the national average.
In Cleveland, you’ll find lower crime rates in the surrounding suburbs that you will in the city itself. The only place I’d not want to find myself at night would be the near East side, though.
Economy
The best economy will be found in the Triangle area for a software engineer. Hampton Roads is mainly a military area, so if you are not in the military, a civil service employee working for DoD, or working for a military contractor, there’s not much else out there jobwise. There are a lot of military spouses that are essentially a captive audience for employers, and that depresses salaries as well. The best bet for finding a job in that area is to go to USAJobs and see if there are openings for software engineers in that area. That will give you the best shot at a decent salary and benefits.
As tomanddeb said, Cleveland still sports manufacturing jobs, which don’t have all that great a future in this country, I don’t think.
Transportation
In Cleveland and the Hampton Roads areas, you will need a car. Transportation options suck. You can get to downtown Cleveland via the Rapid Transit, but in general you’d probably have to drive to a station to use it.
In the Triangle, if you live in Chapel Hill and want to go to other parts of Chapel Hill or Carrboro, they have free bus system that does a decent job. If you want to go between towns and cities though, you’ll need a car.
Recreation
As far as cultural opportunities go, Cleveland is the best of these three. It has a world class orchestra and art museum, free and/or cheap music events at the Music Settlement, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, science and natural history museums, etc. Blossom Music Center is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater about 25 miles south of Cleveland that is the summer home of the orchestra, and they also have pop and rock concerts there. There is also major-league baseball, football and basketball, all with very nice recently-built stadiums. The zoo is very nice too.
The Triangle is next on the list with culture and recreation. There’s lots of stuff presented by the various universities here - plays, concerts, etc., plus Raleigh has some museums and there’s community theater and art film theaters as well. Since the weather is warmer for longer, there’s also ample opportunities for hiking, biking, and you are only a couple hours away from the mountains to the west and the ocean to the east. There is only one major-league team - the Hurricanes hockey team, but if you like college sports, there’s lots of that, and this time of year you’ve got the March Madness in full swing - that’s pretty much the topic du jour around here. 
We’ve also got a nice stadium in Durham for the Bulls, the minor-league baseball team. Seats are cheap and the games are fun.
Virginia Beach doesn’t really have culture. There’s some in Norfolk - they’ve got an orchestra, a nice museum and a minor-league team, the Tides. The beach area is touristy and very crowded during the summer months. It’s nicer to go down there after Labor Day when the weather is still nice and the crowds have thinned out. They do have nice public recreation facilities though and you can do outdoor activities for most of the year since it hardly snows there.
Aesthetics
Out of these three areas, I’d say the Triangle is the prettiest. There’s still a lot of rural/agricultural land and I really like the area I live in. Cleveland has the Metroparks system (aka the Emerald Necklace), which is also very nice. I grew up next to one segment of the park, and back then as kids we’d go down to the park and spend practically all day down there. The Triangle is also the hilliest area - Virginia Beach and Cleveland are pretty flat, though there are some small valleys in the Cleveland area. There is more old construction in Cleveland, of course, and if it’s well maintained, it’s interesting and nice. If not, it’s an eyesore. You will have a lot more sunny days in NC and VA than you will in Cleveland and a lot less snow.
Maybe so, but allow me to state the obvious and point out that TnD’s post identifies one tremendous asset the NE Ohio area has that none of the others enjoy? 
you should at least consider Madison, WI. Good work opportunities, very liberal and cultured in a laid-back, low-pressure kind of way. Always ranked very high as far as ‘Best Places to Live’ polls go. It’s also very green, and very biker/ped friendly.
It’s got a similar vibe to Portland, or what Austin used to be.
I moved here 5 years ago from Baltimore and can’t believe it took me this long to get out here in the first place.
You ain’t from around here, are ya?
I grew up in Charleston, WV, and it’s not a bad place, but it’s kind of isolated. It’s a several hour drive to any major city, and the economy is not that great. Housing’s pretty cheap, though.
If you’re looking to move to anywhere in West Virginia, I’d recommend the Morgantown area. It’s a growing area with a very good economy, and it’s fairly close to Pittsburgh. With the university, there are a good number of cultural events (better than, say, Charleston, but not as good as a major city). It has the benefits of a smaller town with lower crime rates and cost of living, but the university brings in a more multicultural atmosphere and recreational opportunities than you’d normally find.
I’ll just add a few things to what romansperson said about Virginia Beach.
Do be aware that this area is also sometimes refered to as the 7 cities area. Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, and Chesapeake make up these cities. It is very important that you try and figure out where you’ll most likely be working, then find someplace to live in the general area. To get from one place to another you’ll almost certainly have to go through a tunnel, or over a bridge…or both. So trying to live on the same side of the water as your job is a good thing.
Traffic sucks around here. The tunnels and bridges act as choke points, and they get backed up just about every day. My wife works 13 miles from our house…takes her about 45 minutes to get to work…assuming someone hasn’t broken down in the tunnel. Also lots of young military drivers that tend to not drive so good.
On the plus side…you’re very close to the beach. Nags Head NC is just an hour or so away, lots of historic areas to visit, couple of amuesment parks withing reasonable distance. There’s a semi-regular theater at Chrystler Hall with pretty good shows about once a month. Washington DC is a nice weekend trip to visit the national zoo, or Smithsonian, close enough to get to pretty easily, far enough away to feel like a ‘get away’.
There can be some racial tensions…depending on where you live, this is still the south, with some small minded people. But there aren’t burning crosses every week on the news. Climate is nice, but keep in mind you’re in the south. If you choose here, or anyplace farther south, be prepared for some hot summers. My wife lived near Cleveland most of her life. The first summer we were down here she was shocked when the tempurature on the bank sign showed 98 degrees at 9am…so…keep that in mind as well.
I haven’t lived in Chicago, but my brother did for about 4 years. He’s from a very small town and he wasn’t very intimidated by moving there. He’d lived in a couple of smallish cities in NYS for awhile (he HATED Rochester, so stay away from there) so he had SOME city experience.
Anyway, he loved Chicago. Even his wife, who has a bit of a social phobia, loved it. He’s a radio DJ and got fired a couple of years ago for an unfortunate comment and stayed there for a year, hoping to be hired at another station, but eventually moved to Cleveland, when an opportunity opened up there.
They hate it and his wife thinks the people are rude. They really wish they could go back to Chicago. We visited them a couple of times in Chicago and it really is a great city.
I’ve lived in Raleigh, but that was 10 years ago, so I don’t know what it’s like now. I had two job offers (accounting) within three days of moving there. I also experienced my first hurricane within 5 days of moving there (Fran - 1996). It was a really nice area and you can’t beat the weather, especially in winter. My only complaint was that it was more humid than I ever thought possible. It gets humid in NYS, but it’s nothing like NC.
When my fiance and I were visiting home in NY during the first summer we were living in NC, we woke up one morning and got ready to go out. His mother warned us, “It’s REALLY humid today!” We walked outside and I looked at him and said, “What the hell is she talking about? It’s bone dry out here!” I guess we’d gotten aclimated to the southern humidity. 
Other have stated the virtues of Cleveland, so to sweeten the pot a bit, there are SOME opportunities here for software developers. The company I work for in Mentor, OH for one, is looking for one:
We’re located in Mentor, OH, about 20 minutes east of Cleveland. If you live on the east side, you’ll have the advantage of driving opposite of rush-hour traffic both ways 