I’m from Upstate New York and I certainly miss the seasons. When you started getting tired of the winter cold and snow and ice, spring and green trees and chirping birds would come. And when you started to tire of the spring rains, the summer warmth would come. And so on.
Living in or near San Francisco as I have got the past 40+ years, I miss those seasons! And the cold winters and the warm house with a nice fire weree key sensations of the holiday seasons.
My wife, born and raised in this area, would tell me that We DO have fall colors! See? And she’d point to a street with a dozen lovely trees.
Once when visiting our son at college in NYC one October, we rented a car and drove up the Hudson River Valley. I pointed out the mountains everywhere absolutely covered with bright reds and golds and said, now THOSE are fall colors!
When my father retired the UN made him an offer he couldn’t refuse so he worked for another year. He had sold our house already so they sublet an apartment in midtown. It was great, especially since he had a parking spot in the UN garage so that he and my mother could drive to Queens to go shopping in our old supermarket.
When we stayed in NY for three weeks pre-pandemic my only negative was small, crowded, expensive markets. The rest was perfect.
Especially getting the Sunday Times Saturday night.
So the snow and ice only lasts about 5 minutes in upstate NY? Who knew? That’s about how long it takes for me to get tired of the stuff.
Here in Florida we totally DO have fall colors. Really. We can tell it’s fall when all the license plates turn colors. Especially prevalent are the black & peanut-butter brown of NY and the white & blue of Quebec
Seriously though, I'm glad you're in a place you like. And I'm glad that we don't all like the same things. Otherwise it'd be really crowded wherever that place was.
This exactly! I love where I live and while there is way too much housing construction going on for my taste, it’d be worse if everyone wanted to live here. And while I don’t get why so many people flock to Florida to retire, I’m glad they’re going there and not here!
Along with never wanting to live anywhere not rural, I’d never want to live in “the south”. I’ve encountered blatant racism in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. This led to me never vacationing in the South and I’d never live there.
I’ve been living in a very rural part of Ohio for over 20 years. A log house in the middle of 15 wooded acres. No neighbors. I will never move back to the suburbs, and am horrified at even the thought of living in a town/city/village. I also hate hot weather. So if I were to move (which is doubtful), it would be to a rural part of Michigan, Montana, northern Idaho, northwestern Maine, etc.
One of the standard sayings about Florida is that the farther south you go, the more Northern it gets. Which is really a comment on the rural / urban divide that exists in every state, since our major urban / suburban areas are concentrated down near / at the bottom.
I think a lot of you are setting the bar much too low. Yeah, sure, you might not want to have Republicans or Democrats as neighbors, but the fact is, we all pretty much do in this country. And, sure, the weather can be inconvenient in some southern climates (or northern), but it’s something we can deal with via HVAC and the right service provider.
I’m going to say that I absolutely, positively never want to live in India. It’s nominally a democracy, but Modi is an autocrat worse than many. Its corruption makes Mexico look positively upright and stellar. Cities are absolute shitholes. Its culture towards women hinges on evil. Its cultural treatment of lower castes doesn’t even hinge on evil; it’s full outright evil.
I can get/make awesome Indian food right here, and don’t need to live in India to get it. And while there’s an occasional dry county, we don’t have entirely dry states.
The best places I’ve ever been to in India are inside the walls of steel mills and inside the walls of auto plant compounds. I’m not exaggerating; it’s like getting into the garden of Eden.
I’d prefer not to live in California, but there’s no way in hell you could ever convince me to live in India (and I’ve lived in some pretty bad places).
That really depends on what the weather is and how it’s “inconvenient”. HVAC can keep indoor temperatures tolerable, but it doesn’t help with anything outdoors - so it won’t help me live in Vegas if I like spending time outdoors. And there’s no HVAC or service provider that will entirely eliminate the problems with snow - I can live in a situation (like an apartment) where I don’t have to shovel the sidewalks but I’m still going to encounter the other problems caused by snow.
Is it really just the urban/rural divide? I am no expert on Florida- but everyone I know who moved there from the Northeast ( whether full-time or snowbirds, retired or still working age) moved somewhere between Melbourne and Key West. I visited that area once ( from Melbourne to West Palm Beach trying to decide if I wanted to buy something there) and it very much felt like NY/NJ south, from the accents to the food.
I gotta ask, how many here are basing their “I would never live there!” opinions on some bubble-media portrayals instead of lived experience?
I fully accept that everyone has preferences, and there are massive differences between urban downtown and rural acreage, or hot/humid and winter freeze. But some of the stated preferences, particularly referencing political divisions, seem like cartoonish stereotypes and not based on any real experiences.
I was jobless for a long time. The pay was lousy but the hours were great. I got to visit my family in Coconut Creek Florida for a whole month each year. I’m basing my never on that.
It could be somewhere in between. There is one particular place I was thinking about spending winters when I retire - it’s really the only area in that state I would consider for other reasons. But it went off my list when some friends who moved there left after just a couple of years due to politics - so while it wasn’t my lived experience, it also wasn’t media portrayals.
My main criteria is to be within reasonable distance of the maximum number of my children and grandchildren. Unless the majority leave Michigan I’m not leaving. So it’s a matter of where in the state to live and being used to the Lansing area I’m sticking in this general vicinity.
Were it not for family, I’d confine myself to the upper tier of states geographically (prefer cold weather states) and those that are not ruby red and not across the Rockies. So it’s MN, WI, MI, NY, VT, NH, ME as possible relocation states.
My father-in-law lives in Polk County, between Orlando and Tampa. Last time we went to see him, he took us to a citrus farm that had the most amazing orange and tangerine juice that I’ve ever tasted.
And that was the only good thing about Polk County.
Mine are based on the lived experiences of antisemitism, homophobia, and misogyny I and friends have experienced, as well as those we would be subjected to under the laws of those states.
I’ve lived for over 60 years and have been all over this country and abroad. My choice not to live in the south is based upon direct experience, there is nothing there that appeals to me. Been there every year as a child for prolonged family vacations and been there for work as an adult for months at a time.
Now I don’t know about India, never been to India, so I don’t know or make comments about India. From what I hear its not a place that interest me, but I cannot say absolutely, positively as desribed in the thread title. So I say nothing.
That’s about how long it takes for me to get tired of the stuff.