Best City to work in

Parent Cafe
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<p>Lived in SF Bay area, Boston, Providence, Paris, New York, LA.</p>

<p>Paris & Boston were tops. </p>

<p>Ca was great when I was growing up, but it is too congested almost everywhere now.</p>

<p>I’d like to live in Rome. I suspect it would be #1 on my list if I gave it a shot. However, the inefficiencies of european life (strikes etc) can be quite irritating. Then again, walking out of your building and seeing slices of history everywhere you go is marvelous.</p>

<p>I like cities that are beautiful, walk-friendly, human-scale cities with great public transportation. I like having a sense of space around me: vistas, views. The aesthetic component is huge, followed by the ease of getting around, followed by an intimate, small town feel in the neighborhood.</p>

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<p>Not much mention of Seattle. I’ve heard it’s a magnet for recent college graduates.</p>

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<p>dudedad,</p>

<p>I really liked Seatlle, but it expensive from my perspective. I have also lived in Manchester, UK, Boston, metro NYC and Pittsburgh, where I currently live.</p>

<p>With the possible exception of Manchester, all the other cities beat Pittsburgh from both a job growth/business climate perspective and mass transit perspective. But Pittsburgh is a great place to raise a family and can’t be beat from a cost of living perspective: our mortgage is more like a car payment. There so much to do in a five mile radius of our house, a great city park system, major sports teams, rivers and a rails to trail system right to downtown.</p>

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<p>My city is Los Angeles. Why is it great to work here? Don’t think it is. The weather is great and after that… Housing prices are insane, traffic is horrendous, the City’s public school system is horrible, gang and related violence is rampant, the Dodgers stink, the Lakers stink, there is no NFL team, between the earthquakes, mudslides and fires, some natural disaster is always lurking, population growth is out of control, there is virtually no urban planning/design, the public transportation system is a joke. Wow, what am I doing here.</p>

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<p>well barrons, i like your LA too. my LA was south central and downtown, which as you might surmise, is not quite on the same level.</p>

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<p>ok the bus system in LA actually isnt bad but it seems like the only people that know about it are mexican. i seriously was the only white person on the bus everytime i rode.</p>

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<p>LA is more a state of mind anyway.</p>

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<p>LA is truly a terrible place…horrible crime, very dirty, WAY too much traffic congestion, extremely high housing costs…the only good thing is the beach which is probably also dirty, and the weather I guess but the pollution kinda ruins that too.</p>

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<p>I’ve spent the greatest number of years in the DC area. With all of its in-your-face-this-is the power-center-of-the-globe attitude, DC does offer tons of cultural and historical goodies, is close to both the mountains and the bay, and is host to wonderful career opportunities (we have been gaining jobs at a healthy pace). </p>

<p>Still, if I were totally unencumbered by familial obligations, I wouldn’t live here - had enough of the traffic. I’m fond of a number of US cities, including Boston, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco. For small cities, Charlottesville is hard to beat. If one’s profession were easily portable (e.g. writer or the like) small towns in New England would get my vote.</p>

<p>I really like Vancouver and Toronto, and love London, Madrid, and Milan. If I were cloned a few times, one of us would live in each of them.</p>

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<p>alwaysamom, thanks for the info on Toronto. I would most definitely like to visit someday. I’m sorry for the murders and violence this week.</p>

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<p>haha all this los angeles hate :-P</p>

<p>it’s so warm and sunny though! and i can’t speak for all of la, but santa monica is really nice.</p>

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<p>momofinca, you’re welcome! If you ever plan to visit, let me know. :)</p>

<p>Although we’ve never lived in L.A., we’ve visited several times as we have two sets of friends who live in the area, one in Westlake Village and one in Lake Sherwood. We loved both communities (as do our friends!), they were beautiful!</p>

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<p>m&sdad –</p>

<p>Concur that Pitts. is a bit of an underrated “hidden gem”. The view when you enter the city from the Fort Pitt tunnel is striking. Kind of like SF’s hills, but instead of little cable cars, you have the incline…/^^^</p>

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<p>First comment - a lot of these comments, I think, would be tempered by one’s circumstance - kids or no kids, living in center city or living in the suburbs. Big difference between living in Palo Alto and living in San Francisco.</p>

<p>I’ve raised three children in Northern New Jersey. Most people wouldn’t think this is a great place to live but it is if you’re raising children. We are an hour from some very beautiful beaches, we are an hour from mountains (with bears, wild turkeys, etc.), we’re 20 minutes from Manhattan, 10 minutes from Giants Stadium, and the community we live in is truly diverse (35 percent African-American, mix of economic classes, etc.). We’re 20 minutes from virtually any retail outlet/store you would ever need. And, believe it or not, traffic is manageable - New Jersey long ago was “built out” - our population is holding steady, most use good mass transit to get to work in Manhattan, etc. And the whole state is a grid of roads - I can drive to Cape May without ever getting on a major road. Most new areas of the country were built with everything ending in a cul-du-sac, feeding into larger and larger roads. In Northern Virginia, Dallas, Atlanta, etc. to get from one side of town to another you HAVE to get on a major feeder road or highway - effectively most suburban towns are actually large cul-du-sacs. I can drive from one side of my town to the other 500 different ways depending on the time of day, accidents, etc.</p>

<p>All that said - I’m ready to leave NJ due to the high taxes (12K on a 4 bedroom, 1/4 acre house) - and the absolutely disgustingly low level of politics and political discourse here. Our soon-to-be governor, Jon Corzine, spent $107-million to win a Senate seat and now a Governor’s seat. Our soon to be Senator Bob Menendez cheated on his wife and gave special public favors to his paramour, etc., etc. etc. And our former governor, Jim “I’m proud to be a gay American” McGreevey. No one here cared about his sexual persuasion but we did care about the corruption of his administration - he made his lover, a FOREIGN NATIONAL, head of State homeland security - he wasn’t even able to read confidential memoranda from the federal government.</p>

<p>Places we are considering moving to ( all center city so we can roll out of bed, have a cup of coffee in a local cafe, etc.): San Francisco (might have to live in a studio but would be worth it), Portland OR (beautiful, just the right size, great parks), Halifax, Nova Scotia (beautiful city, weather is about the same as Boston’s, LOBSTER), Montreal (beautiful, cosmopolitan, Quebecers like Americans more than they like - or dislike - Ontarians), Albuquerque, NM (Sandia), Flagstaff, AZ, San Luis Obispo, CA, Saratoga, NY.</p>

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<p>No love for the southeast? </p>

<p>Well I am not surprised, but certain parts of Atlanta are really nice. Good weather, good music… Not a great city to raise kids though.</p>

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<p>I haven’t lived in NYC as an adult, but I had an office on lower Broadway and enjoyed my time in the City, especially after a rainfall in the spring, or late at night after a snowfall when the crowds have left Rockefeller Center and the storefront displays. Broadway shows, museum openings and new exhibits at the zoo were always exceptional and not easily replicated in other cities. However, most of us have closet space bigger than the apartment space we could afford in Manhattan these days and I would not want to be a commuter.</p>

<p>Honolulu is limited culturally unless you are particularly interested in Hawaiiana or what happened to those rock bands from the seventies, but if you can remember the nicest summer day of your youth, they get 300+ of them every year in Hawaii. Of course if you don’t work for an airlines, be prepared to miss out on some mainland weddings and birthday parties.</p>

<p>I love where I live now, but wouldn’t call it anyone’s dream city. Sacramento is warm (100+) and dry in the summer and wet and more wet in the winter. The people have a mid western friendliness about them and they have their share culture of in and around the city. I know that it isn’t a selling point that where you are is only a couple of hours from someplace better, but it is easy to get into San Francisco and up to the mountains. I came to Sacramento because it is a friendly, multi-cultural community and I have not been disappointed. I like living near state capitals because I am politically involved. Rent is cheap, house prices are high. Traffic is bearable if you stay off the interstates during rush hour.</p>