<p>Actually, Jacksonville appears relatively immune to hurricanes. If you look at a map of hurricane hits over the last 50 or 75 years, you will notice that the coast around Jacksonville has escaped pretty much unscathed. I’m not sure if it is just based on luck or if the indentation of the coastline along there plays a role.</p>
<p>Boston is too expensive. Nice and liberal, great academics and good food, but the prices for housing and services are absurd. Salaries don’t begin to match the cost of living, so if I had it to do all over again, I’d settle somewhere else.</p>
<p>alwaysamom
You make Toronto sound so enticing!
I’m a New Yorker and in the next few years H and I will be looking to move but I’m inclined to go someplace warmer.
I can’t believe you found a city you consider more diverse than NYC…I didnt think that existed.</p>
<p>Regarding Jacksonville and its lack of being hit by hurricanes in a number of decades, I believe it has been pure luck and nothing more. As we all have read and heard, hurricanes go in cycles. Just a few years ago, it seemed that Wilmington, North Carolina (and the Carolinas in general) had a bullseye painted on its back for direct hurricane hits. Now it seems Florida and the Gulf Coast are having all the fun. I understand that up to the early 1990’s Miami had not taken a direct hurricane hit for many years and that an attitude of “not to worry” was beginning to infect Miamians. Unfortunately, category 5 Hurricane Andrew adjusted that attitude. I think Jacksonville has just been lucky up to now.</p>
<p>Another vote for Philly - Relative to other East Coast cities (Washington, New York, Washington) the cost of housing is extremely reasonable. (I grew up there.) Everything on the OP’s list is met except - perhaps - for the weather which is genuinely “temperate” being positively impacted by the warm winds off the Gulf Stream. And Philly has everything an urbanite (or suburbanite) could want in a metropolitan area (except courteous fans for its professional sports teams).</p>
<p>Jacksonville, Florida, except probably for the public transportation. No offense to all the Houstonians out there, but I’d rather be shot.</p>
<p>If you would drop 750,000 and replace it with cultural sophistication, I could give you 3 or 4 places. Did anyone read on AOL a list of surprising cities with the highest per capita number of millionaires? Several places in Fla that you wouldn’t think of at first, plus Hilton Head.</p>
<p>Now for some of the Houston positives from a geographic perspective for the OP, the Houston area is so vast that in the southeast you have the seacoast in Galveston; a huge bay in Galveston Bay; forests as far as the eye can see to the north and east; and relatively treeless prairie to the west and southwest. The Houston area has the distinction of the largest planned community in the United States (the Woodlands) with over 23,000 forested acres of residential, commercial, retail, and light industrial (north of the city) and a second huge planned community (over 20,000 acres in the northeast) called Kingwood. This is in contrast to the fact that the city of Houston is the largest city in the country with no comprehensive zoning laws (which has been both positive and negative). Houston is as dynamic, energizing, rough and tumble, big dream city as there is in the U.S. And it is one of the most affordable cities housing-wise. Public transportation is gradually getting better (a light rail line through downtown is being expanded). Along with oil companies, Houston is one of the premier medical research centers in the country (with Rice University across the street); NASA thrives there; and Compaq Computer started there. Houston is a city of amazing contrasts (no zoning, but huge planned communities). For my druthers, I like Atlanta better, but Houston can give any large city a run for its money in terms of a place to put down roots.</p>
<p>Sorry again to the Texans - Houston does have a great rodeo, but it is so darn spread out. I have relatives living near Kemah, and yes the boardwalk is nice, but when the BIG ONE comes, it will out do Katrina. I’ve heard the northern, wooded areas of the city are lovely, and down where they are, you are almost in Galveston.</p>
<p>Still really like Jacksonville. How about the Newport News area? When I lived in Richmond years ago, it was very industrial and not so attractive a place to live, although the Williamsburg area is nice.</p>
<p>Cangel, do you remember which places in Florida have the millionaire clusters? Is West Palm Beach one of them?</p>
<p>I have heard many wonderful things about Houston and Atlanta in real life. I’ve been to both in the past year, but only for very fast business trips. </p>
<p>Today, I actually saw Chicago and Lake Michigan for the first time, but from the window of a plane - had to connect to a flight there which was really odd. The lake was stunning - I was amazed at the size of it.</p>
<p>Right up until you said “eastern part of the US” I was thinking "well, Seattle would be perfect–not too cold, not too hot, great for water sports of all kinds, has a wide range of housing prices, a few universities, a few decent hospitals, improving public transport, growing business community, etc. </p>
<p>However, since you specify eastern US, I’ll confess to being at a loss to fulfill all your requirements. Miami is certainly vibrant but it’s also crime-ridden (although the mix of cultures part is certainly there)…</p>
<p>I have friends who ended up in Dallas, with a second house in the Caribbean for the boating season, when they made a similar evaluation.</p>
<p>Regarding Lake Michigan - yes it is huge. Plus, most of its southern shoreline is a very nice sand. If you were to be blindfolded and brought to its shoreline, you would think that you were at the ocean - except that on calm days the waves are lower (on stormy days - watch out!) Also, swimming in fresh water is a much more pleasant experience than salt water. Boating and fishing is huge all around Lake Michigan.</p>
<p>The downside of that region is the weather in the winter. It does get cold and snowy, but even more problematic for me is the gray dreariness of most winter days. When I moved to New Jersey from Michigan I was amazed that the sun actually existed during the winter! (Yes, Michigan had some sunny days and, with a fresh snowfall, they can be spectacular - but they are too few in my opinion.)</p>
<p>One thing that I noticed that you did not have in your list of requirements was friendly people. One thing that I have noticed is that some regions of the country are much friendlier than others - especially towards strangers. The Midwest is one such area. Also, in our recent trip to the west coast of Florida we were struck with how friendly the people were. I even had a kid who worked for the supermarket that we were shopping at stop and ask if he could help me load groceries into my car as he was out collecting shopping carts. This would NEVER happen in the New York/New Jersey area.</p>
<p>How about San Antonio?</p>
<p>How does that rate?</p>
<p>Latetoschool, the statistics were manipulated to highlight smaller lesser known areas - per capita. I know that Naples, Vero Beach, and Sarasota or a town near Sarasota was on the list. Let me see if I can find it on AOL again.</p>
<p>Sorry late, I tried a couple of searches on AOL with no luck. It was earlier this week, though, and was a list of smaller cities.</p>
<p>I will be retiring in a few years, so we are beginning to ponder a move. We have no idea where we will end up but a consideration will be a move which will minimize our “carbon footprint”. We are vacationing in the northwest this fall so will be checking out Eugene, Portland and the Seattle areas. We are also considering Dublin and Edinborough if immigration issues are not too difficult.</p>
<p>Cangel, thanks for taking the time to look, I appreciate it. </p>
<p>I am beginning to sense that, if a person is basically happily, then, everywhere is pretty much wonderful, given that we take ourselves everywhere we go.</p>