Are you happy where you live?

As an academic scientist married to another academic scientist, where I now live has been highly constrained by where we could both get faculty positions at a decent university. Since my Ph.D. I have lived in six different cities in five different states including sabbatical years. I now live right in the center of California, in a small city in the central valley.

Like most places, it has its plusses and minuses. On the plus side, the cost of living is low by California standards, and we live in a big house on 1.15 acres just three miles from campus. Traffic is negligible and you can drive anywhere you want at any time of the day. There are lots of quiet roads nearby for running and cycling. There's excellent hiking and backpacking in the Sierras within a 1.5-2.5 hour drive. When I really need a beach fix I can drive to the ocean within about 3 hours, although traffic becomes a big hassle. My small city has a decent gym and most of the other necessities of life, and almost anything I can't find here I can find in the bay area within a 2-3 hour drive, again traffic dependent. It doesn't snow here, but in the winter I can easily drive to elevations where it does.

The down sides? There are very few educated people in my area except those associated with the university, who tend to be a pretty homogeneous lot whose world views are limited to their echo chamber. There's not much "culture" here, although honestly I don't give a darn about most forms of "culture". The summers here are hot as blazes. The worst thing about my current location, which is becoming an issue as we get older, is the lack of decent health care here. Most of the local physicians are pretty hopeless, and having to travel 3 hours each way to the bay area for medical care is a major problem.

We are looking for possible places to move to upon retirement, but we're doing so very carefully. I know lots of people who have retired to what they thought was the perfect place and greatly regretted that decision!

Nice to hear.

The concern about access to good health care facilities in retirement is definitely a major concern of my spouse and I as we have transitioned into that stage of our lives and they were very well informed about the wisdom of doing so seeing as how they spent their career in the health care field. And it's not something I would have considered at all.

So I am just chiming in to confirm your concerns from the vantage point of one who has heard out someone who understands the difference, esp. in this stage of one's life.

I bought my house in the NE USA years ago. I am still in love with it. I luv luv luv it and where I live.

My son lived in Arizona (and couldn't wait to get out). He lives in Boulder now and likes it, but he says that he still considers coming back to Upstate NY. He could sell his house there and pay cash for a bigger place here. He works remote and could live anywhere he wants.

He misses a lot about the northeast culturally and scenically, too. But he says he especially misses the amenities for the taxes we pay.

I've had other people tell me, too that NY just takes better care of its people.

Live in New England. Have lived all around the country, from several big cities to smaller towns. Very close to the state capital. I like the seasons, even though summers are getting hotter and winters are getting wetter and warmer. There is virtually no sprawl here, so you can go from town to farm fields in the space of a few hundred meters. I have out the door access to dirt roads and trails and feel safe running anywhere at any time (with in reason, there are a few busier roads I'd avoid at rush hour). Very hilly. I run outside all winter. In a few minutes I can be in town with restaurants and bars. Drive a bit more and have access to typical suburban stuff. No place is perfect, but I don't plan on leaving New England any time soon.

NY takes care of its people? False words. The city could give a rip and...what are you smoking? I'll go out on a limb and guess that you are a woke liberal.

I lived just outside of Rochester, NY (western NY) for 11 years. I liked everything about it except the weather (the 8 feet or so of snow every winter was hard to take) and the lack of easy access to great hiking/backpacking (the Adirondacks were a long drive and a poor excuse for real mountains). But I can certainly understand why people like living in upstate NY, particularly in the areas that get less snow.

There are obviously some folks on this thread who don't realize the enormous difference between NYC and upstate.

Couldn't be happier. In Almaden Valley area of San Jose. Pop and Mom moved us here in 1964. From the 'wonderful' city of Flint, MI(LOL) House is paid off and worth 1.5 Million more than I bought it for in 1994. Hundreds of miles of footpath, hiking, running, mountain bike, horse riding trails literally right outside my front door. Country Club golf 1/2 mile away (I don't belong there anymore) public World Class 36 hole golf course 3 miles away. 45 minutes to the beach over Madonna Pass to Monterey Bay. About 70 minutes away Monterey/Carmel and Pebble Beach/Spyglass/ Poppy Hills/ Spanish Bay etc. golf courses. About 3.5 to 4 hour drive to trailheads in the Sierras( Kings Canyon NP and Yosemite NP) where I've backpacked over 120 times over the years. I've lucked out as I was friends with many entrepreneurs from Almaden area that were way smarter Than me so always had good job at startups that became successful over the last 30 years. But I put in the time also, was quick learner and showed up at 6 AM everyday. Only maybe couple sick days in last 30 years and those were from twisted ankles from running on trails in the hills. My advice to anyone in there 20s with EE or CS or any technical degree is save a little $$ m move here to Silicon Valley( Palo Alto or south) make friends, network with people, running races or golf. Even and you never know what may happen. Can't hardly beat the weather!

I live in a NW Denver suburb 1/2 way between Denver and Boulder. it’s quite possibly the ideal location for the typical LR denzen. Excellent network of dirt trails, public tracks, good enough PT. COL isn’t Boulder, and you can drive to Boulder. Good employment opportunities, wonderful people, good public and private schools.

I lived in San Jose for a year while on sabbatical in the 1990s, and I currently live 100 miles east. I agree that in most respects San Jose is an almost ideal place to live, for all the reasons you give. The down sides: horrific traffic whenever you need to get on the freeway, and the whopping cost of housing. It's just not feasible for someone who has lived mostly in lower-cost areas.

lol no grade school in the country teaches CRT. It was a college course.

extremely on brand for Idaho to “brag” about something that happens in literally every other state.

I was at Lackland AFB near San Antonio (which may be more like upper-south or lower-mid Texas). I was there for AFROTC summer field training, so I wasn't expecting it to be fun, but the unremitting heat did seem to suck the enjoyment out of any outdoor running or other activity, and everything seemed to be exposed to direct sunlight. Just a huge (but well manicured) wasteland.

I used to say that Austin seemed like the only place in Texas worth living, but that was at least ten to twelve years ago, when housing prices were still pretty low, the main downtown running path was way overcrowded but perhaps not ridiculously so, and the young student population seemed to keep a vibrant counterculture going. It looked ripe for exploitation and major population increases, and I gather that's what has happened.

Texas just seems to be getting worse. Apart from the increasing heat, all three branches of the state government (and even the federal judiciary) have continued to move aggressively rightward, with a level of corruption that might elsewhere be seen in "third-world" autocracies and a loss of liberty and personal safety for many.

Lived in the Bay Area in the late 1980s into the 1990s and it's nothing like it was. Those who are extremely wealthy have it made, but they would have it made anywhere wouldn't they? Everyone else is in sh*tsville anymore. The tech companies have obliterated the economy there for most people and completely drained that entire part of the state of any soul. I hate visiting now and want to punch every smug overpaid banker and coder in the nose when I see them.

An earlier poster sniffed at Flint, MI while waxing on and on about his country club life in the South Bay. BARF. I'd live near Flint (probably not IN Flint these days) all day every day before living in the soul sucking dystopia that has become the South Bay. Michigan is real people, change of seasons, diversity, the Great Lakes, reasonable cost of living, ease of traffic, some of the best running in the country. The South Bay? Land Of The Douche.

I think of San Jose and I go right to that sh*tty Levi's Stadium. Ugly, poorly sited, endless sun in the eyes of game attendees, a rich tech bro idiot's idea of a great place to see the once-legend 49ers. It's a perfect metaphor for what the entire Bay Area has become; a smug, lifeless, expensive, culture-less shell of it's former self.