Where should I move?
 

Okay, so I've been living in the Chicago area my entire life, except for four years in Iowa. Chicago is a great city, but I've had the itch to move somewhere different for a while now, and I'm starting to really want to do something about it. The problem is that I really don't know where to go, and I'd like to hear some suggestions. My requirements are:

-I'd prefer someplace with actual seasons, and that doesn't get too outrageously hot.
-I'd like a place that has racial and economic diversity.
-It should be a mid-sized or larger city, although it doesn't have to be huge.
-Good restaurants (and by good restaurants, I mean ones that aren't part of a chain) with great ethnic food and restaurants with vegetarian options.
-Not too overcrowded or expensive (which for me probably eliminates New York and San Fran.).
-Hopefully, a place with a great house and hip hop music scene.
-Preferably, a place that is at least a little politically liberal (or at least not totally conservative).

Does such a place exist? What do you all think? Places that have been at the top of the list include Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis, but I am really looking for other options as well.

St. Louis, except for hip hop scene's (there's a few though) and can get pretty hot in July.

St. Louis is nice, smaller than Chicago, but you have all four seasons, a nice mix of restaurants, historic and culture-defined neighborhoods, and wineries 25 minutes away. Good shopping, the loft district, and good sports. Not too much cold/snow in the winter but some, and summers are tolerable. Fall and spring are very well defined. You are also more centralized in the U.S.


Ann Arbor, Mich., looks nice ... but I have never been

http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/details/ANNAR_MI.html

Charlotte, NC is nice. It fits some, but not all of your "wish list"

Not that I live there but you description sounds a lot like Atlanta. It does get pretty hot there though and not much snow.

Cincy :) :) :) :) or....northern Columbus..but hey..I'm just partial to Ohio.. :)

What about somewhere in Virginia? Or maybe Denver, Seattle or Portland?

Atlanta might just fit every category. It does get hot, but not like Fla. (or I DEFINITELY would have recommended Miami).

It is VERY diverse, pretty liberal for the South, and it has a great hip hop scene. As far as restaurants, I will have to wait til I go back to tell you the best ones (deceased brain cells).

I'm a big fan of Providence, RI! I've spent most of the past 3.5 years here (I'm a senior), and I'm kinda sad to leave come August 2003. Even though it's in RI, it's got all four seasons (you'll definitely need AC in the summer, and fall is beautiful). You're close enough to the cool cities that are too expensive to live in, like Boston and New York, to take a fairly quick and inexpensive train. If you like Italian food, Prov is where it's at! Gooood cheap Italian food, and I know what Italian's all about. A city that's about to elect a gay Jewish major fits my description of "liberal". With about 200K people, I'm not sure about the club music scene here, but its pretty good for me.

Good luck!

I give a thumbs up for Seattle! I've lived here for 8 years and love it. I would like to experience living in some other cities but I just can't bring myself to leave!

However, right now we have the worst unemployment rate in the country. All of my friends, except one, have been laid off in the past two years. Some two or three times. It's bad.

And of course, it rains nine months out of the year. ;)

How is Madison, Wisconsin? Last time I was on a plane, I read an article about it in an inflight mag. Seemed like a really cool place...college town with beautiful lakes.

On the smaller end of the big city spectrum is always Indianapolis.. It's alright I suppose, but don't take my word for it because I woudln't reccommend (sp?) Indiana to anyone (not a hoosier by heart, it's not home to me...no offense to true hoosiers :) ) .... It's not huge, definately has all of the seasons (full boar), alright ethnic blend...Don't know about the hip hop scene...Good food...

Might I also add...If you are looking for a bigger place (not bigger than chi-town) that isn't particularly a booming metropolis, I'd definately recommend Binghamton, Syracuse, Buffalo, or Albany NY.... All WONDERFUL places (you guessed it, a NY girl by heart)...

Louisville isn't bad...Don't listen to the stereotypes, it's not a bunch of rednecks and rolling hills just because its KY.. My best friend lived there for a couple years and I adored going to visit her...Great mentalitiy, all the seasons, alright mix of people, surprisingly good places to eat...

There are some other great places, but most of them are more expensive and/or don't have all the seasons...

:) 1260

Right off the bat, I too thought Seattle was a good choice. I also would have thrown KC in the mix, but that's too simlar. Still, if you want something "different" and you won't be married to the location, why not go as "southern" as you can? What a switch THAT would be.

I've only heard great things about the beauty of N Carolina and Virginia. Atlanta is a place all its own and the history is so rich.
Arizona too would offer you a wide variety. The one thing I regret
is not taking the time to travel (and I certainly COULD have) or experience different cities. I envy you.

Thank you so much everyone for your responses!!

I was originally planning to move to Seattle, but I got a little bummed when I sent a bunch of resumes out there and NOBODY was AT ALL interested. (Part of my problem is that as an attorney, I will have to take a bar exam anywhere I move, so won't be able to practice right away and might have to find a job doing something else for a while, which is okay with me as long as I can find something). So that got me thinking that maybe there would be other places that would be good and I shouldn't limit myself right away.

So my list of potential places, as of right now, includes: Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Providence, Charlotte and Atlanta. Because I'm a little goofy, I was thinking about making the decision this way: write down the names of these towns on little pieces of paper, put them in a hat, and pick one. I would HAVE TO move to the one I picked. To make things interesting, I was going to add a town I wouldn't normally pick to the mix, and that's where Memphis came in, although after reading what everyone has to say about Memphis, I am probably scratching that off the list. So anyway, that's where I am now.

I have a few more questions if you all aren't really sick of this already. How southern is Charlotte? Must one excel at the finer points of being a southern belle to have a social life there? Also, how about Atlanta? I get the impression that, while Atlanta is in the south, it's not really "considered" the south? Is that true? And finally, how hot does it really get in Charlotte and Atlanta, and for how long is it hot every year? Heat might be the thing to keep me away from the south, because I don't do well with it at all (every summer in Chicago, my favorite thing to say is I'M MOVING TO ALASKA!)...

Thanks again. :)

Tracy - youre crazy! I love Chicago and miss it when I'm away in good ole Iowa (GO HAWKS!)

Anyway - I would move to Boston - or maybe Baltimore or D.C. I like the east coast and like you I need the seasons :)

Girl, move to san fransisco!

Charlotte = the SOUTH. They are not in denial. The whole state of NC is the SOUTH. And it gets HOT there. Also, Charlotte is prone to droughts, so there is not much relief from the heat.

Atlanta = While it is far more progressive than most of the Southern states, it is still the mecca of the South. It does get hot, yes. But it has some cold-a$$ winters too. It is still a great place to live...I think you should definitely visit and check it out. Then again, ATL is my hometown...I love it, so I guess I am biased, lol.

If you want any extra info on either of these cities, you can pm me, as I am a frequent visitor to both.

OKay, the heat down south is not like the heat anywhere else. It is humid- I mean when I was in Las Vegas and it was 95 I felt great, no sweat at all, because I am used to the humidity down here. In Atlanta you probably won't have snow, or much of a real winter like up north.
I know you didn't mention it but I am from Louisville and it is a really nice town. There are a lot of law firms that seem pretty open, and I know a few lawyers here, if you want to contact them. We have tons of good food (from southern to chinese and mexican and a lot in between!), there is a lot socially going on (not as much as say Atlanta or New York) but a lot of clubs have hip hop and house music. You are close enough to places like nashville, Indy and Cincy to be there in about two-three hours max and although it has over a million people, it feels kinda like a small town cause people are friendly. We get all four seasons from snow to sun and you can definitely tell when fall and spring arrive. it doesn't get too hot but we do have humidity here.
I love it, but it isn't for everyone. Another great town you may want to look at is Nasvhille. It really IS NOT all COUNTRY. As a matter of fact they have better clubs than Louisville. The people are so friendly, you get all four seasons, hot acts there and it is a great place to live. Plus you do get a lot more racial diversity there than people think. Nashville and Louisville have high immigration rates compared to most cities their size. The cost of living in Louisville and Nashville isn't too high. I think gas here is at like 1.39 a gallon which I think is reasonable compared to some places right now!
I love Atlanta too, but if you can't deal with the summer in Chicago I doubt you could there. Look into Indy some more. I hear great things about Broad Ripple. I wouldn't go to Cincy, no offense to anyone from there, but with the riots last year there is too much racial tension!

In defense of Charlotte.... It is in the South, but I have definitely felt like I was more in the South in Atlanta and some parts of Florida. You do not have to be well versed in the "Primer" to live there. It definitely gets COLD there. Think snowing several times in the winter, and ponds freezing over, and 32 degrees on Memorial Day once while I was living there. It does also get hot in the summer maybe 3-4 months around 80-90 degrees, but then that's what AC and pools are made for. It is definitely a place that has seasons some just milder than others...

I love Seattle BUT ...

There are NOT four seasons here. As a former Midwesterner I hate hate hate the winters here. Summers are mild and gorgeous (no humidity, no bugs), but winters are gray and rainy. At least in the Midwest the sun comes out between snowstorms. Two years ago we went 90 days without a sunny day. Really.

And Seattlites are some of the least friendly people I've met. Yes, they're nice and polite. But the people who grew up here are not the least bit interested in being friends with people who didn't. You move here, you'll spend all your time hanging out with other Midwestern transplants. Even down the road in Portland where they're sick of Californians they're more welcoming.

I'm the wrong person to ask about the music scene, but Seattle isn't a really hip-hoppy city I don't think. And the unemployment, yoinks, I'm one my few friends who actually has a job.

On the plus side, the food is fabulous - lots of ethnic restaurants from all over. I went to a great Himalayan place the other day. And this is a city that's liberals in politics (obviously not every person, of course) and in reality, too. For example, you'll see more mixed-race couples here than anywhere in the Midwest. People are laid back (although you might get sick of fleece and gore-tex after a while).

But I've come to the conclusion that there's no perfect city, so if Seattle's close enough, come on over!

Denver...

Not lots of snow in the winter in the city -- and it's generally gone within a couple of days because of the lack of humidity and the altitude. As many sunny days per year on average as San Diego. Because of low humidity, hot doesn't feel as hot and cold doesn't feel as cold. Most of the heavy snow is in the mountains -- which are immediately adjacent to the metro area.

Because there aren't a lot of other "big" cities around, Denver has better than average restaurants, theatre, and other arts. Denver Center for the Performing Arts is the largest theatre complex in the country outside of NYC. A couple of years ago, DCPA originated two of Time Magazines top ten theatre events of the year -- The Laramie Project and Tantalus. Lloyd-Webber's Sunset Blvd. and Disney's Lion King national tours both opened in Denver.

Highly educated population. Not as diverse as other places, though. 13-14% Hispanic, 7-8% African American.

Recreation opportunities abound! Obviously.

Easy transportation everywhere from the new Denver International Airport.

Lots more.

Great place to live.

Lots of major law firms -- again, because it's the biggest city in this part of the country.

The one place Seattle wins is in water sports -- obviously.

I say move to Queens or Brooklyn in NYC.

-Diversity
-Affordable housing
-Great public transportation
-Best restaurants are in NY and the most diverse food options are in Queens
-The Hip Hop scene...Queens has produced more artists than anywhere else in the world.
-The arts...The quality of museums and shows you will see in NY are very difficult to finde elsewhere.

Cream knows what I'm talking about.

-Rudey
--Oh the pizza, the delis, the clubs...even the girls all have a sexy flare to them in the city.

Check out Philly or Pittsburgh in PA. We have 4 wonderful seasons! It gets a little hot in the summer, but not overly unbearable!

Hiya Valkyrie, good question to ask. :)

I'm also a native midwesterner who needs four seasons to feel complete. I more or less grew up in Wisconsin and went to undergrad there, and I went to law school in Minneapolis. I can say from that experience that Minneapolis's winters are a little harsher and a few weeks longer than the winter in southern Wisconsin or northern Illinois. Summer, meanwhile, is just as obnoxiously humid and hot -- maybe just a few degrees less than Chicago.

Minneapolis has a good legal community, if that's an important consideration for you. There's a mix of firms with different sizes and different practices. Firm salaries are reputed to be lower than those in Chicago, but so are hour requirements. The voluntary state bar association is known for its community involvement. Admission on motion if you practiced law for 5 of the last 7 years OR if you took the bar elsewhere in the last two years and obtained a 145 or higher on the MBE. The job market is a little tight, but probably average.

Some people complain that it's hard for a new arrival to get to know people in Minnesota. I'm not sure, since most of my social contacts were in the law school. My ex-roommate seems to be doing okay in that regard. It was an older fellow who remarked to me that he was moving to Boulder from St. Paul because the people in Colorado were more open and friendly on average.

I've now moved to Denver. I haven't spent a whole winter here yet, but I visited last winter a few times. It's still definitely winter, but -- at least here at 5500 feet -- upper Midwesterners would consider it not particularly demanding. When the temperatures in Minneapolis were around 10-20 F last winter, the weather here was in the upper 20s to mid 30s F. (It was considered an unusually mild winter, though.) When it snows at this altitude, in the high plains and foothills, it tends to melt off within a few days. However, you can go up a few thousand feet and find plenty of snow. Summer is hot, as July was consistently in the 90s F, but it is dry. Relative humidity hangs between 15%-25%, a far cry from the 50-80% of a humid midwestern summer day.

The Denver metropolitan area is in a high semi-arid climate area. This is important to consider for several reasons. First, if you have problems with dry air in general, it may not be the place for you (I have to put wetting/lubricating drops in my eyes a lot). Second, water is more expensive than it is elsewhere. I spend a lot of time mocking/resenting wealthy transplant types who came in to big subdivisions thinking they could just plant lush lawns of broadleaf grasses that suck up more than half (seriously) of the area's water. As an apartment-dweller, it's less of an issue, though. The water bill here runs about $25/month. Finally, there's less green vegetation here than there is in the midwest. This takes some getting used to, though it does have some aesthetic beauty.

Speaking of aesthetics, the mountains are gorgeous. If I were to head back toward the midwest, I'd have a lot of trouble adjusting to the flatlands again. There's a lot of outdoor recreation to be had around here.

I've been impressed so far with the voluntary Colorado and Denver Bar Associations, but I haven't yet gotten to know them very much. When I visited the CBA offices, though, I got a tour of the offices and got to meet several people who were happy to talk to me about what the area has to offer. Admission on motion requires quite a few years of full-time practice elsewhere (7? maybe 5 of 7, but I think 7). The bar exam is a 2-day exam with nine 25-minute short essays (regurgitate rules of law), two MPTs, and the MBE, and costs $500. The local Bar/Bri operation, if you want it, costs $1300, but really, the only non-MBE stuff they test on the essays is Colorado family law, Colorado jurisdiction and procedure, and more than one form of comparative negligence.

Politically, the Denver/Boulder metropolitan area tends toward the left (with Boulder being rather liberal-minded). The rest of the state is rather less so, and some parts of the state are well-known as centers of social conservatism. Minnesota politics are a very, very odd creature that I never quite figured out, but the safest assessment is probably that the Cities are generally center-left, with some more conservative trends in the suburbs.

Both Minneapolis-St. Paul and the Denver area offer a remarkable array of restaurants. I have a feeling that the Twin Cities may have a slight edge in this respect, but that's just a hunch. I don't have the money right now to try to get Denver's restaurant scene to yield up its secrets.

Both cities have some good downtown areas, but they'll both seem tiny compared to Chicago. Both cities have open-air pedestrian malls downtown. Minneapolis has the Nicollet Avenue Mall. Denver has the 16th Avenue Mall (modeled on Nicollet). Each has its own personality. Each has some high-end stores, but neither is like the Magnificent Mile. (However, if you're after them, you can find those kinds of places in a mall not far from downtown. I'm told they've got stores that a handbag aficionado could easily lose herself in!)

I can't comment on the music scene in either place, since my musical tastes are rather different from yours. :)

I don't know much about other cities, except that of 4 people I know who've transplanted themselves to Atlanta, 3 are looking to leave. I hope that at least some of this helps, though!

Must've slipped my mind... I'm totally for Baltimore/D.C. ... My best friend lives out there now and I love goign to see her even more now than when she lived in louisville....It's so much fun... You're close to EVERYTHING (Virginia, Delaware, Jersey, Maryland, DC, etc), including the ocean.. The summers don't get too ungodly hot, and the winters are nice.... MoCo (montgomery county, MD) is the BEST.....But big city wise, I'm a big fan of D.C....and B-more.

I'll second what Eupolis has said about Minneapolis: very distinct seasons, center-left politics, great restaurants. I'll also second the fact that it could be hard for a newcomer to meet people there -- everyone I met seemed rather unfriendly compared to the people I was used to.

As for the music, I don't know much about hip-hop, although I do know of at least a couple hip-hop artists from the Twin Cities area, so there is some sort of a "scene" for sure. I can vouch for the fact that Minneapolis has a fantastic music scene in general and there are always great concerts to be found, so I wouldn't be surprised if you found what you were looking for . . . no guarantees though.

I love Denver. I just wanted to add something to a couple of Eupolis and DeltAlum's comments.

Colorado is Repulican (Mayor, both Senator's, etc), Boulder and Aspen are liberal and the rest of the cities mock them for it. Colo Spring is shockingly conservative.

We have tons of restaurant. I think I heard they used to top the list for number of restaurants per capita. All the chains are represented but there's a lot of cute little local places too.

Downsides: Lack of any sort of diversity and the fact that, according to a recent article, it's now the 10th most expensive city to rent an apartment in.

Upside that I can't believe neither of them mentioned: Denver is a great city for sport's fans! The Broncos are like a religion here, I think we're all in mourning after last night. The Avs are obviously a hot ticket. A Rockies game is a great way to spend a summer afternoon even if they aren't very good. As for the Nuggets, well you can't have it all...

Oh yeah, the Denver Alpha Phi alumni chapter is an excellent award winning organization! ;)

APhi,

Good point on the sports. I worked in TV for many years, and they seem more like a job to me than a past time.

And, I have a nice little house for sale go get around those expensive apartments!

Yes I do. :) New York is great! Rents in the 'outer boroughs' are about half of Manhattan. The culture, food, museums, theater, restaurants, and nightlife are among the best in the world. :) The men aren't bad either. ;)

-Cream
--Now I am going to order a pizza for dinner with the works.

I've lived in Minneapolis, Denver, and Pensacola, fl. I love things about all of them and hate things about all of them.
I love MN because of childhood memories and I livedthere until I was 12. MN is great if you are a water person! Lake Minnetonka is a lot of fun. I hate the mosquitoes and how bitter cold it is in the winter.
Denver is definately a sports town and LODO is the place to be when you are 21 from what i haveheard. Didn't turn 21 before I moved from here. One thing I hate: there aren't any big lakes. Everything is reservoirs. MN wins when it comes to water. I don't ski so the mtns aren't that cool to me.
Pensacola humid, but also gets cold this time of year. I don't know much bc i've only lived here since Aug. I don't really think of it as a hip hop place. The bars by the beach were really dead when i went on a Friday night. I love the beach! The people here always say hi whereas in Denver people don't. People drive bad here and too slow. In Denver you better step on the gas.
i think it is awesome that you are looking for change.