On these "most livable" city indexes, I wish they would take into account how much it costs to live there compared to wages. San Fransisco is high on their list, but from what I'm hearing, it's really not the panacea that these lists often make it out to be. High wages, but higher cost of living and horrible living conditions compared to the Midwest, for example. I have a friend who just bought a two-story, four bedroom house with two acres of land in a nice area of Beer City, USA (Grand Rapids, Michigan) for $90,000, and has a 10 mile, 10 minute commute to a downtown office where he's making $70,000/yr. He can drive his own car and find a place to park in a nicely cultural city of ~200,000.
I don't live in Grand Rapids, but if I were moving somewhere I'd be looking for a city like that. That is what I would consider highly livable. Can you find a two-story house with an acre or more of land in SF for not much more than your yearly salary? I want a list of cities where salary and cost of living are taken into account along with culture and safety.
I pay $450/mo for a 1000 sq ft, two bedroom townhouse apartment (turned the second bedroom into a theater). Gas is < $3/gal. My commute in peak traffic is 15 mins. Parking is free everywhere. If you can tolerate living in a < 100K population city, Midwest is extremely livable:
Living conditions? The midwest has been and is still being hit with one of the worst winters in a few decades.
Also I hear that "land is cheap elsewhere" argument all the time. You're right; if I was 82 and wanted to settle down I'd buy a ranch somewhere in the palm desert for 100k, but I'm not. I'm young and I want to work. I'll live in my shitty apartment in SF long before I whither away on some plot of land in the midwest any day.
Yes there are cheap houses in swamplands; probably a dollar an acre. But then what? Cool I have cheap house totally removed from all the action.
> You're right; if I was 82 and wanted to settle down I'd buy a ranch somewhere in the palm desert for 100k, but I'm not.
I'm not even sure why 82-year-olds do this. It's pretty much guaranteed you'll lose your ability to drive before you lose your ability to keep a home. Why set yourself up for the heartache of finding out you can no longer live in the house you just bought because it's inaccessible by anything but your private car you can no longer use?
What's the problem with cold winters? Unless it is below 0 F (or say, 20 F) or something, you can still get around. It is quite rare that you have such long streaks of sub-zero temperatures. Go out and learn to XC ski, snow-shoe, or just dress appropriately if all you are interested in is walking the streets. Many people I know in the mid-west bike even through winters. Some dedicated folks even bike several miles to commute even on the coldest days of winter.
Besides, there are many good universities and large and small companies in the mid-west, in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These states put together have about 1/3rd of all the Fortune 500 companies, to give you an idea of the economic activity. So the comparison with ranches and deserts doesn't hold. That said, traffic isn't universally great in the mid-west. Chicago is a notable exception, but then you have plenty of public transport facilities in Chicago as alternatives to driving around.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say. Did I mention anything about swampland? Did I mention anything about a desert? Did I mention anything about being an 82 year old withering away?
I mentioned a nice house in city limits with a short, quick commute downtown to work in an office making almost as much as the house costs per year. Weather plays a factor, true, but I wouldn't want to be living in a shitty apartment in SF when the San Andreas goes off again either. I'm not trying to be a walking tourist board for a city I don't even live in, but describing a 200,000 person city with the best beer in the country, a major hacker convention every year (GrrCon) the yearly ArtPrize exhibits, and a great local music scene as "a desert" or "swampland" is a pretty shitty move on your part.
You seem to have dismissed every single word I said as soon as you read "midwest". That's not very polite, nor is it appropriate for any kind of discussion.
I didn't mean to imply the midwest is a swampland; I'm from the midwest. And I was serious about the a place in the desert. I wasn't comparing it to anything, the palm desert outside of LA is amazing and I literally want to live there one day.
The swampland is more of an exaggeration for the way people talk about why they don't want to move to SF, as if the cost of rent is the only reason one lives anywhere. And the San Andreas thing is another common fear I hear a lot and have myself. But why should something like fear stop one from living anywhere?
I live in SF. I commonly hear things from people in Chicago where I'm from like "yeah but I'm paying $400 for an apartment in Logan Square(which isn't true any more obvi)" or "yeah but you have to worry about deadly earthquakes". It gets kind of old because I didn't move out here to pay cheap rent nor did I move our here to wait for an earthquake to kill me.
I appreciate the civil tone, sorry if I flew off the handle.
SF might be great for some, but it's not for me. Unfortunately, SF, Seattle, and Vancouver always top the lists and they're all places I wouldn't dream of living in any time soon. If I'm moving, I don't want to take a pay cut. I wouldn't trade a $50,000/yr job in the midwest for a $100,000/yr job in SF, because I'd actually have less money than I do now.
I'd rather be rich in a swamp than poor in a city. I just really wish there was a list of great cities like Grand Rapids, Pittsburgh, or Kansas City where you don't have to fight traffic for hours a day, you can actually buy a house somewhere close to work, but you can also work for a great company doing something exciting and make a livable wage doing so. As you allude to, most lists of "best mid size cities" point to retirement-age people.
SF is the only city in the Bar Area that has absurdly high rent. You could live in Oakland or anywhere down on the peninsula for much cheaper than you would in SF. That would allow you to earn a large wage and still pay cheap rent. It's all in the same geographic area; SF is like Manhattan and everywhere else are the boroughs.
I don't live in Grand Rapids, but if I were moving somewhere I'd be looking for a city like that. That is what I would consider highly livable. Can you find a two-story house with an acre or more of land in SF for not much more than your yearly salary? I want a list of cities where salary and cost of living are taken into account along with culture and safety.