Anywhere but Hawaii. I was born and raised in Hawaii and work as a professional advocate here for a nonprofit. I have personal reasons for not leaving Hawaii myself, but I would if I could because:
1. Cost of Living is ridiculous. Raising someone in Hawaii is basically guaranteeing they’ll have to pay more for everything until they leave. Hawaii is the most expensive place to live in in the U.S., and Honolulu is one of the most expensive cities in the world.
2. Compounding the problems with 1 is that pay in Hawaii is ridiculously low compared to national averages. Just from my own basic research it seems like people are paid around 30-40% under industry average for basically every industry.
3. Lack of healthcare. 1 and 2 compound into 3 and 4. With healthcare, finding a primary care physician in Hawaii is difficult. Healthcare workers leave because they’re paid lower than they should be here, and there’s something like a 700+ shortage of doctors. There’s only 1 true high level trauma center in the state, and it’s Queens Hospital in Honolulu. Get into a bad accident on another island? You either die or get medivacced to Honolulu unless you’re extremely lucky.
4. Shortage of education resources. There’s a major teacher shortage in Hawaii due to similar reasons that cause the healthcare worker and doctor shortages in 3.
5. Food insecurity. Hawaii currently operates on something like 90% of food being shipped in. 2 weeks without shipping would basically run out most of the food in the state. A bad tsunami, fire, hurricane, or other natural or manmade disaster disabling the port of Honolulu would cripple Hawaii.
6. Military priority target. In the event of a war or military strike on the U.S., Hawaii would be a high priority target due to the concentration of significant domestic military forces for force projection in the Pacific, coupled with the relative ease that Hawaii could be cut off from reinforcements or aid. Hawaii is about 2500 miles of open ocean from California. If you recall, back in 2018 there was a false alert of a ballistic missile headed for Hawaii and the 1.4 million people of Hawaii were freaking out. Including myself. There is no realistic protection for civilians in the event of a long range missile strike on Hawaii unless you’re well away from major military installations. If you live in Oahu where 70% of the population lives, good luck because Oahu has: Barbers Point AF Station, Joint Base Pearl Harbor/Hickam, Kaneohe Marine Corps Base, Schofield Barracks, Fort Shafter, and Fort DeRussey. There’s navy radar and coms stations in Waianae and on the North Shore, and the NSA has an intelligence facility at Schofield where Edward Snowden worked before escaping and leaking documents. Outside of Oahu there’s a missile detection and interception range on Kauai, a Space Force observatory on Maui, and Pohakuloa Army Training Base on the island of Hawaii.
7. Housing. Housing is a major issue in Hawaii. Hawaii has one of the highest per capita rates of homelessness in the nation, and a huge percentage of the population is a couple missed paychecks from homelessness. Part of it is housing costs under 1. Hawaii’s housing is over 300% of the national average. If you do get housing, odds are you’ll have a relatively cramped amount of space unless you’re wealthy enough to buy or go to a less populated and developed part of Hawaii than Oahu.
8. Crime. Hawaii doesn’t have a nightmare level of crime, but some of the areas of concern are disturbing. Hawaii has one of the highest per capita rates of human and sex trafficking in the nation, and one of the highest rates of the trafficking and exploitation of children in the nation.
9. Corruption. Hawaii is one of the most politically corrupt states in the U.S., and there are currently 2 high profile corruption cases currently ongoing. Google Mitsunaga case Hawaii and Miske case Hawaii. There’s also been several high profile corruption cases in the past 10 years: look up Kealoha and the Hawaii reps sentenced to prison for corruption. Further, look up “Broken Trust Hawaii.” Beyond that, you’ll just have to take my word that there’s even more that goes ignored, unreported, and uninvestigated. I was going to explain more but I deleted it for my own safety.
You can find out a fair amount of this from some research. Look up the Hawaii Legislature Maui Wildfire Interim Report from December 2023 that goes into some detail on the problems and vulnerabilities of Hawaii to natural disasters. Many of the proposed solutions are a bit of a joke though.
For crime stuff, Honolulu Civil Beat has decent coverage of some of the stuff.
For homelessness and trafficking stuff, there’s a few nonprofits you can look to. I’m blanking on the nonprofit whose reports on trafficking I follow for work though.
For a better look at education related issues, with a focus on Native Hawaiian children, but still applicable to everyone, look at the Kamehameha Schools Ka Huakai reports. I think their latest one was 2021.
For healthcare stuff, you can look at the news coverage in Hawaii of all the recent nurses strikes.
This is so well put together, thank you. Or... It's perfect there and you are just saying this to keep us away...... : )
Definitely true though, my dad got ran off the island for trying to fix a corrupt working environment on one of the more corrupt industries, shot up his house and everything.
Yeah. The Miske case is an organized crime case that involves corruption in the police department, a murder for hire, revenge, and a bunch of other stuff. The Kealoha case involved a police chief and his wife, a deputy prosecutor, who framed someone for a crime and were deeply involved in massive public corruption. One of the super controversial things people seem not to talk about is a $25bn+ rail project on Oahu that it’s my understanding one of the Kealohas was deeply involved in planning like 15 years ago. Then there’s the Kaneshiro case which is another prosecutor who prosecuted someone because their former employer wanted them prosecuted on felony theft charges because that person filed a discrimination claim against them. That case one of the defendants allegedly tried to hire a hitman to kill the federal judge and US Attorney prosecuting the case.
I talked to a guy who moved from Hawaii and he told me that a lot of homeless people from the mainland are dropped off in Hawaii. Is this true and do you think this has anything to do with the high homeless population?
It’s true and it’s part of it.
From what I’ve heard, NYC and LA had programs to give homeless people 1 way tickets to Hawaii because Hawaii doesn’t have winters so they can safely camp year round here. Not sure if the programs still exist or if there were other jurisdictions that did that shit, but yeah a fair number of homeless people in Hawaii moved here from the continent.
There’s a program in Hawaii called “return home” that’s meant to reunite and reconnect homeless people in Hawaii with their families on the continent, then move them back.
Less talked about though is that the majority of homeless people in Hawaii are actually Native Hawaiian. They’re homeless for a variety of reasons that involve colonialism, racism, and cost of living. The short version is that the U.S. federal government royally screwed over Native Hawaiians and the state government hasn’t done much better.
My parents moved to Hawai’i more than fifty years ago, when I was a teenager. They tried to force me to accompany them, and then to attend the University of Hawai’i (yes, I was accepted). Nice state, nice uni, but not for me, then or now.
I earned emancipated-minor status, stayed on the Mainland, and visited very infrequently until 1988. You’ve made me relieved all over again. Thank you.
With the issues in the education system over there, many middle and high skill jobs are brought in from the main land instead of trained on island. Their community college and state college are missing key industries that provide opportunities for career development, so many locals end up moving elsewhere for the reasons listed above. Las Vegas is a major hub right now for locals looking to move to the mainland. Coupled with the high cost of living many industries find it cheaper to just contract work into the islands instead of paying wages that would allow people to live on island. I used to work in construction on Oahu, and at least two thirds of our shop were flown in from California (around 20 out of 30 people). We didn't even require the highest skill for what we were doing, but it was still tough to hire people with base level electrical experience.
The part of the state matters. The best part of a shithole state may be better than the worst part of a "good" state.
If you check your education rankings, the northeast is your best bet. It's not the cheapest, but you're getting something for your money. They're dense, expensive, but excellent.
Correct. To give an example states like Alabama and Indiana often have the lowest quality of life rankings in the country. However if you lived in Carmel Indiana or Huntsville Alabama you might have a pretty good life.
As an Indiana resident, this. I have to drive all the way to Fort Wayne or Indianapolis if I want a chance at a decent job, otherwise I might as well fall into a factory.
Interesting because it’s the opposite to me. This shithole called Kokomo has a ton of well paying engineering jobs and living here costs basically nothing. But you know, it’s kokomo.
I live in Mass and one of the best aspects of it is EXCELLENT emergency benefits.
Lose your job? You get 40% of your income in benefits
Have a healthcare emergency? Awesome hospital and medical care pretty close by
There's just so many helping hands here that it's WAY easier to get back on your feet than most places. Could it be better? Sure, but it's better than most places
This is something a lot of people don't consider. I knew a few people who moved from NY and other northeast states to the Carolinas or Florida. They're low-cost areras, but the flip side of lower taxes is fewer state programs. That's all well and good when you're young and healthy, or if you have family there. But if something goes wrong and you don't have family there, you're screwed.
> The part of the state matters. The best part of a shithole state may be better than the worst part of a "good" state.
Living in or near smaller cities in the midwestern states is the way to go, especially because of the lower population. (RE: everything is more affordable, and also the politics can still be affected)
Bonus points if it's a college town.
For a long time now I've wanted to visit UW-Madison... If I ever make it there I might send you a random reddit message from the Monarch, but only after I catch my first pike
Can confirm. I live in a Midwestern city known for its low cost of living. My husband commutes to a HCOL area for work, and our kids go to one of the better school districts in the state.
I think this is mostly true, but there are also some absolute deal breakers for me, like reproductive rights and queer rights. I wouldn't want to live in the "best" part of any state where I'm not allowed basic medical care
I mean, I think it is related to the future of your kids. Having an unplanned pregnancy could change your financial status and how you spend your emotional energy dramatically. Having comprehensive sex ed is important unless you want to become a really young grandparent. And how safe your kid feels "coming out" and being themselves can literally be life and death
I live in Mass. Very good education, healthcare, consumer protection, housing/cost of living is high but as a software engineer - you'll make over 100k within a couple years of graduating, with ten years under my belt, salaries are 200-500k, so you can afford to live. Lots of friends are in the unions doing construction or trades and make 40+ an hour and afford a good life.
I have had health issues where I had to take leave, and the family medical leave act helped with that. Good benefits. Not many guns, but you're free to own them. Crime is low, outside of Boston.
Transportation can be a nightmare, but the positives far outweigh this.
And the people - in groups, ya we are assholes sometimes. But that's mostly either the young college kids or the older generation left from when Boston wasn't as gentrified. Most individuals you meet are extremely down to Earth, and level-headed.
I am happy here. It all depends what you want in Life, though.
I am hearing good things about Michigan, for the following reasons:
-Relatively immune from natural threats such as wildfires, hurricanes, F5 tornados, and earthquakes.
-Relatively climate change proof: in a northern latitude so it won't become too hot to farm, inland so it won't flood if sea levels rise, surrounded by the world's largest reserves of fresh water and a lot of good agricultural land.
-About as far as you can get from the U.S.'s strategic nuclear targets in the event of a nuclear war.
Any state bordering the Great Lakes probably wouldn't be a bad plan as most of the above statements are true of most of them.
If a nuclear war hits the US, everyone is completely fucked regardless of what state they're in. Nuclear winter will make everyone's life a living hell unless you have an underground bunker with years of provisions. It's better to just live directly where a nuke strikes for a quick death.
Southern New England it is! I live within 50 miles of Raytheon, Lockheed, Electric Boat, and General Dynamics facilities (closer to some than others). If the balloon goes up, I’m gonna be radioactive dust within minutes! No wandering the wastes looking for bottle caps for me, no, sir!
I might be an outlier ITT, but I’d rather take my chances with a nuclear winter than be wasted right off the bat. I think if you can make it the first decade, then you have a good shot of benefiting from the reconstruction era when the effect wears off (like post black plague Europe). Theoretically, most of the population you’d be competing for scavenging with would be eliminated from the war itself.
Maybe I’m just young, dumb, and bold.
You forgot about the snow. While we may not have intense heat, we get a LOT of snow. Even worse closer to the lakes. The water levels of the lakes have also been rising. A place I vacation at every year lost their beach because of rising water levels in Lake Huron. The lake effect is no joke though, especially during the winter. You're looking at several feet of snow up to your waist or higher.
Out of curiosity, what part of the state are you in? I've been visiting family in inland southeastern Michigan regularly since I moved away, and it's honestly ALARMING how little snow they're getting compared to what they got when I was little.
So I guess maybe even within Michigan regional climate between cities is something to look at.
It is. For years I’ve been talking about moving around 2027 because I can’t stand the doom & gloom of winter. With recent mild winters, we’re looking to push back to 2031.
> We barely got any this year in mid Michigan. It is alarming. Maybe two significant snows. The change over even 5 years is hugely noticeable.
I've lived here my whole life (36 years) and the last five years have been *very* worrisome.
Every time I talk about it ,somebody always shuts me down like "yeah well it's lake effect, this has happened before" and they pull out some goofy fucking statistic from like, 1912 or some shit
Too many people are still in fucking denial about climate change, even in michigan.
I live in the thumb, so the worst we got this year was maybe 7 inches. Anywhere near the lakes are going to be worse. Top of the mitten or anywhere in the UP area is going to have more snow. Our winter in the burbs was a bit delayed. We didn't get any snow until about late February.
I live in just about a north as you can get in the UP. We only got a couple of feet at a time this last winter. It was incredibly mild.
I've lived up here a decade, and we've gotten storms of about four to six feet in a night.
The lake levels aren't rising, but they are fluctuating dramatically. In 2013, an all-time record low was broken on Lakes Michigan and Huron, so what we've witnessed over the last decade is actually more of a rebound than a rise. Other lakes are a completely different story, a record high was set on Lake Ontario only four years later in 2017. Its also worth mentioning that the whole Great Lakes system is heavily dammed and controlled so there's a human factor to consider as well. In any case, there's no observable trend, and future water levels in the lakes are much less predicable than in the oceans.
I have to agree. Hell, this past winter was so disappointingly mild, we didn't even fire up our snowmobiles this year. At least I didn't have to winterize them...as they remain so from 2 years ago.
The older I get, the milder the winters have become in Michigan. I've become used to the milder winters in SE MI, but it's starting to affect "up north" and the activities that go with winter as s well. When ice fishing festivals like Tip Up Town were canceling events due to warm weather and bad ice, well, that says.volumes.
Michigander here... Some of this is exaggerated. Wildfires will become more prevalent in areas near us, which impacts our air quality, especially nearer Canada.
We are NOT climate change immune. We barely had a winter here this past year. It will trend warmer and wetter.
If you don't like bugs - I'm talking lots of bugs - this won't be the place.
East Coast is looking nice to me.
I walked through a literal wall of midges visiting Lake Michigan today. They were in my ears and nose. If that makes you shudder, Michigan is not for you.
I'm not American but I'm in the only other place that surrounds the Great Lakes (Ontario).... And I can confirm this reasoning. Most of this provinces apocalypse plan.... no matter what scenario.... is "go a little bit more North. And you'll be safe" lol
I'm from Western NY and I've always thought it would be great to live in rural Ontario because it's basically my hometown but with a different accent.
But then I looked on zillow and a dilapidated farmhouse with like *maybe* three intact walls in the middle of a bunch of corn fields is like $550k. Are y'all ok over there?
My friend you're opening a can of worms i could rant about all night lol... It's insanity. By the sounds of it, the property you were looking at was probably in Southern Ontario. Which is like, the most valuable land in Canada for both farming, and living. Which makes almost all development slow and filled with protests over destroying the most valuable farmland in the country.... Oh and then you have the fact that Canada has no sort of R.I.C.O laws. So we're a haven for gangs and their money laundering, which is usually laundered in the housing market. Then we have a dumbass Priminister that planned for 100k immigrants per year, and took in over a million. Without ever even thinking about housing development. He let foreign investors run so rampant in the country he had to completely stop foreign investment in our housing market....
Oh and don't even get me started on CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation). A useless, mandatory FEDERAL mortgage insurance, that was just found giving out over 25 million in bonuses to it's employees last year, while all they are good for is complicating and driving up the price of a home purchase.
The entirety of Canada is just about to blow it's top over all this as it's effected the housing market across the country. A home in a Toronto Slum costs over a million dollars. And a 3 bed 1 bath, last renovated in the 80's, 250km north of Toronto, costs 600k.
So uhhh.... no. We're officially not okay. Lol
Your children will be adults and might move. Pick where you want to live now, not where your children may want to live as an adult. They may grow up and want to be a scuba instructor and need to live in Hawaii. They may want to be a pilot and there job is based out of Denver. Or they meet someone and their family lives elsewhere and they move closer to them. Move for the now, not the then.
U of M has the best alumni association of any university - take a look at all the tech companies whose founders are alumni, financed by alumni.
I wouldn’t move to flint, but Detroit has become nearly as lovely as Chicago and is much cheaper.
True facts! Affordability is another big selling point of the Midwest. Ann Arbor, Michigan where the University (sometimes called "The Harvard of the West") is was voted the best city to live in in the U.S. a few years back, though unfortunately because of that article property prices have almost doubled in Ann Arbor since then.
Almost any Michigan city is still much more affordable than almost any coastal city though, and holy cow some of them are beautiful. I'm partial to the cities on the shores of the Great Lakes, because if you can handle the winters it's like living on the ocean shore with none of the hurricanes or coastal prices.
I will say, it is my suspicion that where a person grows up will be less and less linked to their career prospects as time goes on as I am expecting remote work and remote education to become more and more common. I'll bet the people who are most financially comfortable other than the rich top 1% will be those who remote work in financially lucrative jobs while living in smaller/more rural areas where the cost of living is dirt cheap.
But if you really want to hack it and you want your kids to be famous, I believe it's actually possible to search which ZIP codes have produced the most famous people. This is another one where Ann Arbor, Michigan is WEIRDLY prominent, I think some scientists figured out that as far as people born in the early-mid-20th century, people born in Ann Arbor were more likely to end up having their own Wikipedia page than people born in any other ZIP code.
I’ve lived in Michigan my whole life, visited Florida once and said never again. Bugs as big as my hand . . . no thanks.
I have also always said I would never want to live anywhere that does not have enough fresh water to support the local population. I can’t see myself living anywhere other than Michigan.
Come back to Michigan if you can!
Along those same lines, Illinois. For the second year in a row, we basically got zero snow in Chicagoland (no accumulation) so if that continues, severe winters will be a thing of the past. But compared to the south and west coast, mild summers. No coastal flooding, earthquakes, or hurricanes. Plenty of fresh water. A major hub for many large companies, which helps with job prospects, including higher education and medicine.
The major downside with being around the Great Lakes is that it will in the future (if not already) be the premier spot for the majority of the population to go in the event the SHTF. Pretty much anyone and everyone in the prepping and climate change/collapse worlds are looking at that region as the premier place to go.
When a place gets too popular, then a lot of problems start. Affordability, for a start.
Mass may have its problems, but it has some of the best offerings in the country. It is really expensive, and a lot of the laws, especially around vehicles and public recreation are excessively strict.
But it has some of the best schools and doctors in the world, a generally very liberal and accepting population, no smog, clean water, good infrastructure by US standards, a big city with lots to do that's not completely overwhelming like NYC, suburban and rural lifestyles short drives away, and very close proximity to multiple cheaper states, ski resorts, and nature preserves. There's also Cape Cod with an abundance of beaches, and a really fun culture town with fantastic local food and art.
Massachusetts is definitely the best. It isn’t cheap, that’s for sure, but we have everything you could need. Education, public services, the beach, the countryside, history, museums. We’re driving distance to skiing and NYC and Philly and even Canada/Montreal. Boston may be a smaller city and a little full of itself, but it kind of has a right to be. It’s beautiful, clean (you can actually swim in the river that runs through it!) and has history in the beginnings of America only rivaled by Philly. Take a ride in the oldest subway system in America to the first city park the US has ever seen. The neighbor city of Cambridge has two of the best universities in the world (MIT and Harvard).
Massachusetts may be small, but we hold our own against states much, much larger. That and there a lot of terrible coffee shops called Dunkin.
Housing prices far away from cities in Mass are much more affordable. I moved to western mass from California and have been pleasantly shocked by how amazing the schools are as well as public safety and very well-maintained public areas. As long as a person doesn’t need to be super close to a city, it feels idyllic.
Thinking something along these lines. We're in the SF Bay area and are doing okay, but I really don't want my kids to have to be a part of a crazy rat race unless they want to. I worry about their earning power as I see AI develop and housing costs. Thinking of a slower quieter place.
Just a slight counter to this, if you think you can predict what industries workers are going to thrive in vs. struggle in 20+ years from now, better start putting your money in the right places and you’ll be a billionaire. What I mean is that the threat from AI is relatively new and will play out in large ways way before your kids are employable. There is almost no way to predict what will impact them.
So, be somewhere you and your partner enjoy being, and somewhere you feel comfortable raising your kids. Trying to outplay macro socio-economic movements based on ever changing factors is a losing game. And even if you do “predict” it, it will largely be luck.
I remember Obama saying that we are educating kids for jobs that won’t even exist for 15-20 years, we don’t even know what a lot of the jobs are going to be yet. It feels like AI is gonna flip a lot of that on its head too.
Then again, who has ever been educated for a specific job?
I feel like you're taught concepts and how to think... then you just pick up wherever the current state of the art is. AI just lets you skip forward a bit and automate the tedium away more quickly, imo.
I grew up in Los Altos and I don’t know anyone that I grew up with that still lives there. We’ve all been priced out of where we grew up and the cash grab from selling their homes was too good for our parents to give up.
Public schools where I grew up are slowly being consolidated and abandoned because not enough families can stay afloat there anymore to fill them with students. Everyone who can afford to be there can afford the Waldorf preschool and the junior high with the horse stables.
As someone in the Midwest, head near a large city but stay 20-40 minutes away from where you’d plan to work. That drive can save you tens of thousands in cost of living. Houses and apartments are much cheaper out of big cities. Life is quieter. You can still travel to the city for events, social life, etc
Depends on the city. Chicago and much of the Midwest is like that. California and the northeast between Boston and DC? The difference is minimal. You’d have to live 2-4 hours away to save any decent kind of money.
I live near Seattle, I thought it was crazy hearing some of the commutes that my dad's coworkers made into their Safeway warehouse job. Now I'm hearing about some other kids of family friends growing up and buying houses east of the mountains and commuting like an hour and a half to two hours to work closer to Seattle.
We are in the East Bay and have thought about where we would live if we left CA. I’ve lived in Michigan and honestly the weather there is just terrible for months at a time. I’ve kind of come to the realization that we are super blessed here in NorCal. Amazing weather, incredible nature, wonderful food, lots of diversity and things to do. Yes, it’s busy and expensive, but you can live somewhere where the “rat race” isn’t as pronounced.
Yaaaaa. I grew up in Hawaii, am in NorCal right now. I've very much enjoyed your forests and tide pools! I think right now John Muir woods and Big Sur might be my favorites. There's a tiny town way up North called Guallala I believe that had a fantastic river!
But, my grandmother lived in Wisconsin. One Aunt from Arizona.
Ain't no fucking you'll ever get me away from the water lol. Where in the world barely matters, but if the water is more than a 15 minute drive away I'm not living there. I guess I could do somewhere on the great lakes.
I grew up in Rochester and it’s still cheap, but yeah the weather is cold. And when it’s not cold it’s drizzly. You get 3 months of good weather in the summer but that’s it.
In the winter it snows so much it might as well be Fairbanks.
Oh yeah I definitely feel blessed to be where I am, but I worry about my children being able to live a good life as adults and raise children of their own.
Yeah but only in the city area. I lived up on the range growing up and moved by the cities 4 years ago. You couldn’t pay me to move back there, and my family has tried
From MA, if I left New Engand it's easily Minnesota. My cousins moved there when I was 11 and I fell in love when I visited. I dream of PNW mountains and forests but the cost of living when MN is right there and sooo beautiful is a no brainer.
Husband always whines about leaving the state. Picks Texas or Arizona. I suggest Minnesota and get shucked off...I'm not moving to no Texas or Arizona...
Lol we have a very average restaurant scene at best. Nearly any coastal city blows it out of the water.
Minnesota performs way better on pretty much every other metric though.
Hidden under a few feet of snow ;)
I absolutely love it up there tho. Only place I've snowshoed to a bar.... Where I fit in with everyone else who shoed to the bar.
Colorado may be good, climate wise. The wildfires and water access are a bit concerning, but not quite as bad as California.
Or as others have said, anywhere near the Great Lakes is good because access to fresh water may become a big issue in the future.
I live in Utah and the water thing spooks me. I grew up in Missouri, so water was never an issue, apart from the occasional flood.
Given peoples' love of guns and the way many of them lost their shit during COVID, I don't want to be around if the water situation gets extreme...
That’s why I think it’s absolutely crazy people live in places like Phoenix. If the electrical grid goes down they could die in what, a few days? Utter madness.
Yep. Our schools are ranked pretty high, but we are pretty low on teacher pay scales.
Colorado is terrible though. Don't move here. We have cooties. And bears. And wolves. And bears.
Free in state tuition, a very good state medical insurance, reasonable taxes, reasonable diversity. Reasonably affordable. That winter keeps away a lot of folk
That winter is rough though.
MSP is a nice city. Good food, good theater scene, easy airport to get in and out of.
But be prepared for the winter. I live in Denver and here is candy land compared to the MN winters. Otherwise I would have moved the family already.
20 years though it will be much better. Minn, Michigan Illinois are all good states to live in for climate change. The weather will get milder and they won’t have drought issues. No earthquakes, hurricanes and (not really tornados).
Scott Walker set Wisconsin back a few years though. Walz has done an incredible job in Minnesota. Better schools, better social supports, legal weed. No Wisconsin Tavern League
I’d take MN winters 99/100 times over Denver. We get a lot less snow in the metro area, especially lately. I’ve barely used the snowblower the last 3 years. Especially this last one.
Cold is easy with the right coat and a hat and just like a minimum level of self awareness
I live in MA and our neighborhoods don't have sidewalks or any walkable parks. Living in the Minneapolis area, my childhood was spent around the lakes and walking & biking the parkways. The Parks system out there is wonderful. Heck, even in the burbs you can take a 5-10min walk to your local park/playground. I have to drive at least 10 minutes and it's just some school's playground. 🥲 But, hey. We pass random 200-300 year old cemeteries along the way, so some might find that cool.
Minnesota is near the top in all quality of life measurements. Great education, health care, parks, income, low crime, etc. Good progressive politics.
The winter shit is overblown. Just get a thiicker coat and if your not an outdoorsy type the difference between 20 and -20 degrees ain’t a thing. Moreover, Minnesota knows how to deal with snow. I am from Minnesota and now live in Maryland. 4 inches of snow in Maryland cripples the state for two days. 20 inches of snow in Minnesota and traffic is moving a day later. Plus snow days are fun!
Minnesota. Great education, health, nature, people, cost of living, Fortune 500 companies, good job culture, and in 20 years it’ll feel like Miami 😂
That being said, please stay away from MN. Winters are ‘harsh’, we don’t need more high earners to drive the cost of living higher. We are good here. 😂
Vermont is beautiful. I live in NY but have visited several times and am always amazed by the nature there. You can enioy a quiet, slower lifestyle, the politics and people are good, and it's affordable.
Vermont is in a rough place for housing. We’re short on homes and apartments and the cost of both is through the roof, especially if you want to live within commute distance of Chittenden County where the lion’s share of jobs are. On the flip side, higher paying “good” jobs can be few and far between while lower paying service positions are pretty much universally understaffed. Cost of living is high and property tax rates are facing a possibly huge hike to the point where a massive amount of towns are facing their third vote to try and pass a budget before the end of June. Place on that a pretty massive per capita homelessness issue, overstretched social assistance agencies, and the usual addiction issues that hurt most communities, it can be pretty rough.
That said, our education system is pretty solid but we are facing a teacher shortage. We have great restaurants, a lot of farm-to-table options for local shopping, and a fairly progressive population. We also have a lot of consumer protection laws regarding lending that keeps interest rates capped. But it’s all a matter of being able to afford it out here. Like anywhere, nothing is perfect. I love it here and have lived here my entire life, but there are some challenges that those of us without substantial means are running into.
If you currently have the means then I gotta say the coastal elites. These places have their shit together and generally care about their citizens. If you want something a bit quieter I would say CA foothills up to Tahoe area, or along the north coast starting from Sonoma, which will get progressively less expensive as you travel north. Oregon is also a good spot.
I’ll also shoutout Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. They are quieter states but also have their shit together and have great overall statewide metrics. Places like Madison, WI are academic capitals of the US. These states also maintain reproductive rights which is a big upside.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, upstate New York, northern New England. Those areas have the best chance for a good climate and immune from sea level rise.
This is wild to me. I was born and raised in upstate NY and everyone seems to hate it and can't wait to move away from there, myself included. Moved south and love it compared to upstate NY
Yeah, Ithaca is nice as long as you don’t live there. The homeless camp and drug abuse isn’t being addressed making anywhere outside the commons a toss up of niceties.
They’re still struggling to fix their policing system after the county was defunded and IPD itself is rather corrupt.
The issues at the state level is a whole nother shit show if you ask me lol
Maryland, to be honest. While most places have been getting more extreme weather courtesy of climate change, Maryland's weather has instead been getting more and more mild. Especially if you're in the DC metro, though even Baltimore is trending that way (but Baltimore definitely does have extreme weather from time to time). Economically and politically stable, too, at least compared to some others.
Adopted Maryland as my home specifically because I wanted better for my kids than where I grew up (Midwest). Educational opportunities are just stellar, the DC metro area is practically recession proof, job growth is fantastic and stable (thank you federal government).
Also, our food scene is phenominal, jousting is the state sport, and MD is effectively the sampler platter for all of the US's terrains.. We've got an ocean, skiing, farmland, waterfalls
Going to piggyback off this and also suggest Pennsylvania. I live in South Central PA, and we're about 20 minutes from the Maryland line. I love both states equally: great schools, all four seasons, and wonderful cities within driving distance for a day trip. And go Ravens and how 'bout them Os!
South Central Pennsylvanian here as well. I too am like 15 minutes from MD so I can have the best of both states. PA ranks the middle of just about everything and honestly I like being average. Outside of the cities it's really great country living. I can see mountains from the front and back of my house. Taxes can be iffy, but you just gotta know what to buy. PA also has excellent programs for low income retiree's. Due to the Academy in town home prices in my area vary widely.
The entire Mid-Atlantic region really. Delaware, Southern NJ, South East PA and Maryland. Close enough to New England but has the cost of living closer to the midwest.
My sister moved to SE Idaho from Western NY about 2 years ago and is NOW trying to get pregnant. I'm worried about her all the time. Their long term plan is to eventually move back east and use their current home for what it used to be, which was a rental. Just feels like a worrisome time to be in Idaho.
I find people from the northeast (whether it’s the coast or inland) to be relatively most down to earth and also so many places you can find affordable homes in beautiful neighborhoods for your kids!
Montana could very well become the new Colorado by 2050. Lots of open land for cities to grow as well as outdoorsy things to do. It will also be a few degrees warmer by then as well.
Montanans have been pissed off about out of staters (particularly Californians) moving in for decades. It was super charged during COVID. A ton of people moved in and worked their remote jobs. They brought in high cost of living salaries from the coast, which theoretically raises the cost of living for everyone else.
Montana is really hostile towards out of staters right now. Especially from California. The problem is we don't want cities to get huge, we like the agriculture landscape we have and the wilderness. Hell I'm in a small ass town with just about 5k people and they're asking for $800.000 for a house. Fucking insane.
Amen, I moved to a different state from NJ and I miss it like crazy. Lots to offer and for a small state there are all different areas with different rural, suburbs, cities, even climate differences.
I would say that it's going to be more important what part of the state you live in rather than which state. There's a huge difference between the best and worst parts of each state.
That said I'm fond of Ohio and think that it's going to be a steady place to live basically for the foreseeable future, and is centrally located for easy access to desirable things (as well as having lots of things to do in the state itself - amusement parks, natural areas, various cites with museums + events in them etc).
Might be biased but I'd recommend Columbus, OH. It's growing and flourishing right now, the international food scene is crazy good, community is pretty supportive of local businesses, cost of living isn't crazy high.
Anywhere in New England. Few to no natural disasters aside from crap weather, plenty of water, wide range of affordability (very livable cities in the south and coastal areas, country in the northern three states), plenty or farmable land with a little bit of land reform, access to major shipping routes thanks to ports on the Atlantic, and an education system that makes the rest of the first world look like a buncha dunces.
Cons/caveats:
1) Our food is crap. We got some good seafood, but the rest is boiled garbage and cookies with raisins in them.
2) The winter. Oh God, the winter.
Where the fuck are you eating? There are tons of great places to eat. Also, winter barely exists like it used to. Did it even drop below 10F this winter? I think we got less than 2' cumulative all season. Quit that whiney ass BS.
It’s still really dark though. You get about 9 hours of daylight in the winter time which is just spent at work lol
But then you get a bunch of daylight in the summer which is nice.
What?! I live in New England and we have some of the best foods. Only con when travelling is how there’s no food like the options we have when back home. 😭
1 is absolutely not true, and I’ve traveled across the US.
I’m sure a couple of people will now read your comment and think New England has terrible food, when that just isn’t the case. Good work.
>The winter. Oh God, the winter.
(Un)fortunately winter weather is mostly a thing of the past now. Southern New England gets a couple inches of snow a few times and melts away the next day. Northern New England may get a bit more, but the populations above central VT/NH/ME are sparse so it impacts few people (except Burlington, but they seem to embrace it well).
I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I loved growing up in Georgia.
The market has always been stable and fairly cheap, always has work, I loved the people, the culture and cuisine is great, going to Atlanta for the weekend out was always crazy fun.
We are talking about moving back for this very reason.
While I haven't been to every state, I have been to most of them, and I can tell you firsthand that there's a ton of variety to be found in even the smallest states when it comes to basically every conceivable metric. That's actually true for regions, counties, cities, and municipalities within each state, so to suggest that life in one state is undeniably superior to life in another all across the board is a stretch and it just isn't even remotely accurate.
You can find statistics at the state level that will tell you about things like the average cost of living, the average wage, crime rates, property taxes, educational rankings, the quality of the drinking water, the quality of the roads, the ranking of medical care and hospitals, life expectancy, the salary to cost of living ratio, etc.
But NONE of those things will be true for each and every single part of that state. To use an extreme example, the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends went to university in Arkansas. Arkansas is very far away from the place where we grew up and before she moved there for university I knew very little about it besides the fact that it essentially came in at the very bottom in practically every metric that matters and at the top in every category you wouldn't want to be Number One in... Arkansas boasts some of the highest levels of obesity and smoking, some of the highest rates of high school dropouts, some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy... And is at the bottom when it comes to education, healthcare, and general quality of life...
Yet this girl - who is now an executive at Walmart earning serious money, has always lived in a part of the state that is nothing like the rest of Arkansas. She went to school in Fayetteville and then moved to Bentonville - both lovely towns, clean, well-kept, safe, friendly communities where people take pride in their communities, the homes and properties are well maintained, there's a bit of culture and nightlife, there isn't much of a seedy underbelly, the infrastructure is in good condition, and they're both just generally good places to live and to raise a family. On the books Arkansas is the bottom of the barrel and pretty much every authority on the best places to live would advise the average person to avoid Arkansas like the plague, but I found that northwest corner of the state to be quite charming with beautiful scenery, neighborly people, and an overall great quality of life.
I visited a friend in Connecticut this past summer. He lives in a town called New Milford. Lovely place - expensive, but very quaint. His wife is from the area and her younger brother currently lives in Waterbury. It is one of the most derelict shitholes I have ever been to - and I know the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic region, and New England like the back of my hand. You could drop me off on any street corner in Baltimore, Philly, New York, or Boston and I would immediately know just where I was standing - that comes from many years of living, studying, and working in those areas. I have been all over Connecticut. Some places in Fairfield County are just gorgeous - you couldn't touch an outhouse on a 10 by 10 lot for under a million dollars there. But there are some really terrible areas too - Norwalk is another terrible place to live. There are plenty of places that have both good and bad areas, sometimes just a ten minute drive between them, if that - Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven... But on the books Connecticut is one of the best places to live. Go tell that to the people living in the worst parts of Hartford.
If I had to choose just one US state to have a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath home on half an acre, but couldn't choose where specifically in that state it would be located and I wouldn't find out the actual address until 2044, I would 100% choose the state of **Maine**. Unreservedly. Now, that might mean I'd be living way up in the Allagash somewhere, it would mean that I'd be living in a rundown part of Portland or Lewiston, but from my experience Maine has not and is not changing as rapidly as practically every other state, so that's the one I'd go with. Number Two would be **Rhode Island** - I'd just pray that I wouldn't wind up with some shitty property in the worst part of Providence, and Number Three would probably be **Maryland** or **Delaware** as while they both have some very undesirable areas, they're relatively small compared to some other states and the distance between the most outlying areas and the closest metro area isn't extreme.
I'm leaving Hawaii off because the cost of living is extortionate and I'm leaving New Jersey off because the property taxes are off the charts. I was very tempted to choose Vermont, but there's very little in the way of work up there and the cost of living is exceedinly high, so those are my three.
Somewhere between Northern California and Seattle. Bend would be an excellent spot. Already appreciated a lot. You have to find that mix of healthy people, a good lifestyle, and a clean environment.
Still, out of everywhere I have lived in the United States, if I had to pick a place to raise kids, it would be bend if I had the money
It's a little more nuanced if you don't. There are some off the beaten path towns like Welches at the base of Mount Hood. Lots about door activity, lots of good people around there, some rednecks of course but it's a low cost of living area close to Portland. The entire Seattle area is pretty expensive. Northern California is another hit and miss location
I picked Buffalo NY when faced with the same decision. Blue state protections for LGBT and reproductive rights, with the feel of a smaller mid western city. Water security, unlike dryer western states. Better air quality than the coal power plant areas in the midwest. Free college tuition for lower income city residents. Investments in the arts and parks and things that make life worth living. The long history of being a refugee resettlement city gives buffalo cultural diversity. And then there is the food. Not just Buffalo wings, but small mom and pop restaurants reflective of the ethnic diversity.
New Jersey.
Edit: For clarity- New Jersey is the best state, period. Do not take this as an invitation, because it’s not. As u/atabey_ kindly mentioned, “New Jersey is full”
100%. I love it here. I'm directly between NYC and Philadelphia. There is so much of everything to do here, lots of culture, parks, recreation. The schools are awesome and well funded. Taxes are high but I don't mind, because of everything I just mentioned.
Seconded. I live pretty much on the line where the debate between "pork roll" vs "Taylor ham" are quite heated. But being equidistant to Philly, NYC, and a bit less so, the beach, plus the suburban lifestyle is really my speed.
Agreed. And while we're going to be affected by climate change, it isn't going to be as brutal as further south. And our politicians won't deny reality, which is nice.
I’m shocked I scrolled through this entire post and unless I’ve missed it, no one has said New Hampshire. But if you Google the best states to raise children, it’s always very high on the list. Doesn’t matter what measurements they use, NH will score high. Lowest teen pregnancy, lowest % of people living in poverty, I think it’s one of the top household incomes by state, and ranks high in education by most measures.
Outside of rankings, it’s got a bit of coastline, mountains, a nice lakes region, great foliage, and Boston is right over the border.
I’m biased. I grew up there, had an amazing childhood, and got a great education. But I think it’s worthy of consideration.
Anywhere but Hawaii. I was born and raised in Hawaii and work as a professional advocate here for a nonprofit. I have personal reasons for not leaving Hawaii myself, but I would if I could because: 1. Cost of Living is ridiculous. Raising someone in Hawaii is basically guaranteeing they’ll have to pay more for everything until they leave. Hawaii is the most expensive place to live in in the U.S., and Honolulu is one of the most expensive cities in the world. 2. Compounding the problems with 1 is that pay in Hawaii is ridiculously low compared to national averages. Just from my own basic research it seems like people are paid around 30-40% under industry average for basically every industry. 3. Lack of healthcare. 1 and 2 compound into 3 and 4. With healthcare, finding a primary care physician in Hawaii is difficult. Healthcare workers leave because they’re paid lower than they should be here, and there’s something like a 700+ shortage of doctors. There’s only 1 true high level trauma center in the state, and it’s Queens Hospital in Honolulu. Get into a bad accident on another island? You either die or get medivacced to Honolulu unless you’re extremely lucky. 4. Shortage of education resources. There’s a major teacher shortage in Hawaii due to similar reasons that cause the healthcare worker and doctor shortages in 3. 5. Food insecurity. Hawaii currently operates on something like 90% of food being shipped in. 2 weeks without shipping would basically run out most of the food in the state. A bad tsunami, fire, hurricane, or other natural or manmade disaster disabling the port of Honolulu would cripple Hawaii. 6. Military priority target. In the event of a war or military strike on the U.S., Hawaii would be a high priority target due to the concentration of significant domestic military forces for force projection in the Pacific, coupled with the relative ease that Hawaii could be cut off from reinforcements or aid. Hawaii is about 2500 miles of open ocean from California. If you recall, back in 2018 there was a false alert of a ballistic missile headed for Hawaii and the 1.4 million people of Hawaii were freaking out. Including myself. There is no realistic protection for civilians in the event of a long range missile strike on Hawaii unless you’re well away from major military installations. If you live in Oahu where 70% of the population lives, good luck because Oahu has: Barbers Point AF Station, Joint Base Pearl Harbor/Hickam, Kaneohe Marine Corps Base, Schofield Barracks, Fort Shafter, and Fort DeRussey. There’s navy radar and coms stations in Waianae and on the North Shore, and the NSA has an intelligence facility at Schofield where Edward Snowden worked before escaping and leaking documents. Outside of Oahu there’s a missile detection and interception range on Kauai, a Space Force observatory on Maui, and Pohakuloa Army Training Base on the island of Hawaii. 7. Housing. Housing is a major issue in Hawaii. Hawaii has one of the highest per capita rates of homelessness in the nation, and a huge percentage of the population is a couple missed paychecks from homelessness. Part of it is housing costs under 1. Hawaii’s housing is over 300% of the national average. If you do get housing, odds are you’ll have a relatively cramped amount of space unless you’re wealthy enough to buy or go to a less populated and developed part of Hawaii than Oahu. 8. Crime. Hawaii doesn’t have a nightmare level of crime, but some of the areas of concern are disturbing. Hawaii has one of the highest per capita rates of human and sex trafficking in the nation, and one of the highest rates of the trafficking and exploitation of children in the nation. 9. Corruption. Hawaii is one of the most politically corrupt states in the U.S., and there are currently 2 high profile corruption cases currently ongoing. Google Mitsunaga case Hawaii and Miske case Hawaii. There’s also been several high profile corruption cases in the past 10 years: look up Kealoha and the Hawaii reps sentenced to prison for corruption. Further, look up “Broken Trust Hawaii.” Beyond that, you’ll just have to take my word that there’s even more that goes ignored, unreported, and uninvestigated. I was going to explain more but I deleted it for my own safety. You can find out a fair amount of this from some research. Look up the Hawaii Legislature Maui Wildfire Interim Report from December 2023 that goes into some detail on the problems and vulnerabilities of Hawaii to natural disasters. Many of the proposed solutions are a bit of a joke though. For crime stuff, Honolulu Civil Beat has decent coverage of some of the stuff. For homelessness and trafficking stuff, there’s a few nonprofits you can look to. I’m blanking on the nonprofit whose reports on trafficking I follow for work though. For a better look at education related issues, with a focus on Native Hawaiian children, but still applicable to everyone, look at the Kamehameha Schools Ka Huakai reports. I think their latest one was 2021. For healthcare stuff, you can look at the news coverage in Hawaii of all the recent nurses strikes.
Love Hawaii. Live Hawaii. Wouldn’t raise a family here
This is so well put together, thank you. Or... It's perfect there and you are just saying this to keep us away...... : ) Definitely true though, my dad got ran off the island for trying to fix a corrupt working environment on one of the more corrupt industries, shot up his house and everything.
Yeah. The Miske case is an organized crime case that involves corruption in the police department, a murder for hire, revenge, and a bunch of other stuff. The Kealoha case involved a police chief and his wife, a deputy prosecutor, who framed someone for a crime and were deeply involved in massive public corruption. One of the super controversial things people seem not to talk about is a $25bn+ rail project on Oahu that it’s my understanding one of the Kealohas was deeply involved in planning like 15 years ago. Then there’s the Kaneshiro case which is another prosecutor who prosecuted someone because their former employer wanted them prosecuted on felony theft charges because that person filed a discrimination claim against them. That case one of the defendants allegedly tried to hire a hitman to kill the federal judge and US Attorney prosecuting the case.
Great post. Really looking forward to you guys pillaging the zuckerbunker one day if shit goes down
We may not be able to get into their bunkers but we can shit next to their air intakes.
This guy Hawaiis!
I talked to a guy who moved from Hawaii and he told me that a lot of homeless people from the mainland are dropped off in Hawaii. Is this true and do you think this has anything to do with the high homeless population?
It’s true and it’s part of it. From what I’ve heard, NYC and LA had programs to give homeless people 1 way tickets to Hawaii because Hawaii doesn’t have winters so they can safely camp year round here. Not sure if the programs still exist or if there were other jurisdictions that did that shit, but yeah a fair number of homeless people in Hawaii moved here from the continent. There’s a program in Hawaii called “return home” that’s meant to reunite and reconnect homeless people in Hawaii with their families on the continent, then move them back. Less talked about though is that the majority of homeless people in Hawaii are actually Native Hawaiian. They’re homeless for a variety of reasons that involve colonialism, racism, and cost of living. The short version is that the U.S. federal government royally screwed over Native Hawaiians and the state government hasn’t done much better.
I have a buddy in Hawaii, and this is on point.
My parents moved to Hawai’i more than fifty years ago, when I was a teenager. They tried to force me to accompany them, and then to attend the University of Hawai’i (yes, I was accepted). Nice state, nice uni, but not for me, then or now. I earned emancipated-minor status, stayed on the Mainland, and visited very infrequently until 1988. You’ve made me relieved all over again. Thank you.
Why do people in Hawaii not get paid more? Just people want to live there so salaries are lower?
With the issues in the education system over there, many middle and high skill jobs are brought in from the main land instead of trained on island. Their community college and state college are missing key industries that provide opportunities for career development, so many locals end up moving elsewhere for the reasons listed above. Las Vegas is a major hub right now for locals looking to move to the mainland. Coupled with the high cost of living many industries find it cheaper to just contract work into the islands instead of paying wages that would allow people to live on island. I used to work in construction on Oahu, and at least two thirds of our shop were flown in from California (around 20 out of 30 people). We didn't even require the highest skill for what we were doing, but it was still tough to hire people with base level electrical experience.
Also born and raised in Hawaii (but live on the mainland, Midwest) and agree with all of this.
The part of the state matters. The best part of a shithole state may be better than the worst part of a "good" state. If you check your education rankings, the northeast is your best bet. It's not the cheapest, but you're getting something for your money. They're dense, expensive, but excellent.
Correct. To give an example states like Alabama and Indiana often have the lowest quality of life rankings in the country. However if you lived in Carmel Indiana or Huntsville Alabama you might have a pretty good life.
As an Indiana resident, this. I have to drive all the way to Fort Wayne or Indianapolis if I want a chance at a decent job, otherwise I might as well fall into a factory.
Interesting because it’s the opposite to me. This shithole called Kokomo has a ton of well paying engineering jobs and living here costs basically nothing. But you know, it’s kokomo.
Beach Boys made that place sound awesome, though!
"Mishawaka, Montego, baby why don't we go.. to Muncie, Greencastle, ooh I wanna take ya!"
I live in Mass and one of the best aspects of it is EXCELLENT emergency benefits. Lose your job? You get 40% of your income in benefits Have a healthcare emergency? Awesome hospital and medical care pretty close by There's just so many helping hands here that it's WAY easier to get back on your feet than most places. Could it be better? Sure, but it's better than most places
This is something a lot of people don't consider. I knew a few people who moved from NY and other northeast states to the Carolinas or Florida. They're low-cost areras, but the flip side of lower taxes is fewer state programs. That's all well and good when you're young and healthy, or if you have family there. But if something goes wrong and you don't have family there, you're screwed.
> The part of the state matters. The best part of a shithole state may be better than the worst part of a "good" state. Living in or near smaller cities in the midwestern states is the way to go, especially because of the lower population. (RE: everything is more affordable, and also the politics can still be affected) Bonus points if it's a college town.
just say madison
Nope, Lawrence. But I hope we can agree to disagree lol
also a good choice lol
For a long time now I've wanted to visit UW-Madison... If I ever make it there I might send you a random reddit message from the Monarch, but only after I catch my first pike
definitely make the time if you can. it’s my hometown, so i’m super biased, but damn is it a great place
Can confirm. I live in a Midwestern city known for its low cost of living. My husband commutes to a HCOL area for work, and our kids go to one of the better school districts in the state.
I think this is mostly true, but there are also some absolute deal breakers for me, like reproductive rights and queer rights. I wouldn't want to live in the "best" part of any state where I'm not allowed basic medical care
I agree. I didn't want to call out certain states and start a debate on unrelated topics.
I mean, I think it is related to the future of your kids. Having an unplanned pregnancy could change your financial status and how you spend your emotional energy dramatically. Having comprehensive sex ed is important unless you want to become a really young grandparent. And how safe your kid feels "coming out" and being themselves can literally be life and death
The “coastal elites” got that name for a reason.
I live in Mass. Very good education, healthcare, consumer protection, housing/cost of living is high but as a software engineer - you'll make over 100k within a couple years of graduating, with ten years under my belt, salaries are 200-500k, so you can afford to live. Lots of friends are in the unions doing construction or trades and make 40+ an hour and afford a good life. I have had health issues where I had to take leave, and the family medical leave act helped with that. Good benefits. Not many guns, but you're free to own them. Crime is low, outside of Boston. Transportation can be a nightmare, but the positives far outweigh this. And the people - in groups, ya we are assholes sometimes. But that's mostly either the young college kids or the older generation left from when Boston wasn't as gentrified. Most individuals you meet are extremely down to Earth, and level-headed. I am happy here. It all depends what you want in Life, though.
I am hearing good things about Michigan, for the following reasons: -Relatively immune from natural threats such as wildfires, hurricanes, F5 tornados, and earthquakes. -Relatively climate change proof: in a northern latitude so it won't become too hot to farm, inland so it won't flood if sea levels rise, surrounded by the world's largest reserves of fresh water and a lot of good agricultural land. -About as far as you can get from the U.S.'s strategic nuclear targets in the event of a nuclear war. Any state bordering the Great Lakes probably wouldn't be a bad plan as most of the above statements are true of most of them.
If a nuclear war hits the US, everyone is completely fucked regardless of what state they're in. Nuclear winter will make everyone's life a living hell unless you have an underground bunker with years of provisions. It's better to just live directly where a nuke strikes for a quick death.
Southern New England it is! I live within 50 miles of Raytheon, Lockheed, Electric Boat, and General Dynamics facilities (closer to some than others). If the balloon goes up, I’m gonna be radioactive dust within minutes! No wandering the wastes looking for bottle caps for me, no, sir!
Would it not be easier to start stocking up on the bottle caps now? I did wonder about that.
Yeah, but you've got the wrong bottle caps.
Kansas City would probably be the best bet if not Washington DC.
I might be an outlier ITT, but I’d rather take my chances with a nuclear winter than be wasted right off the bat. I think if you can make it the first decade, then you have a good shot of benefiting from the reconstruction era when the effect wears off (like post black plague Europe). Theoretically, most of the population you’d be competing for scavenging with would be eliminated from the war itself. Maybe I’m just young, dumb, and bold.
You forgot about the snow. While we may not have intense heat, we get a LOT of snow. Even worse closer to the lakes. The water levels of the lakes have also been rising. A place I vacation at every year lost their beach because of rising water levels in Lake Huron. The lake effect is no joke though, especially during the winter. You're looking at several feet of snow up to your waist or higher.
Out of curiosity, what part of the state are you in? I've been visiting family in inland southeastern Michigan regularly since I moved away, and it's honestly ALARMING how little snow they're getting compared to what they got when I was little. So I guess maybe even within Michigan regional climate between cities is something to look at.
We barely got any this year in mid Michigan. It is alarming. Maybe two significant snows. The change over even 5 years is hugely noticeable.
It is. For years I’ve been talking about moving around 2027 because I can’t stand the doom & gloom of winter. With recent mild winters, we’re looking to push back to 2031.
> We barely got any this year in mid Michigan. It is alarming. Maybe two significant snows. The change over even 5 years is hugely noticeable. I've lived here my whole life (36 years) and the last five years have been *very* worrisome. Every time I talk about it ,somebody always shuts me down like "yeah well it's lake effect, this has happened before" and they pull out some goofy fucking statistic from like, 1912 or some shit Too many people are still in fucking denial about climate change, even in michigan.
I live in the thumb, so the worst we got this year was maybe 7 inches. Anywhere near the lakes are going to be worse. Top of the mitten or anywhere in the UP area is going to have more snow. Our winter in the burbs was a bit delayed. We didn't get any snow until about late February.
I live in just about a north as you can get in the UP. We only got a couple of feet at a time this last winter. It was incredibly mild. I've lived up here a decade, and we've gotten storms of about four to six feet in a night.
The lake levels aren't rising, but they are fluctuating dramatically. In 2013, an all-time record low was broken on Lakes Michigan and Huron, so what we've witnessed over the last decade is actually more of a rebound than a rise. Other lakes are a completely different story, a record high was set on Lake Ontario only four years later in 2017. Its also worth mentioning that the whole Great Lakes system is heavily dammed and controlled so there's a human factor to consider as well. In any case, there's no observable trend, and future water levels in the lakes are much less predicable than in the oceans.
Ha last year was a joke. There will be less and less snow as the years go on as well.
I have to agree. Hell, this past winter was so disappointingly mild, we didn't even fire up our snowmobiles this year. At least I didn't have to winterize them...as they remain so from 2 years ago. The older I get, the milder the winters have become in Michigan. I've become used to the milder winters in SE MI, but it's starting to affect "up north" and the activities that go with winter as s well. When ice fishing festivals like Tip Up Town were canceling events due to warm weather and bad ice, well, that says.volumes.
Michigander here... Some of this is exaggerated. Wildfires will become more prevalent in areas near us, which impacts our air quality, especially nearer Canada. We are NOT climate change immune. We barely had a winter here this past year. It will trend warmer and wetter. If you don't like bugs - I'm talking lots of bugs - this won't be the place. East Coast is looking nice to me.
I walked through a literal wall of midges visiting Lake Michigan today. They were in my ears and nose. If that makes you shudder, Michigan is not for you.
Same but Lake Huron. Too many to count
I'm not American but I'm in the only other place that surrounds the Great Lakes (Ontario).... And I can confirm this reasoning. Most of this provinces apocalypse plan.... no matter what scenario.... is "go a little bit more North. And you'll be safe" lol
I'm from Western NY and I've always thought it would be great to live in rural Ontario because it's basically my hometown but with a different accent. But then I looked on zillow and a dilapidated farmhouse with like *maybe* three intact walls in the middle of a bunch of corn fields is like $550k. Are y'all ok over there?
My friend you're opening a can of worms i could rant about all night lol... It's insanity. By the sounds of it, the property you were looking at was probably in Southern Ontario. Which is like, the most valuable land in Canada for both farming, and living. Which makes almost all development slow and filled with protests over destroying the most valuable farmland in the country.... Oh and then you have the fact that Canada has no sort of R.I.C.O laws. So we're a haven for gangs and their money laundering, which is usually laundered in the housing market. Then we have a dumbass Priminister that planned for 100k immigrants per year, and took in over a million. Without ever even thinking about housing development. He let foreign investors run so rampant in the country he had to completely stop foreign investment in our housing market.... Oh and don't even get me started on CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation). A useless, mandatory FEDERAL mortgage insurance, that was just found giving out over 25 million in bonuses to it's employees last year, while all they are good for is complicating and driving up the price of a home purchase. The entirety of Canada is just about to blow it's top over all this as it's effected the housing market across the country. A home in a Toronto Slum costs over a million dollars. And a 3 bed 1 bath, last renovated in the 80's, 250km north of Toronto, costs 600k. So uhhh.... no. We're officially not okay. Lol
All decent reasons, appreciate the insight. I'm thinking more about my children being able to make a good living and afford a decent life.
Your children will be adults and might move. Pick where you want to live now, not where your children may want to live as an adult. They may grow up and want to be a scuba instructor and need to live in Hawaii. They may want to be a pilot and there job is based out of Denver. Or they meet someone and their family lives elsewhere and they move closer to them. Move for the now, not the then.
U of M has the best alumni association of any university - take a look at all the tech companies whose founders are alumni, financed by alumni. I wouldn’t move to flint, but Detroit has become nearly as lovely as Chicago and is much cheaper.
True facts! Affordability is another big selling point of the Midwest. Ann Arbor, Michigan where the University (sometimes called "The Harvard of the West") is was voted the best city to live in in the U.S. a few years back, though unfortunately because of that article property prices have almost doubled in Ann Arbor since then. Almost any Michigan city is still much more affordable than almost any coastal city though, and holy cow some of them are beautiful. I'm partial to the cities on the shores of the Great Lakes, because if you can handle the winters it's like living on the ocean shore with none of the hurricanes or coastal prices. I will say, it is my suspicion that where a person grows up will be less and less linked to their career prospects as time goes on as I am expecting remote work and remote education to become more and more common. I'll bet the people who are most financially comfortable other than the rich top 1% will be those who remote work in financially lucrative jobs while living in smaller/more rural areas where the cost of living is dirt cheap. But if you really want to hack it and you want your kids to be famous, I believe it's actually possible to search which ZIP codes have produced the most famous people. This is another one where Ann Arbor, Michigan is WEIRDLY prominent, I think some scientists figured out that as far as people born in the early-mid-20th century, people born in Ann Arbor were more likely to end up having their own Wikipedia page than people born in any other ZIP code.
If Ann Arbor is too expensive, Ypsilanti is right next door with more affordable rent/housing.
I grew up in Michigan. After 15 years in Florida I want to run back to Michigan as fast as I can.
I’ve lived in Michigan my whole life, visited Florida once and said never again. Bugs as big as my hand . . . no thanks. I have also always said I would never want to live anywhere that does not have enough fresh water to support the local population. I can’t see myself living anywhere other than Michigan. Come back to Michigan if you can!
We will happily welcome you back home.
Along those same lines, Illinois. For the second year in a row, we basically got zero snow in Chicagoland (no accumulation) so if that continues, severe winters will be a thing of the past. But compared to the south and west coast, mild summers. No coastal flooding, earthquakes, or hurricanes. Plenty of fresh water. A major hub for many large companies, which helps with job prospects, including higher education and medicine.
The major downside with being around the Great Lakes is that it will in the future (if not already) be the premier spot for the majority of the population to go in the event the SHTF. Pretty much anyone and everyone in the prepping and climate change/collapse worlds are looking at that region as the premier place to go. When a place gets too popular, then a lot of problems start. Affordability, for a start.
Mass may have its problems, but it has some of the best offerings in the country. It is really expensive, and a lot of the laws, especially around vehicles and public recreation are excessively strict. But it has some of the best schools and doctors in the world, a generally very liberal and accepting population, no smog, clean water, good infrastructure by US standards, a big city with lots to do that's not completely overwhelming like NYC, suburban and rural lifestyles short drives away, and very close proximity to multiple cheaper states, ski resorts, and nature preserves. There's also Cape Cod with an abundance of beaches, and a really fun culture town with fantastic local food and art.
Masshealth saved my life, no exaggeration. It’s a great state if you have the money, unfortunately I didn’t so I had to move
I'd like to live in Western Mass.
Massachusetts is definitely the best. It isn’t cheap, that’s for sure, but we have everything you could need. Education, public services, the beach, the countryside, history, museums. We’re driving distance to skiing and NYC and Philly and even Canada/Montreal. Boston may be a smaller city and a little full of itself, but it kind of has a right to be. It’s beautiful, clean (you can actually swim in the river that runs through it!) and has history in the beginnings of America only rivaled by Philly. Take a ride in the oldest subway system in America to the first city park the US has ever seen. The neighbor city of Cambridge has two of the best universities in the world (MIT and Harvard). Massachusetts may be small, but we hold our own against states much, much larger. That and there a lot of terrible coffee shops called Dunkin.
Housing prices far away from cities in Mass are much more affordable. I moved to western mass from California and have been pleasantly shocked by how amazing the schools are as well as public safety and very well-maintained public areas. As long as a person doesn’t need to be super close to a city, it feels idyllic.
raise them in the costal elites tell them to settle down in the midwest
Thinking something along these lines. We're in the SF Bay area and are doing okay, but I really don't want my kids to have to be a part of a crazy rat race unless they want to. I worry about their earning power as I see AI develop and housing costs. Thinking of a slower quieter place.
Just a slight counter to this, if you think you can predict what industries workers are going to thrive in vs. struggle in 20+ years from now, better start putting your money in the right places and you’ll be a billionaire. What I mean is that the threat from AI is relatively new and will play out in large ways way before your kids are employable. There is almost no way to predict what will impact them. So, be somewhere you and your partner enjoy being, and somewhere you feel comfortable raising your kids. Trying to outplay macro socio-economic movements based on ever changing factors is a losing game. And even if you do “predict” it, it will largely be luck.
I remember Obama saying that we are educating kids for jobs that won’t even exist for 15-20 years, we don’t even know what a lot of the jobs are going to be yet. It feels like AI is gonna flip a lot of that on its head too.
Then again, who has ever been educated for a specific job? I feel like you're taught concepts and how to think... then you just pick up wherever the current state of the art is. AI just lets you skip forward a bit and automate the tedium away more quickly, imo.
I grew up in Los Altos and I don’t know anyone that I grew up with that still lives there. We’ve all been priced out of where we grew up and the cash grab from selling their homes was too good for our parents to give up.
Yeah I am a bay area native and most of my childhood friends have moved to cheaper areas.
Public schools where I grew up are slowly being consolidated and abandoned because not enough families can stay afloat there anymore to fill them with students. Everyone who can afford to be there can afford the Waldorf preschool and the junior high with the horse stables.
As someone in the Midwest, head near a large city but stay 20-40 minutes away from where you’d plan to work. That drive can save you tens of thousands in cost of living. Houses and apartments are much cheaper out of big cities. Life is quieter. You can still travel to the city for events, social life, etc
Depends on the city. Chicago and much of the Midwest is like that. California and the northeast between Boston and DC? The difference is minimal. You’d have to live 2-4 hours away to save any decent kind of money.
Agreed, 40mins away from ur work location, ya I would still be in Bay area stuck in standstill traffic in the middle of a freeway.
I used to live/work in LA. 40 minutes from your home to work was average and you weren’t saving much money doing so.
I live near Seattle, I thought it was crazy hearing some of the commutes that my dad's coworkers made into their Safeway warehouse job. Now I'm hearing about some other kids of family friends growing up and buying houses east of the mountains and commuting like an hour and a half to two hours to work closer to Seattle.
Well, conveniently enough, they said "as someone in the Midwest". Obviously they're talking about the Midwest.
We are in the East Bay and have thought about where we would live if we left CA. I’ve lived in Michigan and honestly the weather there is just terrible for months at a time. I’ve kind of come to the realization that we are super blessed here in NorCal. Amazing weather, incredible nature, wonderful food, lots of diversity and things to do. Yes, it’s busy and expensive, but you can live somewhere where the “rat race” isn’t as pronounced.
Yaaaaa. I grew up in Hawaii, am in NorCal right now. I've very much enjoyed your forests and tide pools! I think right now John Muir woods and Big Sur might be my favorites. There's a tiny town way up North called Guallala I believe that had a fantastic river! But, my grandmother lived in Wisconsin. One Aunt from Arizona. Ain't no fucking you'll ever get me away from the water lol. Where in the world barely matters, but if the water is more than a 15 minute drive away I'm not living there. I guess I could do somewhere on the great lakes.
I grew up in Rochester and it’s still cheap, but yeah the weather is cold. And when it’s not cold it’s drizzly. You get 3 months of good weather in the summer but that’s it. In the winter it snows so much it might as well be Fairbanks.
Oh yeah I definitely feel blessed to be where I am, but I worry about my children being able to live a good life as adults and raise children of their own.
Minnesota - the Twin Cities have an incredible restaurant scene and there are great schools. We’re a hidden gem up here.
SHHHHHH!
Yeah but only in the city area. I lived up on the range growing up and moved by the cities 4 years ago. You couldn’t pay me to move back there, and my family has tried
From MA, if I left New Engand it's easily Minnesota. My cousins moved there when I was 11 and I fell in love when I visited. I dream of PNW mountains and forests but the cost of living when MN is right there and sooo beautiful is a no brainer.
Husband always whines about leaving the state. Picks Texas or Arizona. I suggest Minnesota and get shucked off...I'm not moving to no Texas or Arizona...
Lol we have a very average restaurant scene at best. Nearly any coastal city blows it out of the water. Minnesota performs way better on pretty much every other metric though.
The Somali food is better than anywhere else though, probably even somalia.
Hidden under a few feet of snow ;) I absolutely love it up there tho. Only place I've snowshoed to a bar.... Where I fit in with everyone else who shoed to the bar.
Colorado may be good, climate wise. The wildfires and water access are a bit concerning, but not quite as bad as California. Or as others have said, anywhere near the Great Lakes is good because access to fresh water may become a big issue in the future.
I live in Utah and the water thing spooks me. I grew up in Missouri, so water was never an issue, apart from the occasional flood. Given peoples' love of guns and the way many of them lost their shit during COVID, I don't want to be around if the water situation gets extreme...
That’s why I think it’s absolutely crazy people live in places like Phoenix. If the electrical grid goes down they could die in what, a few days? Utter madness.
Colorado also has great education. I think it's ranked 6th for k-12 and 2nd for universities. You still have to check each school on great schools.
Yep. Our schools are ranked pretty high, but we are pretty low on teacher pay scales. Colorado is terrible though. Don't move here. We have cooties. And bears. And wolves. And bears.
Minnesota
Sell me Minnesota
Come for the cabin season, stay because you're car won't start.
Free in state tuition, a very good state medical insurance, reasonable taxes, reasonable diversity. Reasonably affordable. That winter keeps away a lot of folk
MN just did have what had to be one of the warmest winters on record. It barely even snowed in most of the state compared to other years.
Very scary - bad ice fishing
That winter is rough though. MSP is a nice city. Good food, good theater scene, easy airport to get in and out of. But be prepared for the winter. I live in Denver and here is candy land compared to the MN winters. Otherwise I would have moved the family already.
20 years though it will be much better. Minn, Michigan Illinois are all good states to live in for climate change. The weather will get milder and they won’t have drought issues. No earthquakes, hurricanes and (not really tornados).
Casually leaving out Wisconsin. Must be a Bears fan
Scott Walker set Wisconsin back a few years though. Walz has done an incredible job in Minnesota. Better schools, better social supports, legal weed. No Wisconsin Tavern League
I’d take MN winters 99/100 times over Denver. We get a lot less snow in the metro area, especially lately. I’ve barely used the snowblower the last 3 years. Especially this last one. Cold is easy with the right coat and a hat and just like a minimum level of self awareness
I visited by relatives in Northern Minnesota some decades ago. Christmas Eve it was 32 below zero. That 64 degrees below freezing.
Cold winters are good for you. You learn how to endure.
Last winter was awfully easy.
I have a feeling next winter is going to be brutal. Usually how it goes.
I live in MA and our neighborhoods don't have sidewalks or any walkable parks. Living in the Minneapolis area, my childhood was spent around the lakes and walking & biking the parkways. The Parks system out there is wonderful. Heck, even in the burbs you can take a 5-10min walk to your local park/playground. I have to drive at least 10 minutes and it's just some school's playground. 🥲 But, hey. We pass random 200-300 year old cemeteries along the way, so some might find that cool.
That does sound pretty good
Minnesota is near the top in all quality of life measurements. Great education, health care, parks, income, low crime, etc. Good progressive politics. The winter shit is overblown. Just get a thiicker coat and if your not an outdoorsy type the difference between 20 and -20 degrees ain’t a thing. Moreover, Minnesota knows how to deal with snow. I am from Minnesota and now live in Maryland. 4 inches of snow in Maryland cripples the state for two days. 20 inches of snow in Minnesota and traffic is moving a day later. Plus snow days are fun!
MINNESOTA MENTIONED WOOOO
Shhhh
Minnesota. Great education, health, nature, people, cost of living, Fortune 500 companies, good job culture, and in 20 years it’ll feel like Miami 😂 That being said, please stay away from MN. Winters are ‘harsh’, we don’t need more high earners to drive the cost of living higher. We are good here. 😂
Vermont is beautiful. I live in NY but have visited several times and am always amazed by the nature there. You can enioy a quiet, slower lifestyle, the politics and people are good, and it's affordable.
Is it? Last I heard, there was no housing in Vermont
Vermont is affordable if you’re from NYC I guess but not if you have VT wages
Vermont is in a rough place for housing. We’re short on homes and apartments and the cost of both is through the roof, especially if you want to live within commute distance of Chittenden County where the lion’s share of jobs are. On the flip side, higher paying “good” jobs can be few and far between while lower paying service positions are pretty much universally understaffed. Cost of living is high and property tax rates are facing a possibly huge hike to the point where a massive amount of towns are facing their third vote to try and pass a budget before the end of June. Place on that a pretty massive per capita homelessness issue, overstretched social assistance agencies, and the usual addiction issues that hurt most communities, it can be pretty rough. That said, our education system is pretty solid but we are facing a teacher shortage. We have great restaurants, a lot of farm-to-table options for local shopping, and a fairly progressive population. We also have a lot of consumer protection laws regarding lending that keeps interest rates capped. But it’s all a matter of being able to afford it out here. Like anywhere, nothing is perfect. I love it here and have lived here my entire life, but there are some challenges that those of us without substantial means are running into.
If you currently have the means then I gotta say the coastal elites. These places have their shit together and generally care about their citizens. If you want something a bit quieter I would say CA foothills up to Tahoe area, or along the north coast starting from Sonoma, which will get progressively less expensive as you travel north. Oregon is also a good spot. I’ll also shoutout Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. They are quieter states but also have their shit together and have great overall statewide metrics. Places like Madison, WI are academic capitals of the US. These states also maintain reproductive rights which is a big upside.
Depends on what part of Oregon. Coast is getting super pricey and don’t have the jobs to support 600k ranch style homes.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, upstate New York, northern New England. Those areas have the best chance for a good climate and immune from sea level rise.
Upstate NY is very nice. Try the Ithaca area if you're looking for a liberal college-town vibe. Maybe avoid Buffalo if you're not a fan of snow.
This is wild to me. I was born and raised in upstate NY and everyone seems to hate it and can't wait to move away from there, myself included. Moved south and love it compared to upstate NY
Yeah, Ithaca is nice as long as you don’t live there. The homeless camp and drug abuse isn’t being addressed making anywhere outside the commons a toss up of niceties. They’re still struggling to fix their policing system after the county was defunded and IPD itself is rather corrupt. The issues at the state level is a whole nother shit show if you ask me lol
Maryland, to be honest. While most places have been getting more extreme weather courtesy of climate change, Maryland's weather has instead been getting more and more mild. Especially if you're in the DC metro, though even Baltimore is trending that way (but Baltimore definitely does have extreme weather from time to time). Economically and politically stable, too, at least compared to some others.
Adopted Maryland as my home specifically because I wanted better for my kids than where I grew up (Midwest). Educational opportunities are just stellar, the DC metro area is practically recession proof, job growth is fantastic and stable (thank you federal government).
Also, our food scene is phenominal, jousting is the state sport, and MD is effectively the sampler platter for all of the US's terrains.. We've got an ocean, skiing, farmland, waterfalls
Going to piggyback off this and also suggest Pennsylvania. I live in South Central PA, and we're about 20 minutes from the Maryland line. I love both states equally: great schools, all four seasons, and wonderful cities within driving distance for a day trip. And go Ravens and how 'bout them Os!
South Central Pennsylvanian here as well. I too am like 15 minutes from MD so I can have the best of both states. PA ranks the middle of just about everything and honestly I like being average. Outside of the cities it's really great country living. I can see mountains from the front and back of my house. Taxes can be iffy, but you just gotta know what to buy. PA also has excellent programs for low income retiree's. Due to the Academy in town home prices in my area vary widely.
The entire Mid-Atlantic region really. Delaware, Southern NJ, South East PA and Maryland. Close enough to New England but has the cost of living closer to the midwest.
Depends on where in Maryland you are lol. DC metro area isn’t going to have a Midwest cost of living.
I’m glad there’s not a single mention of Idaho, that’s good it sucks here and you definitely don’t want to raise a family here
The Idaho state government is making it about as unappealing as they can, especially if women’s health rights matter to you.
My sister moved to SE Idaho from Western NY about 2 years ago and is NOW trying to get pregnant. I'm worried about her all the time. Their long term plan is to eventually move back east and use their current home for what it used to be, which was a rental. Just feels like a worrisome time to be in Idaho.
House prices are getting insane here very quickly.
It’s becoming a healthcare desert and women’s health services especially is going to suffer long run.
Yup way to many Christian fascists
Ill avoid the christofascist women-are-breed stock state thanks.
As an Idaho native who left 15 years ago, and will never move back, there’s nothing to sell. Beautiful state, terrible government and bad people.
Yep. Idaho native and we are moving to Oregon to give my son a better chance at a good life. Education here is abysmal.
Job market sucks here, great place to retire but it’s hella expensive compared to the income
Idaho has some of the lowest pay in the country. The state then relies on federal welfare to cover its low taxes. Feels like an unsustainable model.
The question should have included “except the state you’re living in”, or “if you’ve lived in at least 3 states”. So many bad answers here.
I find people from the northeast (whether it’s the coast or inland) to be relatively most down to earth and also so many places you can find affordable homes in beautiful neighborhoods for your kids!
Montana could very well become the new Colorado by 2050. Lots of open land for cities to grow as well as outdoorsy things to do. It will also be a few degrees warmer by then as well.
Heard some good things about Montana, but then also heard a ton of people moved there and made the locals a little upset.
Montanans have been pissed off about out of staters (particularly Californians) moving in for decades. It was super charged during COVID. A ton of people moved in and worked their remote jobs. They brought in high cost of living salaries from the coast, which theoretically raises the cost of living for everyone else.
Montana is really hostile towards out of staters right now. Especially from California. The problem is we don't want cities to get huge, we like the agriculture landscape we have and the wilderness. Hell I'm in a small ass town with just about 5k people and they're asking for $800.000 for a house. Fucking insane.
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I know we’re the butt many jokes but New Jersey is usually one spot behind MA in all those charts.
Amen, I moved to a different state from NJ and I miss it like crazy. Lots to offer and for a small state there are all different areas with different rural, suburbs, cities, even climate differences.
I absolutely love New Jersey. Lived in NY, then Florida, now NJ and I don't ever plan on leaving.
I would say that it's going to be more important what part of the state you live in rather than which state. There's a huge difference between the best and worst parts of each state. That said I'm fond of Ohio and think that it's going to be a steady place to live basically for the foreseeable future, and is centrally located for easy access to desirable things (as well as having lots of things to do in the state itself - amusement parks, natural areas, various cites with museums + events in them etc).
I've heard many good things about Ohio, also have some family there.
Might be biased but I'd recommend Columbus, OH. It's growing and flourishing right now, the international food scene is crazy good, community is pretty supportive of local businesses, cost of living isn't crazy high.
Go Bucks
Anywhere in New England. Few to no natural disasters aside from crap weather, plenty of water, wide range of affordability (very livable cities in the south and coastal areas, country in the northern three states), plenty or farmable land with a little bit of land reform, access to major shipping routes thanks to ports on the Atlantic, and an education system that makes the rest of the first world look like a buncha dunces. Cons/caveats: 1) Our food is crap. We got some good seafood, but the rest is boiled garbage and cookies with raisins in them. 2) The winter. Oh God, the winter.
Where the fuck are you eating? There are tons of great places to eat. Also, winter barely exists like it used to. Did it even drop below 10F this winter? I think we got less than 2' cumulative all season. Quit that whiney ass BS.
“The winter oh god!” also sounds silly to me, having grown up on the Great Lakes. I suspect it’s a scare tactic to keep people away lol
It’s still really dark though. You get about 9 hours of daylight in the winter time which is just spent at work lol But then you get a bunch of daylight in the summer which is nice.
What?! I live in New England and we have some of the best foods. Only con when travelling is how there’s no food like the options we have when back home. 😭
1 is absolutely not true, and I’ve traveled across the US. I’m sure a couple of people will now read your comment and think New England has terrible food, when that just isn’t the case. Good work.
>The winter. Oh God, the winter. (Un)fortunately winter weather is mostly a thing of the past now. Southern New England gets a couple inches of snow a few times and melts away the next day. Northern New England may get a bit more, but the populations above central VT/NH/ME are sparse so it impacts few people (except Burlington, but they seem to embrace it well).
Providence has a great restaurant scene.
new haven is a pretty great restaurant city
Michigan.
Minnesota. Do some research. Quite a few things going for it.
Minnesota. I've done my research and in 20 years that's one of the top places to live.
I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I loved growing up in Georgia. The market has always been stable and fairly cheap, always has work, I loved the people, the culture and cuisine is great, going to Atlanta for the weekend out was always crazy fun. We are talking about moving back for this very reason.
While I haven't been to every state, I have been to most of them, and I can tell you firsthand that there's a ton of variety to be found in even the smallest states when it comes to basically every conceivable metric. That's actually true for regions, counties, cities, and municipalities within each state, so to suggest that life in one state is undeniably superior to life in another all across the board is a stretch and it just isn't even remotely accurate. You can find statistics at the state level that will tell you about things like the average cost of living, the average wage, crime rates, property taxes, educational rankings, the quality of the drinking water, the quality of the roads, the ranking of medical care and hospitals, life expectancy, the salary to cost of living ratio, etc. But NONE of those things will be true for each and every single part of that state. To use an extreme example, the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends went to university in Arkansas. Arkansas is very far away from the place where we grew up and before she moved there for university I knew very little about it besides the fact that it essentially came in at the very bottom in practically every metric that matters and at the top in every category you wouldn't want to be Number One in... Arkansas boasts some of the highest levels of obesity and smoking, some of the highest rates of high school dropouts, some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy... And is at the bottom when it comes to education, healthcare, and general quality of life... Yet this girl - who is now an executive at Walmart earning serious money, has always lived in a part of the state that is nothing like the rest of Arkansas. She went to school in Fayetteville and then moved to Bentonville - both lovely towns, clean, well-kept, safe, friendly communities where people take pride in their communities, the homes and properties are well maintained, there's a bit of culture and nightlife, there isn't much of a seedy underbelly, the infrastructure is in good condition, and they're both just generally good places to live and to raise a family. On the books Arkansas is the bottom of the barrel and pretty much every authority on the best places to live would advise the average person to avoid Arkansas like the plague, but I found that northwest corner of the state to be quite charming with beautiful scenery, neighborly people, and an overall great quality of life. I visited a friend in Connecticut this past summer. He lives in a town called New Milford. Lovely place - expensive, but very quaint. His wife is from the area and her younger brother currently lives in Waterbury. It is one of the most derelict shitholes I have ever been to - and I know the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic region, and New England like the back of my hand. You could drop me off on any street corner in Baltimore, Philly, New York, or Boston and I would immediately know just where I was standing - that comes from many years of living, studying, and working in those areas. I have been all over Connecticut. Some places in Fairfield County are just gorgeous - you couldn't touch an outhouse on a 10 by 10 lot for under a million dollars there. But there are some really terrible areas too - Norwalk is another terrible place to live. There are plenty of places that have both good and bad areas, sometimes just a ten minute drive between them, if that - Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven... But on the books Connecticut is one of the best places to live. Go tell that to the people living in the worst parts of Hartford. If I had to choose just one US state to have a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath home on half an acre, but couldn't choose where specifically in that state it would be located and I wouldn't find out the actual address until 2044, I would 100% choose the state of **Maine**. Unreservedly. Now, that might mean I'd be living way up in the Allagash somewhere, it would mean that I'd be living in a rundown part of Portland or Lewiston, but from my experience Maine has not and is not changing as rapidly as practically every other state, so that's the one I'd go with. Number Two would be **Rhode Island** - I'd just pray that I wouldn't wind up with some shitty property in the worst part of Providence, and Number Three would probably be **Maryland** or **Delaware** as while they both have some very undesirable areas, they're relatively small compared to some other states and the distance between the most outlying areas and the closest metro area isn't extreme. I'm leaving Hawaii off because the cost of living is extortionate and I'm leaving New Jersey off because the property taxes are off the charts. I was very tempted to choose Vermont, but there's very little in the way of work up there and the cost of living is exceedinly high, so those are my three.
Come to Australia. Free kangaroo riding lessons and Vegemite sales are at an all-time average!
Probably the greatest lakes region. Lots of fresh water for when everyone else is dying in the southwest. Winters should be pretty mild by then
I know a lot of people like to joke about New Jersey, but we rank in like the top 5 for all the good categories except cost .
A lot of the bigger ones, probably in smaller cities within 2-3 hours of the capital that have probably grown by then.
State of denial.
I've lived in 6 states and like Washington the best.
Pennsylvania
The one you start working on now.
Somewhere between Northern California and Seattle. Bend would be an excellent spot. Already appreciated a lot. You have to find that mix of healthy people, a good lifestyle, and a clean environment. Still, out of everywhere I have lived in the United States, if I had to pick a place to raise kids, it would be bend if I had the money It's a little more nuanced if you don't. There are some off the beaten path towns like Welches at the base of Mount Hood. Lots about door activity, lots of good people around there, some rednecks of course but it's a low cost of living area close to Portland. The entire Seattle area is pretty expensive. Northern California is another hit and miss location
I picked Buffalo NY when faced with the same decision. Blue state protections for LGBT and reproductive rights, with the feel of a smaller mid western city. Water security, unlike dryer western states. Better air quality than the coal power plant areas in the midwest. Free college tuition for lower income city residents. Investments in the arts and parks and things that make life worth living. The long history of being a refugee resettlement city gives buffalo cultural diversity. And then there is the food. Not just Buffalo wings, but small mom and pop restaurants reflective of the ethnic diversity.
New Jersey. Edit: For clarity- New Jersey is the best state, period. Do not take this as an invitation, because it’s not. As u/atabey_ kindly mentioned, “New Jersey is full”
100%. I love it here. I'm directly between NYC and Philadelphia. There is so much of everything to do here, lots of culture, parks, recreation. The schools are awesome and well funded. Taxes are high but I don't mind, because of everything I just mentioned.
Seconded. I live pretty much on the line where the debate between "pork roll" vs "Taylor ham" are quite heated. But being equidistant to Philly, NYC, and a bit less so, the beach, plus the suburban lifestyle is really my speed.
Agreed. And while we're going to be affected by climate change, it isn't going to be as brutal as further south. And our politicians won't deny reality, which is nice.
New Jersey is full, thanks.
I’m shocked I scrolled through this entire post and unless I’ve missed it, no one has said New Hampshire. But if you Google the best states to raise children, it’s always very high on the list. Doesn’t matter what measurements they use, NH will score high. Lowest teen pregnancy, lowest % of people living in poverty, I think it’s one of the top household incomes by state, and ranks high in education by most measures. Outside of rankings, it’s got a bit of coastline, mountains, a nice lakes region, great foliage, and Boston is right over the border. I’m biased. I grew up there, had an amazing childhood, and got a great education. But I think it’s worthy of consideration.
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In terms of climate. Columbis, Ohio. Currently...I wouldn't.
Minnesota, St. Paul/Minneapolis area.
A smallish town in Wisconsin or Minnesota. You'll want to be a drivable distance to a larger city for a good salary and entertainment.