Moving to the USA - where has the best quality of life?

[AveEldon]

If you could live anywhere in the US, where would you go?

I'd rather live in Somalia than Florida or LA.

I'd live in NYC or the Pacific north west.

I'd go for near telegraph cove in the Pacific Northwest

I'd go for near telegraph cove in the Pacific Northwest

This is in Canada...

As others have said, it entirely depends what your priorities are. I live in the PNW (but the Canadian bit) and it is paradise for many people, but I often can't shake the feeling that life is what is happening to other people, somewhere else...

Quite... I'd prefer Canada

Though I forgot it was in Canada tbh

Apparently, these are the top 10. I have heard repeatedly about Oregon and Washington state

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/04/15/us-news-world-report-best-places-to-live-in-the-us-in-2019.html

We looked at moving to Charlottesville, Virginia. My DH worked out there a lot with work and loved the area. We didn’t for family reasons but often talk about what-if..

It depends on what you need. If you need government services (healthcare, special education, etc), the Northeast or parts of the Upper Midwest. (California's school system has issues.) But if your priority is lots of space and a lower cost of living, you might want somewhere different.

Newspaper rankings don't account for all these factors. Austin is very hip and has a good job market, but you'd have to pay me millions to live in Texas--and with 2 kids with SN I'd need it there because Texas is miserly.

Well I suppose it depends how much money you have. I'm sure the people in the Chicago projects for example would disagree with a PP.

Well yes - my sister lives in poverty in Luton. 9 of them in a 3 bed maisonette. That’s not much fun either.

We are currently in London
Longing for more space and less pollution

@AveEldon Are you are your spouse a US citizen or have a visa? Unfortunately if you don't then it's not as simple as working out where you want to live and finding a job there. Canada would be easier to emigrate to than the US.

@ByAppointmentTo yes one of us is already a citizen, the other will need to apply for an immigrant visa

The projects are all but gone, LemonPrism.

There is no place in the US where life is at all comfortable without a well paid job.

North Carolina cities have a lot going for them, especially in the research triangle, as do old resort towns like Asheville in the mountains. Vermont is nice too, but avoid small towns and rural areas. Major cities and their suburbs tend to be much nicer places to live than small rural towns. The addiction crisis has hit rural America very hard.

If you have a decent income you will be able to avoid areas of high crime in big cities (it tends to occur in certain high crime pockets). I live in the Chicago area and honestly I frequently leave my back door unlocked. I am fifteen minutes on foot from the street that divides Chicago proper from my suburb. Life is incredibly different on the other side of that street. The glaring difference is something I appreciate as I am on the 'right ' side, but feel very bad about. Children's life chances on either side of a dividing street shouldn't be so predictable.

I believe Des Moines, Iowa, was recently named one of the best places to live in the US, if you wanted to look at somewhere not exactly high on any expat's list. People I know who live in Nashville love it. It wouldn't be my cup of tea.

Many of the Virginia and Maryland suburbs of DC are nice, as is Charlottesville, VA, about 3 hours from DC. Albemarle County schools are very good. Within DC itself, areas in NW DC are nice, but some areas are incredibly pricey (Georgetown for instance). Any college town hosting a big university or a cluster of universities, especially research universities, might be a good bet. Madison, Wisconsin springs to mind. It's also the state capitol.

If you're planning on a long term move to the US you will need to take third level education costs into account. I would put Texas on my list because of its excellent third level education system and funding. Not just anywhere in Texas though - Austin specifically. Also Pennsylvania and Virginia (both public Ivies), Massachusetts (excellent education system all round), and the Big Ten states, especially Michigan but also Minnesota (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Illinois (Chicago area), and Wisconsin.

Correction there - the University of pennsylvania is private. Penn State is public (decent, but actually quite pricey).

I live in the DC suburbs. Virginia has an excellent public university system that includes not just the University of Virginia but William & Mary. Public schools are excellent also.

I’m in the US and we chose our Midwest location for quality of life. The catch is that is different for different people. My city is regularly named one of the top places to live for families. It is incredibly family oriented. We have affordable houses and amazing public schools. We also are car-dependent and have too many chain restaurants and stores . Our unique restaurants and stores are thankfully improving, though slowly.

We used to live in Los Angeles, but housing was tiny and ridiculously expensive and the schools were just awful. But some people prefer the things that can only be had in big cities.

If you want a great place to raise a family, I would recommend the suburbs of big midwestern cities or some or some of the smaller coastal cities. You will find that in those places most families can afford to buy a detached home in a good school catchment and still have reasonable commutes to jobs. In bigger cities you can get housing, but you get a lot less for your money. Where I live now, my entire house in Los Angeles would fit in just my kitchen and sitting room here.

Healthcare, education, less pollution are all important to us
I'd prefer to be in a city as that's what I'm used to
Not keen on extreme temps so that rules out quite a few states
I'm not sure I could survive winter in MN or summer in TX

The areas I would consider in your circumstances:
Pacific NW — Seattle has more jobs but is very expensive, so maybe Portland?
Denver metro (Boulder, Colorado Springs, etc.) — cold winters but not upper Midwest cold
North Carolina — I know people who have moved from urban California locations and love it. Lots to do, plenty of jobs, way cheaper
DC Metro Area — lots of jobs, good quality of life, but need to deal with hot, humid summers and it’s fairly expensive

If you don’t want to deal with extreme weather, California is a good bet, but it is eye wateringly expensive and the pollution can be bad depending on where you are.