The Best Places

After 10 years in California, without being able to afford to buy a house, my wife and I are very sensitive to this issue. So home values represent a key criterion for us. The table below uses median home value data from Yahoo! Real Estate. Their numbers appear fairly stable; I had checked many of these cities last month and the numbers haven’t changed much in most cases.

A few numbers surprised me — an out of the way town like Salida, Colorado coming in at over $400,000. Reno, Nevada topped 400K as well. On the other end, look at Truth or Consequences, New Mexico — $75,000! Now that could be off, but the most recent issue of Men’s Journal lists Truth or Consequences as one of the best places to live (jn the best hideaway category), and quotes a median home price of $101,000. So it’s not that far off.

So with that introduction, here’s the list… (Read more…)

In their April 2007 issue, Mens Journal lists the 50 best places to live in the U.S. Instead of one big list, they’ve posted categories with the top 5 in areas such as best adventure cities, best commuter towns, etc. One place that caught my eye was Truth or Consequences, NM, which was listed in the “best hideaways” category, and it will probably end up on our short list of places to visit on a trip next month.

Other cities and towns from out target area include Flagstaff, AZ in the healthiest places list, Santa Fe, NM (cleanest places), and Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV, both of which made the sunniest places list.

The Advocate has published its first ever list of the best places to live for gays and lesbians. The ten cities, in alphabetical order are:

• Columbus, OH
• Dallas, TX
• Ferndale, MI
• Ithaca, NY
• Lexington, KY
• Missoula, MT
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• Santa Fe, NM
• Tucson, AZ

This isn’t one of our criteria, but it is a good indicator if you’re looking for culture and a blue state to settle in. Besides, I plan to carry “best place” lists from other resources, and I’ve started a category to that effect with this post. Note that a couple of cities on our list show up here — Tucson and Santa Fe.

Climate is a major factor in determining our choice for the best place to live. So today, we’re going to take a look at summer and winter temperatures, as well as precipitation. I’ll close with how climate might impact our choice of the best place to live. The city names in the tables below are live links to additional climate information. Oh yeah, I threw in Grand Rapids, MI to give my wife a point of reference (she grew up there). (Read more…)

The American Podiatric Medical Association has released their list of the best cities for walking in the U.S. Before we get to it, I want to note the cities in our list of candidates for the best places to live. Colorado Springs came in pretty high at number 13, Albuquerque less so at number 45, and Tucson a scary 86.

But I have to take this all with a grain of salt. Charlotte, NC, near where I grew up, was referred to back then as “Car Lot,” yet it came in at number 4. Madison, Wisconsin, with less than ideal weather, came in at number 1. The heaviest weighted criterion was being a “walkable community,” which might explain how Madion overcame their climate obstcles to make number one.
Here are some of their reasons for the top ten:

1. Madison, WI: Adopted a walker-friendly plan 10 years ago, and it shows.
2. Austin, TX: 50 trails, from a quarter to 10 miles long.
3. San Francisco, CA: The most parks per square mile.
4. Charlotte, NC: 40% of its residents walk for exercise.
5. Seattle, WA: Gorgeous views of Puget Sound and snowcapped mountains.
6. Henderson, NV: With an average yearly rainfall of 4.5 inches, you can walk everyday.
7. San Diego, CA: A unique choice of beach, desert and mountain routes.
8. San Jose, CA: Perfect walking weather; average temp 61 degrees and low humidity.
9. Chandler, AZ: 6.5 miles of traffic-free walking on its Paseo Trail.
10. Virginia Beach, VA A low crime rate and a boardwalk allow safe, fun strolling

A couple of other cities of note in the Southwest, that we might be interested in, turned up on the list: Henderson, NV at number 5 and Reno, NV at 28. And in case you’re wondering why I didn’t mention Chandler, AZ, neither Phoenix nor any of its suburbs are on our candidate list. It’s just too damn big.

Here’s the full list of the top 100 best cities for walking (PDF).

My wife asked me the other day why Las Vegas wasn’t on the short list of candidates as the best place to live. To be honest, I didn’t have a good answer. I guess I just don’t like the place — too big, too water consumptive, too many retirees. As Marlee Macleod said, “why did you have to end up in Las Vegas?”

Well, maybe we will end up in Las Vegas. Perhaps it will be Las Vegas, New Mexico though!

There really are some other towns we might look at, so I’ll kick out another list that I might get around to writing about. We could change our minds as we learn more, and it may be a good exercise just to compare them to cities and towns on the main list. They’ve been excluded from the short list for various reasons. In some cases, we just don’t know enough about them yet, and my research time is limited. For others, there are more specific reasons. Take Flagstaff for example. It’s too cold, and if we’re going to be in that kind of climate, we’d rather be close to more ski resorts. Plus, for being so close to our beloved Southern Utah, it sure is hard to get there. Anyway, without further delay, here’s the list of maybes:

Arizona

• Flagstaff
• Payson
• Sedona
• Sierra Vista

Nevada

• Las Vegas
• Reno

New Mexico

• Farmington
• Las Vegas
• Taos

Utah

• Cedar City
• Moab
• St. George

This article on the Colorado River and population growth in the Southwestern U.S. reminded me of another couple of things we’ll be looking at on TheBestPlaces.info — the impact of global warming and the water sources for the individual towns and cities we’re investigating.

The 25 million Americans who rely on the Colorado River for water should expect continued — and even worsening — drought spells and water shortages as rising temperatures and growing populations create a double whammy, experts warned in a new report…

…”These reconstructions, along with temperature trends and projections for the region, suggest that future droughts will recur and that they may exceed the severity of droughts of historical experience, such as the drought of the late 1990s and early 2000s,” the experts wrote…

I’m not sure we want to move as far north as Colorado. We love snowboarding, but are averse to long winters. Then again, do we really want to move to Tucson if temperatures are going to rise and water supplies fail?

My wife and I have been discussing where we might live next for some time now. We love Southern Utah; at one point we were making a couple of trips there a year for canyoneering and mountain biking. But we’re not enamored of some aspects of the culture and, since we like wine (and Utah won’t allow wine shipments), you’ll notice that we’re generally looking at the states surrounding Utah.

As we move through our search, I may add names and take others away. I’ll go into each city in more detail before too much longer. So without further delay, here’s a first pass at the candidate list:

The best places to live?

Arizona

• Prescott
• Tucson

California

• Bishop

Colorado

• Colorado Springs
• Durango
• Grand Junction
• Salida

New Mexico

• Albuquerque
• Las Cruces
• Rio Rancho
• Silver City

North Carolina

• Asheville

Okay, that last one is sort of a ringer. But my daughter is in college there, and my Mom, who is getting up there in years, is nearby. It’s a long shot, but one that we can’t quite rule out.

Welcome to TheBestPlaces.info, where we will explore the best places to live, work and play.

This is a personal journey for my family — we’re looking for places where we may ultimately want to relocate. I’m hoping for an early semi-retirement; my wife will be wanting a place where she can put her therapist skills to work.

We’re starting out with a love of the southwest, so that’s the locus for the search. Criteria we’ll be looking at include climate, outdoor recreation opportunities, licensing requirements for my wife, housing values, quality of schools, etc.

Currently, we’re living in an isolated corner of Northern California. It’s 1-1/2 hours just to the nearest Wal-Mart! Our typical shopping trip, for anything other than groceries, is a two-hour drive to a city with a Costco, Trader Joes, etc. Airline travel is a major hassle, starting and ending with a three-hour drive, so our criteria will include distance to major metropolitan airports and other components of an “isolation factor.”

We like our small town, but we’re open to city life too. So stick around. I’ll be getting to the criteria and a list of possible locations very shortly.