first best place: If you could only live in one place in the US....

where would it be? Mine would either be Buena Vista, Colorado, or Somewhere on the CA coast.

Vancouver WA

In that case I want to live in the White House and rule the nation. That or nothing. Hmph!

Middle class area if that exist anymore.

But they will after the real estate bubble pops within the next four years.

I'll never leave.

except for the traffic, it's a great place to live.

in BEAUTIFUL Hell's Kitchen, New York. :)

I visited there once and loved it, but I'm stuck where I am because of financial reasons. Virginia :-(

I also think I'd love Hawaii, though I haven't been there yet.

I got lucky and got transferred from Houston TX (I know, EEEUUWWWW) to the SF Bay Area. It is every bit as wonderful as you might imagine, except taxes are really high and the cost of living is too.

Now I want to live among the old hippie elite in Mill Valley, right over the GG Bridge in Marin County. However, the East Bay town I live in is expensive enough. I can't afford MV except for shopping and shows. MV is truly bucolic and t'would ease my middle-aged heart.

My wife and I plan to move there in the next 2-3 years. It's about 90 miles north of NYC, nestled in the Shawangunk Mountains (lower Catskills) and has a State University of New York campus. The only chain establishment in the town in a Starbucks -- everything else is locally owned and operated. Plus, it's in a district represented by one of the more progressive members of Congress, Rep. Maurice Hinchey.

Small-town living, culture, breathtaking natural beauty -- New Paltz has it all.

I went to Vassar, but Poughkeepsie has zilch to offer, so I spent a good amount of time as an undergrad over in NP. It's GREAT. Very good choice!

We were up there for a family reunion in June.
Make sure you track down a little out of the way restaurant called Happy Days. It's all authentic 50's soda shop decor and memorabilia. It's somewhere outside New Paltz -- check the phone directory.

home of the ranch!

Any one of the following:

San Juan Islands of Washington
Northern New Mexico (Truhas)
Carmel, CA
San Francisco, CA (with lots of $$$)
Kuai, HI

come buy my house. Then in four years I can move to the middle class area of NYC, that may appear after the bubble.

we lived in Columbia SC for 5 yrs and both girls were born there..we used to spend a lot of time at Folly Beach...

every winter here in Missouri I kick myself that we moved back..but family, etc...

North entrance to Yellowstone. Still a small town, not a tourist trap. Has a Montessori school. Beautiful place with great people.

Here in Mid-Mo. It has four distinct seasons, a beautiful landscape, good land for growing in, an abundance of both plant and animal life, and is just a wonderful corner of nature to live in. Now if I could get rid of the RW fundies overrunning the place, it would be perfect.

As close as one can get to the Boundary Waters. Corporate America hasn't reached us yet...but its trying.

Its cold, but invigorating.

I can't decide. Ok, if I could transplant my whole life, including friends, family, job etc. I'd pick Healdsburg, CA but since I can't I'll stay here in Minneapolis, MN.

Despite the cold months, Mpls is by far the best place to live and I've lived in LA-CA, Columbia-SC, Richmond-VA, Salt Lake City-UT, Bristol-UK and Brussels-Belgium.

I agree with you about Minneapolis being a great place to live. Big enough to have "culture" but small enough to commute around! I have never lived in L.A. (my hubby is from Orange County CA) but, although there are some great things there, the traffic is a serious deal breaker. When people around here complain about traffic, I chuckle to myself - they do not know what bad traffic is - when you have AM radio stations broadcasting traffic reports every ten minutes - twenty-four hours a day, you have bad traffic!

Funny you mention traffic, we got it so easy here in the Twin Cities. A bunch of my friends here complain and complain but they haven't lived in a city with real traffic problems before.

Plus, you are right this is a very culture-rich metro area and we are a "blue" state too.

:)

:yourock:

What region of the Cities are you in, I am in the SW metro area

Me, I'd go up 149 to Creede or Lake City. Take my computer, a small teevee, my dog and lots of books and just hermitize for awhile.

I'll stay in the Boston area until I retire.

No. California is FULL of great places.

Santa Fe, NM, Washington State, Asheville, NC are also nice.

nt

nt

I was born and raised here in San Francisco, and there isn't another place in the country that I would like to live. Maybe New Orleans, for a little while, but home will always be SF.

We have the ocean, the bay, great hills, people of every color/age/sexual orientation, sourdough bread, buffalo in our biggest city park, the Filbert Street steps, victorian architecture, earthquakes, the Golden Gate bridge, fog, cable cars, funky neighborhoods, fun wildlife... I could go on and on. :)

Sure it's snowy but we've got scenery, some of the best wine in the country, progressives in Ithaca, and my rural county that went for Kerry!

I think any best place becomes less so simply because more people want to live there and then it gets so darn expensive and crowded it is no longer the best place.

Several folks think the Twin Cities are the best...I grew up there and hate it. I get incredibly depressed everytime I have to go visit, but this may have more to do with my repug family than anything else. Plus I hate the winters. Too bad I will never get to view Mpls any other way.

I've lived in San Francisco, the East Bay of SF, San Diego, Portland and now Scottsdale, AZ. I feel like such a fish out of water here, but it just got too expensive in SF and I bailed. I am thinking Seattle someday or maybe even the Oregon coast, if I can find a way to cope with Seasonal Affective Disorder. There is no perfect place, I think. There are just better and worse places. OK, if money were no issue and I never had to worry about working again, guess I'd pick the southern OR coast or the Northern California coast.

It is the most naturally beautiful place I've ever been.

If I had enough money, I'd live on the bay near Traverse City, Michigan. My grandparents live there, on the Old Mission Penninsula, with frontage on the East Bay. It is quiet and peaceful up there, and the surroundings are pretty. Not as dramatic as mountains, but I like being near the water.

completely leftie. And I read where it's absolutely dripping with beautiful, friendly multi-ethnic people. My kind of place.

of Bergen County, NJ is very nice (too expensive though).
Also thinking of Eugene, OR after the crash.

I've lived all over and there are great places in this country but I live where I want to live and wouldn't move unless you paid me a ton of money.

I love the people here in Pittsburgh, I love the city. There are tons of things to do as far as museums, parks, outdoor activities, restaurants, festivals and street fairs, etc.

We're an hour from good skiing, and some of the best white water rafting in the north east in the Laurel Highlands. We're close to tons of lakes, rivers, and campable forests, and West Virginia is close and has even more beautiful landscapes to explore.

D.C. is only a few hours away allowing easy weekend trips to all the great aspects of the capitol and the smithsonian, etc. In addition we're placed well for easy trips to much of the northeast. Boston is 10 hours away, New York you can do in about 6, Philly in maybe 5.

We have great sports teams, Football, Hockey, Baseball, a great college basketball program at Pitt.

Blah Blah Blah

Not to mention it's very inexpensive, and the county is about 70% Democrat, the City itself around 90%, and we need more Dems here to turn the state to a more solid blue color.

The people are friendly, the weather is nice with four seasons (mild winter), it's easy to get to the mountains or the beach, and where I live I am surrounded by lefties. The right-wingers are in the minority around here and they generally behave. In fact, this is such a diverse area in so many ways, everybody behaves! We are polite because otherwise we'd all be at one another's throats.

I think of this as one of the "points of light" (take that Poppy) in a red state that will eventually blossom into a blue state.

i love the pacific NW and N cali too!

Pretty and multifaceted.

A great place to raise horses too.

Dream will be reality someday soon!

suffer from allergies when we are near the ocean.

And we love to snorkel and play in the water.

However, I lived in Cambridge once and if I had a ton of money I would go back there in a heartbeat.

Southern Kentucky is nice, just pretty. I would live in Bowling Green or near by without complaint, and we could find a piece of land with a cave on it. (My husband's first choice would be this)

Nashville rocks, it is very BLUE and a fun place to live too.

Except for the redness of Texas, I would just as soon stay in Fort Worth which is probably how it will work out anyway, don't think we will ever be able to afford to move unless it is a necessity for employment purposes. Fort Worth is a great city to live in!

So I just need to be very rich and have loads of vacation homes all over the place LOL

Not only the best place in the U.S. to live, but the best place on the planet as well.

I'm a Citizen of the People's Republic of Madison, and proud of it!

Might as well have paradise in hell.

While I technically don't live in the city anymore, I live in a southwest suburb, I adore Chicago.

Spectacular skyline, Lake Shore Drive, Lake Michigan, beaches that run from 95th Street on the South to the border with Evanston on the North, Grant Park, Millenium Park, the Art Institute, the Lyric Opera, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Second City, the best ballpark in the world, Wrigley Field. I could go on, but I think you get my drift.

Yeah, Chicago is my kind of town!!!!!

A little piece of Heaven on Earth. And of course it's in northern CA and very liberal. If only I could find a job there...

We hope to move there, some day.

:)

in a posh penthouse overlooking the lake....