Also might add, I drove through Memphis once.
That was interesting. As soon as one got past downtown to the SE side, everything went to crap.
Quite a few freepers live in the areas worthy of consideration.
Stay away from Boston. I’ve lived here all my life. Expensive and unpleasant.
I’ve been impressed with Pittsburgh. Its a pretty cool place and much cheaper than Boston.
Dallas/Ft Worth.
Stay away from Chicago. I think most Freepers would recommend Dallas/Fort Worth, though the traffic is miserable.
Cliff Klavan ping....
I mean, I could talk about NYC forever. It’s, at once, the best and the worst place to live on the planet.
First I would ask that you identify your hobbies and serious interests. Do you want to have another marriage and kids, etc. Some people like the big city and some people like the farm.
I spent most of my life in a medium city, Kansas City and lived in the suburbs. Some people hate winter. If we know what you like and plan to enjoy, we can make suggestions that fill those interests.
out of those choices? TEXAS!
After living and working in the Washington DC area for 40 years, I can say with 100% certainty that it is not a place where you will find reasonably priced housing or other cost of living items.
Unless the Postal Inspector job pays $80-100K/year you are looking at living in a distant suburb and spending many hours driving commute.
I live in the western edge of Fairfax County VA and do a lot of business with our tiny local PO and have gotten to know the folks there (it’s a 1.5 person office) and they all live in locations that require at least an hour commute from their homes to the PO. Our new Postmaster must spend closer to 3 hours on the road total commute time considering where she lives.
Different story if your job does not require working in the immediate DC area (The District and the VA and MD counties immediately adjacent to the District). There are some very pleasant and moderately priced parts of Virginia once you get outside the immediate DC area.
I would under no circumstances consider living in MD because its politics are driven by Baltimore and Montgomery County (DC area) and are hard left, even though it showed some signs of sense in putting a couple of more conservative R people into state office.
If you wind up in the Ft. Worth - Dallas area, consider Southlake and Keller areas. Its really nice and people even have acreage within the city with horses, etc. Very upscale, though with lots of wooded areas. Very Conservative.
Real estate in SF and SoCal is crazy expensive.
Newark NJ obviously is a city and not a great place to live. However depending on your grade (salary) and your willingness to commute, there are plenty of beautiful rural areas to live west of Newark (Morris, Somerset Hunterdon, Warren & Sussex counties). Hunterdon, Warren and Sussex are the most conservative although all are Republican counties. Morris, Somerset and Hunterdon are the most expensive to live in, Warren and Sussex are cheaper but still pricey (compared to nationwide).
If you want to live close to or at the shore, then Monmouth County is really your only good choice. Northern Ocean County is a possibility but you commute would be pretty brutal (traffic). Both Monmouth and Ocean are generally Republican counties.
If you don’t mind taking the train to work then you can easily live anywhere along the Raritan Valley or Ocean lines both of which go directly into downtown Newark.
If you have to live close to Newark, then I would recommend western Essex or western Union county.
Personally I think NJ is a great place to live but the property taxes are very high. You would get NY locality pay so that helps. San Fran has the highest locality pay but the cost of living there is crazy.
Good luck in your search !
The only 2 places on your list I’d consider would be Dallas and PR.
Don’t just pass up on Detroit, yes it’s not the greatest place downtown, but there are some great places around the city and the morning commute isn’t all that bad compared to other metro areas.
Grew up in the suburbs, you have the Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit trifecta within an easy drive and there is always something to do. Living in places like Brighton or Milford, Howell, hell anyplace in Livingston county and you will be pretty happy, shop around and you can get some pretty good deals on housing as well.
(some damn cute women there as well when you start looking again :))