Posted on 08/19/2002 11:52:05 AM PDT by crystalk
STATES RATED [Assumes you will grow up, raise a family, or retire--in an AVG spot in the BEST 25% of the State]
[If no regional preference is shown, it means entire State about equally good overall, pick your own best.]
1. Florida [Best areas are in NE, NW, or SW. So friendly and so many jobs, climate an extra.]
2. Georgia [Avoid areas within 35 mi of Atlanta center; better not too close to AL line.]
3. Virginia [Avoid areas >5 mi NW of I-81; if TIED to DC area, live in Va.]
4. South Carolina [better NW and around lgr cities. or in gated comm]
5. North Carolina [Better in West; less good >15 mi E of CLT-GSO line]
6. Tennessee [Much better to E of N’vl-Chatt line]
7. Texas [Best areas SCen or beaches; avoid Mx border zone.]
8. Kentucky [Avoid E 30% of state, or W’most 10%.]
9. Mississippi [Better in S 40% of state, or near universities.]
10. Arkansas [Best in NW; avoid SE 44% of state.]
11. Oklahoma [Better in E/SE 60% of state]
12. Louisiana [Better near NO or lg cities, but if you love Cajuns go Anywhere in S half.]
13. Alabama [Better in Mobile/coast area; or in/near sizable cities, or N/NE area.]
14. Arizona [Best in Cen or SE areas. Pretty desert, pretty hot.]
15. Nevada [Bracing weather in N 90% of state; Vegas and Ariz-type climate in S; low taxes.]
16. New Mexico [Interesting, not as hot as AZ; N half is cold in winter.]
17. Idaho [Climate less cold than you think; beautiful. Boise booms.]
18. Utah [Climate and Mormons not as cold as feared. Scenery forever.]
19. Indiana [Better in Cen, SCen, SE. E areas; avoid the Gary/Chicago area in NW.]
20. South Dakota [Unique place, Indians, Colleges. Scenery better and climate less bad in W qtr]
21. Colorado [better out of City limit of Denver; plains E/SE and deserts W & NW less good.]
22. Oregon [deserts E sunny chilly and lonely; W 40% mild, drizzly, England-style, take your pick]
23. Kansas [better in E 30% or S 30%, of state; avoid in-city Wichita, KC, Topeka.]
24. Wyoming. [Just what you’d think, in all four corners and the center.]
25. West Virginia [best in E half of state, or Chas/Hntgtn area, or near Ohio R; avoid SW and SCen]
26. Pennsylvania [even in Phil & Pitts, some livable areas]
27. Delaware [Only state in NE with net inflow of population, but room runs out soon.]
28. Ohio [Avoid the city limits of largest 6 or 8 cities]
29. New Hampshire [Unique, snowy but low taxes, builds character.]
30. Washington [S half and E quarter really better than popular Seattle area in NW]
31. Maryland [Avoid area within 25 miles of downtown DC or Baltimore.]
32. Montana [Remote chic, or just remote? Neighboring states offer better for less.]
33. Missouri [Better in S half; avoid StL or KC city limits absolutely; their areas if possible.]
34. Rhode Island [New England, but not so stuffy. Good sailing. Italian, family oriented.]
35. Maine [Remote like Montana, but lives on lobster & welfare instead of cattle.]
36. Connecticut [A used-ta-be FTMP. Avoid Hartford; E third of state not as bad.]
37. New Jersey [No-go areas getting smaller, but stay out of Camden, Elizabeth, and Newark.]
38. California [Get real Mexico at $15/day; avoid this $750/day 3d world. Polluted, Baja is Better.]
39. Nebraska [American Gothic; prairie still wholesome. Nice folks, Go Big Red!]
40. Hawaii [Corrupt, expensive, a social catastrophe in the making? Trouble in paradise.]
41. Iowa [Hogs, corn, freezing cold, some of looniest leftist universities anywhere.]
42. Michigan [Avoid SE and rust belts. Snowy. Rural areas lovely in summer.]
43. Illinois [Big city, decent areas far to S, but still 24 pts below IN and 6 below NJ!]
44. Minnesota [Beginning to wake up from Marxist dreams, but still cold as ever]
45. Wisconsin [9 months frozen; 3 of mosquitoes, leftist state U attracts kooks. Cheesy.]
46. Alaska [Not all of state is as cold as feared; envo-wackos, moose, affirm-action natives, grizzlies.]
47. North Dakota [Nice people, but who deserves THIS climate?]
48. Massachusetts [Loony-left Tax Hell , with once-great universities. Avoid Boston, Brockton.]
49. New York State [ Tax Hell. NYC OK for richest; see lower Hudson valley & Long Is; forget rest.]
50. Vermont [Taxes and enviro- wackos. Hell freezes over, with maple syrup and socialism.]
51. Dis. of Col. [Dangerous, dirty city has tourist sites, universities. Power in the air, though.]
it also has a 71% home ownership rate as compared to 59% in California.
The average income level of some $31M per household in Alabama buys a much better housing package than the average of some $39M in California will, let me tell you! In Calif., a household with that low an income might or might not be able to afford ONE ROOM!
Yup. Northwest Florida is a super place also. (...and conservative)
There were very few counties and states having anything like the same populations, that voted this heavily for Bush in any other part of the USA.
Bush had a greater lead in this precinct than he did in Florida as a whole; if this precinct did not exist, Gore would be president.
...and your tongue stuck on the storm door.
Any state that has grits
Girls
Raised
In
The
South
is fine with me.
Hey all you guys out there who called NJ the 'armpit' of the country ---- we placed in the middle third!
Flying over the center of the country from Las Vegas, earlier this week, the geographical contrasts are remarkable, and I never tire of looking at it when I fly in a window seat. From the mountain and desert colors, to the tans of the plains and the greens in the farming states, to the trees of the East, it is a constant change. NW NJ was covered with trees, and swimming pools. Those blues dotted the place everywhere!
Cold? Our grass never turned brown last winter!
You can add Irvington to the 'watch-out' list.
It does spoil us, now doesn't it. Summertime (mostly year-round) and the livin' is easy. We're willing to put up with almost anything for shirt sleeve weather from November through March.
And the counterrevolution is coming...
It better come soon, or we'll all end up in re-education camps.
It has many very good and very small and well regarded low cost colleges both public and private. Believe it or not, it passes Mass. as having the highest share in entire USA of out of state college students coming TO it, as opposed to its own students going away.
The climate is much less bad, particularly in the western third, and it has the Black Hills. Great skiing for almost nothing compared to CO and UT.
It has Deadwood, and well, whaddya say, it just has a cachet, Crazy Horse and Rushmore and that beautiful scenery and lots of sun. North Dakotans will never dance with wolves, and rarely with anything else.
North Dakota is just a bunch of empty treeless wheat fields at 30 below under bleak gray sky.
SD has 8.6% Native American population, and two Sioux-language colleges, including one called Sinte Gleska, or Spotted Tail.
Badger Clark and Tom Brokaw were from SD, not ND.
It makes a big difference if the really HORRID is 15% of the time in winter, vs 50% like ND!
In N Dak, I would be bored in a week in any season of the year; if the climate were the same as here, S Dak would be perhaps almost preferable to here due to low cost of land.
You also really do get consid better govt services for consid lower taxes in S Dak if you are average, too. Take a look at Spearfish, Hot Springs, Hermosa, Custer, Belle Fourche, the Badlands, Bear Butte, Rapid City... Sturgis will always be in SD, not ND. Or any of those wonderful college towns, Huron, Rapid City, Spearfish, Brookings, Madison, Vermillion, Yankton, Mitchell. Great education with no riff raff for free, what a place to raise kids.
Then tell me I am not right about #20 appx vs #47 appx.
Even the people are a lot more jovial and outgoing and funny, and a lot more diverse ethnically (Irish and Yankees and Scandinavians and Czechs; not just Bayerish Germans. Even better looking.)
Compare hours of sunshine received year round, however cold it may be. ND cannot touch SD. Trouble is, not many jobs in either. But your chances are about 3x as good in SD, even in that dept.
Best thing of all may be, that people elsewhere will feel sorry for you, and half the time they are thinking of ND, and you don't have to tell them any of the above.
South Dakotans do much better when they move away, but often are haunted by SD and want to come back at least to visit.
North Dakotans never say where they came from, and never return there, not even to be buried.
DYRT that Nashville is "more livable" than Orlando, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Greenville-Spartanburg, Winston-Greensboro, or even Mobile-Pensacola?
Oh, that's right. You don't like it hot. But Nashville is surely as hot and more airless in summer than some of them, and then when Nvl. gets cold, they stay nice and just a little Cool?
I will give you a Tip. Live at Wytheville, Va. from June 15 through October 15 each year, and the remainder at St Augustine, Fla. Wytheville has so many Interstate highways and motels, you won't notice how small it is in population, and it is very livable and breezy and AC absolutely not needed. Not humid. You want the universities, nearby Radford and Blacksburg have similar summer climate but not as dry or breezy.
St Aug is near enough to Jax that if you miss a Nashville-sized metro area, it is just 25-30 miles away. Beaches not bad.
While some say tourism has increased to Miami, another source says, "The rest of the story is: that non-sexually deviant tourists stopped traveling to Miami because they were complaining that they couldn't stay in the hotels because there were sodomite orgies all night long and they couldn't sleep because of the sexual parties going on at night. The sodomites probably spend a lot of money in the clubs and the restaurants, but the other tourists: West Indian, South American, European, Northern States actually spread money around to the economy."
Dimitru Duduman said that in his dreams and visions [See "America will Burn" (1984) here ] the L~rd specifically named the State of New York, California, Las Vegas and Florida and said, "This is Sodom and Gomorrah! In one day it will burn." That would definitely influence my decision in whether a city or state was liveable.
Below is Joel Skousen's list from his own studies. Our only comments are in red* below.
http://www.joelskousen.com ~ Strategic Relocation
WORST 25 METRO AREAS FOR CRIME: [*8 out of 25 are in FL!]
1. Miami, FL
2. Baton Rouge, LA
3. New York, NY
4. Tallahassee, FL
5. Los Angeles, CA
6. Jacksonville, FL
7. Gainesville, FL
8. New Orleans, LA
9. Little Rock, AR
10 Jackson, TN
11. Tampa/Clearwater, FL
12 West Palm Beach, FL
13. Baltimore/Washington DC, MD
14 Albuquerque, NM
15. Chicago, IL
16. Dallas, TX
17. Lakeland/Winter Haven, FL
18. Charlotte, NC
19. Pueblo, CO
20. Fresno, CA
21. Flint, MI
22. Jersey City, NJ
23. Kansas City, KS, MO
24. Orlando, FL
25. Riverside, CA
THE TOP 5 MOST DANGEROUS METRO AREAS FOR EARTHQUAKES: [*Other sources say that Portland, OR is No. 1.]
1. Mexico City, Mexico
2. San Francisco/Oakland
3. Los Angeles basin, CA
4. Anchorage, AK
5. Seattle WA
THE TOP 10 MOST DANGEROUS NUCLEAR TARGETS IN OR NEAR A METRO AREA (there are several other primary targets not listed that are not near a major metro)
1. Washington DC /and related bases (major command and control for the President)
2. Colorado Springs, CO (Cheyenne Mtn Control Center, 2 space command/comm bases)
3. Omaha, NE (secondary command and control bases)
4. Seattle, WA (Trident Missile Sub base and numerous Naval Bases)
5. Jacksonville FL/Kings Bay GA (Trident Missile Sub base, Major East Coast Naval Center)
6. San Diego, CA (largest west coast naval complex)
7. Norfolk, VA (major east coast naval complex)
8. Kansas City, MO (Whiteman AFB, B-2 nuclear bombers)
9. Cheyenne, WY (Warren AFB, Minute Man and Peacekeeper MX missiles)
10. Great Falls, MT (Malmstrom AFB --Minute Man missiles)
Now for some good news: Here are my current ratings for the TOP 10 MODERATE GROWTH, MEDIUM SIZED METRO AREAS that are relatively safe from strategic threats, or where you have a good chance of mitigating those threats. This are not the best areas, but the areas where most people who need to stay in the job markets will find medium term security:
1. Boise, ID
2. Provo-Orem, UT
3. Beaverton, OR
4. Santa Rosa, CA
5. Greenville, SC
6. Winston-Salem/High Point, NC
7. Austin-San Marcos, TX
8. Grand Rapids, MI
9. Reno, NV
10. Madison, WI
For those of you on a tight budget, here are the TOP 10 MOST ECONOMICAL STATES to live. These ratings take into consideration overall taxes, housing, and cost of living. These ratings also exclude most large metro areas, where costs are much higher than the state average.
1. Arkansas
2. Alabama
3. Louisiana
4. Texas (except Dallas Metroplex)
5. West Virginia
6. Oklahoma
7. South Carolina
8. Mississippi
9. Wisconsin
10. Tennessee
SOME STATES WITH TAX ADVANTAGES: This doesn't tell the whole tax story since all states collect a lot of taxes. However, a person whose financial structure or income structure is different from the average person can take advantage of this by living in a state which doesn't tax his particular form of income or spending patterns. There are more details in my book, "Strategic Relocation"
STATES WITH NO INCOME TAX: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire (but has 5% tax on div/int) , So. Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming.
STATES WITH NO SALES TAX: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon,
STATES WITH NO INCOME OR SALES TAXES, BUT HIGH PROPERTY TAXES: Alaska, New Hampshire.
STATES WHO SHARE A BORDER WITH NO SALES TAX/NO INCOME TAX STATE: In these states, you can live in a no income tax state and shop across the border in a no sales tax state: Washington/Oregon Wyoming/Montana So. Dakota/Montana
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