The best places to live is like any other opinion, in that it’s opinionated based on the author’s personal preferences.
Some like large cities with all the creature comforts (expensive apartment, shopping, entertainment, places to eat, medical) and are perfectly willing to overlook little things like crime and illegals.
And there are those that can’t wait to escape the concrete and asphalt jungles of the big city.
We live in the middle of nowhere in a red state with all the freedoms of such and wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
Exactly.
Some of the things they consider “nice” are drawbacks to me.
Like public transport. I don’t want public transport where I’ve. Generally speaking, it lets marginal people move around. If they don’t have a car, I probably don’t want them accessing my neighborhood.
It’s things like: high income but not much beyond middle class; low crime; low people on entitlements; low rates on non-English speakers; enough people to have stores and good hospitals but not too many; good schools as measured by SAT scores and nothing else; low taxation rates; two hours or more from any urban cesspool, etc.
You took the words right out of my mouth, my friend. We left big city life over 25 years ago and are never going back. The large city that was my home town is no longer recognizable.