If I were raising young children, I don't know which state I would want to live in. I know I wouldn't stay where I am now unless I could afford to live in a smaller town and raise kids in a middle-class lifestyle.
This might sound odd, but I wouldn't want to be filthy rich and raise kids for a lot of reasons.
I used the analogy of a petri dish as I was a biologist for many years. I have lived in the mid-Atlantic region, the deep South, and in the Southwest. Except for the "rebound" of undesirable people back to areas in middle-America they rushed across in their haste to get to California, the Southwest has my vote. Also, I might add there is no such thing as a "Great American City" in terms of family values or morality.
Muleteam1