Ya know I have to amend what I said about the Monte Carlo response. I did not supply email address to any of those sites with surveys. I get plenty of spam without intentionally giving my email address away like that. I didn't get an answer from that site cause I didn't give em my email. I did really take several of those types of quiz/survey's though.

 

I used the site, probably gave it my "trash email" address, and made up a plausible physical address. But I haven't noticed any spam or anything. YMMV... I used it 2 years ago, things could have changed.

After looking at Brian's response, I wonder if the email address and physical address are "optional"?

 

Nope...both have the red asterisk beside them and say required...but my dumb self didn't think about giving a fake everything except email. Think I'll try that.

EDIT: Ok...I fudged all the fields except email. You have to give email and they send you a link to your results. Pretty cool!! Good tip Ross.

 

1234 anywhere road, fantasy island il 60750 (it's a real fake that exists in the credit buereau's database - so even validating sites accept it)

 

If I could, I would leave California and go to central Oregon. Nicest people I ever met and the State has no sales tax. Last I heard, it cost $50 for two years to register your car/truck. California sucks. The latest law says that plastic grocery bags are outlawed and the grocery stores will charge 10 cents for each paper bag! Also, the new cap-and-trade law is being implemented on the oil companies starting 1/1/15. Gasoline is going up by a speculated 17 to 75 cents per gallon! Jag

 

A thought occurs to me: There are other's here either vocally admitting that they are sitting in a canoe on a river (without a paddle) as well, or silently sitting there the same.
You guys like to hear how I researched? What sites I used to dig info, etc what shortcuts sped my process (I am a phenomenal digger, it's my job - data extraction).

 

Snowfall was a very large factor for me - so I started there:
http://www.travelandescape.ca/wp-con...y-snowfall.png

And I figured plant hardiness map would give a better overview with less restriction than say 2013 max temp / min temp maps - this is more of a 20 or 30 year average where all other maps I found were last year or last 5 or last 10 years:
http://removeandreplace.com/wp-conte...s-zone-map.jpg

Extreme temps played a hefty role in my planning, snowfall more important (hey you can hide inside most of the day when it is cold, the driving commute from hell is way more affected by snow than cold):
Climate Prediction Center - Monitoring and Data: Regional Climate Maps: USA

Climate Prediction Center - Monitoring and Data: Regional Climate Maps: USA


And I don't really want to live in a bone dry desert:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product...ng/12cpcp0.gif

Pretty much the US looked dead at that point - the whole thing blackballed so I started the international hunt - first just what is "tropical":
List Of Tropical Countries - Tropical

Might as well weed out those that are too dangerous to consider - Hurricane and Volcano index:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resourc...T-AA578_v6.pdf


And the CIA has a wealth of info (yeah who would of thought we US citizens would be using the CIA for our benefit, now that's an odd concept) - race, demographics, cost of electricity, governmental issues (is it a hostile regime):
https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/gj.html
(That link is specifically Grenada - Search for the country of interest and then open the + dropdowns)

and then back to the US for reconsideration (I was getting frustrated by this point):
Cost of Living in Key West, Florida

Economy in Denver, Colorado

(that link is specifically Key West FL - search for the city and then there are several tabs - cost of living, economy, unemployment, it is all there.


At which point I completely give up and called on you guys - don't ya feel special.

Right now, at this very moment.... Colorado keeps coming up as better than X - name the reason, economy... we got it... unemployment, we got it...

Certain other places come up with a great unemployment rate, paired with a huge huge issue (like everyone has a job, but it is a 20k mfg job). No offense to my blue collar workers, I love ya guys and I'll sit and drink a beer with ya, go to a game and you would never know I wasn't one of ya - just I went to college for 7 years and I want to earn a bit more than 20k... (Think of this: everything on amazon costs the same no matter where you live, a vacation trip to Bermuda still costs 1-2k whether you work 20K in MI or 60K CA).

 

Some other sites that played heavily in my decision...
Life expectancy:
Creative Class » Blog Archive » Life Expectancy Map - Creative Class

Racial Diversity:
U.S. Racial Diversity by County | Randal S. Olson

Education level (I like smart girls):
Education Levels in the USA

Religion (this map just basically shows a person where the bible belt is):
http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/899/baptist.gif


IQ map (I said I like smart girls, right):
http://s214.photobucket.com/user/dea...es-iq.png.html

Obesity map (I don't like twigs, but I want a reasonable dating pool):
http://notunlikeresearch.typepad.com...fdf084a970b-pi


There was a bout a hundred other websites I went through trying to come up with good data - like how many museums/zoos/opera houses/ etc are in a city (Denver stands at 38, and so far of the cities I considered only San Antonio beats it at 58).... I am not a weekly opera snob, but I want some degree of culture in my town





If anyone else has some great resources for data I didn't link, please now is the time to share it

 

Man those are some cool maps. Glad I got to a computer so I could check all that out!!

 

There's a lot truth, but a lot of assumptions in those maps. For instance, I really question where they get data on IQ? I don't know anyone who has taken a formal IQ test since early high school. So where are they getting the data? (And I'm not just asking because NM came in dead last, LOL!) If they are are using HS data, how do they account for people moving out of the state they went to HS in?

When you get right down to it, a lot of those maps are skewed based on a single thing -- average income. A state or town with lots of low income people isn't likely to have a high life expectancy, or lots of museums and operas. Obesity is also a strong function of income. You don't see people who have to put in 60 hrs/week to make ends meet out jogging.

I don't think you can find a place just using data, you need to go there and see what it's like.

 

Oh absolutely agreed Ross. I'm really using the maps to do a lot of "cheap research" doesn't cost much to google around, and you get to know if a town has theaters, museums, how much an average house costs (cause I didn't sell a mansion here in Colo - just a little bachelor pad).

My mirthful tease at Ben was genuine - if he'd say yes, I'd book a trip to Austin area and give it a good in person checkup.

Truth be told, my leading ladies right now are Seattle and Austin. Sure it "snows" in Seattle, but everything shuts down at a 1/2 inch... just like that freak snow in Houston - the whole place shuts down.

In my hometown, we literally had 24 inches and still slogged our butts to school, nothing closed. And after the mid 90's when a ton of out of state folks moved in traffic became roulette.

And I think the IQ map is pretty phony too - research has shown that dense populace hosts lots of brains, I doubt Austin is the "dullard" that the whole state of Texas is painted in that map (isn't Houston home of like 80% of all the astronauts also?).

 

The town with the most millionaires in the US (per capita) and also the highest number of PhD's (per capita), and some very nice weather, is Los Alamos NM. That kind of gets blotted out by the rest of the state. (PS Gallup NM used to have the most millionaires per capita -- people selling to the Navajo Nation).

Check out City-Data.com - Stats about all US cities if you haven't already. Among other tidbits it shows the % of unmarried females in each age category...

 

man who knows where the action is

 

Hey Bryan,
Whatever happened to this crazy list? Austin ranked behind Wichita Falls & Harlingen & tied with Provo! I think you should visit these other lovely towns first before deciding.....


(San Antonio, TX)
(Spokane, WA)
(El Paso, TX)
(Witchita Falls, TX)
(McAllen, TX)
(Harlingen, TX)
Key West (FL)
Austin (TX)
Provo (UT)


You have a very data driven approach. Hmmmm... Most folks would consider family & hobbies higher on the list than CIA stats & frost maps. Choose to live somewhere you can do what you enjoy.


Seattle & Austin have dramatically different climates. You should really visit both during their longest season. Can you move from 300 days of sunshine a year to the gloomiest place in the U.S.? Can you stand Heat? Really Hot all they way through Halloween - 7 months a year? Are you allergic to Juniper trees? They send out their pollen in huge yellow clouds from late Dec. through March - called Cedar Season here - just miserable.


If your parents are still with us - You may want to stay close by as they get up into their 70's/80's as they may need help. I find it ironic that Colorado folks want to move Texas & everyone in Texas wants to move to Colorado.


Personally - I think Colorado, Northern New Mexico, & Northern Arizona are beautiful. Any College town in this region would work for me.


Good luck over there. You need to run these #'s through an SQL database to really crunch the numbers & let the machines decide for you (wink).


Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Like I said, that whole list was made and gone through and every last place was crossed out before I posted for input here. I'm really truly stumped at this point, I don't want to start telling you guys "why" on certain places cause that violates my 1st post rules (don't dog/badmouth on other places). And after that tone gets started I don't want to continue the thread.

The first 6, all with parenthesis, were an initial "best place to live" article... then from there I started widening and crossing off, and further widening then crossing off.
(the next 3 are google fiber towns, then my top picks from an earlier swipe, and so on)

I'll tell ya guys, only one guy posted beautiful beach pictures - and those got my attention.



This was my original very very first list:
Curaçao
Sint Maarten
Bonaire
Sint Eustatius (Statia)
Saba
Aruba
Bermuda
Cayman Islands
Saint Barthelemy (St Barts)

I'm back to just sponge mode - throw everything at me see what I absorb.

Every place has its issues, I totally understand that, not being naive here. I am just beyond my search parameters and out of search options.