Thanks!

I'm never one to shrink from lauding Cincinnati...it's a truly beautiful city, loads and loads of hilltop parks overlooking the beautiful Ohio river - in fact, our park system is just stellar, one of the prides of the city. Good job market, from what I understand (I haven't gone job-hunting in a while now, thankfully); good public transit - we don't have light rail, but we've got a bus system that covers the bases well enough. I mean, it's a bus system, and I won't pretend it's glamorous, but 20% of the downtown workforce uses it daily, 22MM rides annually, $1 fare, and it connects up with Northern Kentucky's bus system quite nicely.

Housing is definitely affordable in non-threatening areas, in urban areas, first-ring suburbs, post-war suburbs, or even out in more rural-ish areas. Cincinnati is a city of neighborhoods, very distinct neighborhoods, so there's yuppy and blue collar and gay and snooty and family and hillbilly and artsy and everything in between. The only thing we don't really have are coherent, strong ethnic neighborhoods. I suspect the very strong German influence kind of diluted all of that along the way...there's loads and loads of ethnic restaurants, ethnic markets, etc., but no Chinatown or Little Italy or anything.

I honestly can't say enough about our parks system. I live right near the gem of the system, Eden Park, and it's just wonderful for jogging or walking, with wonderful river views - in fact, I took this shot one morning from one of its overlooks. My wife and I walk to Reds games, or across the pedestrian bridge (a decommissioned rail bridge) over to Newport to catch a movie, or downtown and then across the iconic Roebling Suspension Bridge to meet up with a friend in Covington, but we're in an area you'd never know was that close to downtown. The city sits in a basin, nestled between three large hills, so most of the built-up urban stuff is all concentrated there...

I truly love my city, and could go on all day about it...I'm happy to send along links to more information - in fact, the Forum on UrbanOhio.com is among the greatest places on the internet - a bunch of urbanist nerds with a bent towards photography from across Ohio, posting about development news, putting up photo threads, etc. They're largely lefty liberals when topics turn to politics, but they keep stuff pretty well patrolled to keep threads on topic and on the appropriate boards...and I'm happy to send along more links or do whatever I can to help recruit new Cincinnatians - I truly love this city!

Sorry Andrea, I'm afraid I don't know much about those three cities. I do have a friend who used to live in St Louis. He doesn't exactly rave about the place.

If you are open to other cities, my wife's cousin moved to Milwaukee a year or so ago and she loves it. We have visited her several times and I can see why she likes it so much. She lives in a reasonably affordable neighborhood near a park on the lake (very cool park) that she runs in every day. She is within walking distance of some very interesting shops/restaurants, pubs, etc. I've been to several and have been impressed. Downtown Milwaukee is a very neat place and clearly headed in the right direction. They have a spectacular art museum. I don’t know anything about public transportation there.

I live in Chicago, and love it. One of the world's best cities as far as I’m concerned, but it fails your very first criteria: cheap rent in decent neighborhoods – I laugh even writing that.

Yeah, I've been in that lakefront park in Milwaukee, and it is truly stellar. Personally, I couldn't live in either Milwaukee or Chicago because it's so flat - but that's definitely just personal preference. As far as the stuff Andrea mentioned, though, Milwaukee sounds like a stellar choice...plus it's only 90 minutes or so from Chicago, which keeps it at arm's length, but makes it available for all those world-class city amenities, like Art Museums and concerts and everything...

I love the places where I've lived but they fail on several counts. Eugene's got good rents but a horrible job market. (The hippy-dippy ratio is incredibly high but the city's so crazy it doesn't actually register much, and the library is fantastic.) Denver's not so cheap as you'd like, though it's good on all the other counts. Not saying anything about California (though this summer I've been given heirloom tomatoes by the bushel— yum!)

Spokane, actually, has the best overall profile of the places I've lived. Cheap rent, a decent (though not stellar) job market, and at least half of the year is nice weather. That half may be interspersed with heat or ice, though. Awesome restaurant selection. Beautiful waterfalls in the center of town.

And yet... I don't think I'd want to live in Spokane again. Very white bread for one. And there is the saying we had on campus: "Resting on the laurels of Expo '74." I think "stagnation" is sometimes a good description. It's a sleepy little town that is still fighting the idea that it's actually a city now. But if that's what you're looking for, hey. (It has also been chosen as "a good place to raise a family.")

Well I'm single and staying that way, so "raising a family" (unless you count two cats as "family") isn't one of my concerns.

Andrea,

I've been living in St. Louis for 18 years now, so I can probably answer a few of your questions about the city.

St. Louis is a city of suburbs -- the urban core is quite small (about 350,000 out of a total population of about 2,000,000) -- but in my opinion that gives it the best of both worlds. Unlike many cities on the coasts, it still believes in building things (such as houses, shopping centers, and interstate highways), and thus has lots of housing options available at reasonable prices. A few areas are very bad (like North and East St. Louis) and throw off the statistics, but the rest of the region has a lot of nice neighborhoods.

The job market is pretty varied too. There is aerospace (Boeing), biotech/pharmaceutical (Monsanto, Mallinckrodt, KV Pharmaceuticals), financial (the federal reserve, A.G. Edwards, CitiMortgage, MasterCard), automotive (Chrysler, GM), and technology (MEMC materials), among others. Overall, the unemployment rate is low (in St. Charles county where I live it's around 3%), and there are a mix of blue- and white-collar jobs.

As for parks, Forest Park (home of the 1904 World's Fair) is on the scale of Central Park in New York and contains the St. Louis zoo, the Science Center, the art museum, the history museum, and a decent walking / rollerblading path. Many of the cities and counties in the region maintain very nice smaller parks too. If you like to bike, the Katy trail runs from St. Louis out almost to Kansas City, and there's another trail running north from Alton along the Mississippi River, with the river on one side and some gorgeous bluffs on the other.

If you like wine, the area southwest of St. Louis has a lot of decent small wineries. (Missouri is the nation's #2 winemaker behind California.) You can take the tour and then have a nice picnic lunch outside. Most of them are German wineries and celebrate Octoberfest with a lot of activities.

Most areas have decent bus service (St. Charles county excepted), and there's the MetroLink light rail service that will take you to the airports, downtown, Forest Park, and the south city area.

And although activities aren't your thing, there's always the St. Louis Arch; the St. Louis Cardinals, Rams, and Blues baseball, football, and hockey teams, as well as a couple of decent minor league teams; Gateway International Raceway; the St. Louis symphony is supposedly one of the best in the nation; the Muny outdoor theater in Forest Park; the Missouri Botanical Gardens; and, well, Six Flags. Even if you don't partake of these activities yourself, they're there if your weekend guests want something to do.

Well, that's the grand tour of St. Louis. If you have any questions, please ask. I can't promise I can answer them, but I'll do my best.

Mike

Mmmm... St. Louis is sounding better and better. I think as long as I can find a job paying what I used to make here (and Florida salaries are pretty low) I'll do fine... Wineries, drool...

One of my ex-coworkers (I found out she got the axe too) turned me on to St. Louis. She and her family had visited there and had had a nice time. Of course I realize that visiting and living are different things, but I've met more than one person who have gone to my state (to go to Disney World or whatever) and have come away with the same low-level feeling of irritation that I've had almost all my life, so I think that visits can give you an idea of what it would be like to live somewhere. For instance, I went to New Orleans, and though I loved the place... I couldn't see myself living there. There was just a too-weird vibe, also all the voodoo stuff just reminded me of Miami.

I've always been enamored of St. Louis. That park that Michael talks about is truly, truly stellar. It's like St. Louis decided to put all its parkland into one just astonishingly huge and stunning park, vs. the Cincinnati buckshot method: throw small parks up all over the place. Like he said, it has the zoo, the science museum, the art museum (an astonishingly wonderful art museum), and a TON of outdoor venues where they have concerts and such. The park is so large that they have loop busses that hit all the major attractions and are, from what I remember, free. Honestly, that park is what all parks aspire to be - it's just fantastic.

I also couldn't say enough about the arch. It is physically impossible to take a bad picture of the arch - no matter what angle you're at, it makes for an interesting shot. Now, I wish they'd connect it to the rest of the city better - feels like you're playing Frogger if you try to walk there - but still, you can walk to it, and it's just so phenomenal to see. Also, the church at its base (St. Louis, isn't it?) is absolutely gorgeous. And you see it from all the hell over St. Louis - from miles away, you catch a glimpse between buildings. It really cements the region in a way that no other city does. I love that arch...

From St. Louis, you're no more than a day's drive to Kansas City, Chicago, Cincinnati, Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga (my second favorite city), Des Moines, Omaha, Little Rock, or anywhere in between. You're a half day's drive from the Ozark Mountains or from the Great Lakes.

The St. Louis Symphony is definitely world-class...I might prefer a few other orchestras, but you can't ask to have a better ensemble in your back yard than St. Louis - I mean, you really ain't missing much if anything by going to see them rather than seeing New York or Berlin or Cleveland...

And the Cardinals have had a lucky streak of late too...but just wait 'till they play the Reds again! (ha ha, sorry...)

I forgot to mention parks are important. Miami's parks are few and far between. Orlando and its environs do have nice parks. (Not just Disney but actual park parks.)

Andrea,

If you're interested, here's a link to the Forest Park website:

http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/parks/forestpark/index.html

In addition to the regular park things, they also have some neat activities during the year. In fact the balloon races and wine festival are coming up pretty soon.

Also check out the Botanical Garden:

http://www.mobot.org/

It's really beautiful. I haven't been to them yet, but I've heard the jazz nights are a really good time.

It's hardly an exhaustive list, but it should give you a taste of the city. Wherever you end up, good luck!

Mike

Yeah, check this Google aerial of Forest Park out...the thing is two miles by one mile - compare that to Central Park, which is 2.5 miles by a half mile, and Forest Park is 60% bigger than Central Park...