I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say. Did I mention anything about swampland? Did I mention anything about a desert? Did I mention anything about being an 82 year old withering away?
I mentioned a nice house in city limits with a short, quick commute downtown to work in an office making almost as much as the house costs per year. Weather plays a factor, true, but I wouldn't want to be living in a shitty apartment in SF when the San Andreas goes off again either. I'm not trying to be a walking tourist board for a city I don't even live in, but describing a 200,000 person city with the best beer in the country, a major hacker convention every year (GrrCon) the yearly ArtPrize exhibits, and a great local music scene as "a desert" or "swampland" is a pretty shitty move on your part.
You seem to have dismissed every single word I said as soon as you read "midwest". That's not very polite, nor is it appropriate for any kind of discussion.
I didn't mean to imply the midwest is a swampland; I'm from the midwest. And I was serious about the a place in the desert. I wasn't comparing it to anything, the palm desert outside of LA is amazing and I literally want to live there one day.
The swampland is more of an exaggeration for the way people talk about why they don't want to move to SF, as if the cost of rent is the only reason one lives anywhere. And the San Andreas thing is another common fear I hear a lot and have myself. But why should something like fear stop one from living anywhere?
I live in SF. I commonly hear things from people in Chicago where I'm from like "yeah but I'm paying $400 for an apartment in Logan Square(which isn't true any more obvi)" or "yeah but you have to worry about deadly earthquakes". It gets kind of old because I didn't move out here to pay cheap rent nor did I move our here to wait for an earthquake to kill me.
I appreciate the civil tone, sorry if I flew off the handle.
SF might be great for some, but it's not for me. Unfortunately, SF, Seattle, and Vancouver always top the lists and they're all places I wouldn't dream of living in any time soon. If I'm moving, I don't want to take a pay cut. I wouldn't trade a $50,000/yr job in the midwest for a $100,000/yr job in SF, because I'd actually have less money than I do now.
I'd rather be rich in a swamp than poor in a city. I just really wish there was a list of great cities like Grand Rapids, Pittsburgh, or Kansas City where you don't have to fight traffic for hours a day, you can actually buy a house somewhere close to work, but you can also work for a great company doing something exciting and make a livable wage doing so. As you allude to, most lists of "best mid size cities" point to retirement-age people.
SF is the only city in the Bar Area that has absurdly high rent. You could live in Oakland or anywhere down on the peninsula for much cheaper than you would in SF. That would allow you to earn a large wage and still pay cheap rent. It's all in the same geographic area; SF is like Manhattan and everywhere else are the boroughs.
I mentioned a nice house in city limits with a short, quick commute downtown to work in an office making almost as much as the house costs per year. Weather plays a factor, true, but I wouldn't want to be living in a shitty apartment in SF when the San Andreas goes off again either. I'm not trying to be a walking tourist board for a city I don't even live in, but describing a 200,000 person city with the best beer in the country, a major hacker convention every year (GrrCon) the yearly ArtPrize exhibits, and a great local music scene as "a desert" or "swampland" is a pretty shitty move on your part.
You seem to have dismissed every single word I said as soon as you read "midwest". That's not very polite, nor is it appropriate for any kind of discussion.