jcl2 wrote:gatorlion wrote:Chicago is unbelievably clean and the people are incredibly nice, although it is by far the coldest of the big cities I have been to.
Boston is a lot of fun, clean, access to quaint suburbs, great food, but very cold.
NYC is fast-paced, prestigious, has great public transportation, filthy, the people are uncommonly mean, and it is absurdly expensive (yes, a $1300/month studio in Brooklyn is expensive).
San Fran has the beautiful bay, nice people, and Boudin's, but is also expensive and dirty.
Miami is lively, diverse (sorry Chicago), and has beaches that destroy any beach on the West Coast (i.e. you can swim without donning a spacesuit) but not much of an intellectual atmosphere.
D.C. has a great wonkish environment, great access to suburbs via clean public transportation, but a little dirty and not everyone likes motivated policy types (i.e. not for Californians).
L.A. has great weather, nice (but often superficial) people, horrible public transportation, and barely qualifies as a major city due to its sprawling development.
I'd love to hear about Seattle and Portland...
Seattle is a beautiful city and the weather is really not as bad as the stereotype, absolutely gorgeous summers. The character of the city is similar to San Francisco IMO, though Seattle is a little smaller and a lot cleaner. COL is a little high, though not nearly as high as the major cities in CA. Also, there are great residential neighborhoods in the city, it is entirely possible to have a house with a yard within the city and only a short commute from downtown.
I personally am not a huge fan of Portland. In a lot of ways it is just a smaller, less attractive, less exciting version of Seattle, with slightly crappier weather (rainier, cloudier, and occasionally too hot in the summer). Portland gets a lot of praise for being very progressive and "green," with great public transportation, urban planning, and a nice green belt. I guess the city of Portland itself fits that billing, but the green belt is so restrictive that most people end up living outside of it in sprawling and really poorly planned suburbs like Beaverton.
Sorry if that was more than you wanted to hear
