How about San Juan, Puerto Rico...being a US territory I assume it would be easier to move there than to expatriate. The tropical weather is hard to beat. It's a large city and offers diversity, culture, good food, etc. Might need to brush up on your Spanish language a bit.
Another thought, Raleigh-Durham, NC....must claim ignorance of those cities as I've only driven through but have always heard good things about that area.
holz - taxfoundation.org is just the numbers, and for business taxes those states are the least 'taxing'. many businesses in southern california have packed up and moved to nevada due to business taxes as well as personal income tax (which is zero in nevada).
did you look at cali's sales and income tax or just concede that california has the highest gas tax?
and i wouldn't ask krugman about much of anything. he recognizes california's irresponsible policies that have doubled debt in the past 6 years and in the next paragraph says the solution is to raise taxes.
taxes are just ONE factor in the success of professional business enterprise. You also need talent pool to get employees, and you need a market - both of which are missing from most of those states on the 'tax foundations' list. If you add up the population of those states (minus florida), you don't even equal the population of los angeles county. There are less architects per capita in those states for a reason.
Florida is a basket case for other reasons - one of the causes of the real estate bubble - it's economy was based on real estate development and trashing the environment (read agribusiness).
TK - Florida has a very big business outside of real estate development and agribusiness....tourism. Unfortunately the economy is hitting that sector too. Cities like Orlando wouldn't be on the top of my list these days.
Miami is still a big banking and finance hub for latin america. I don't expect that to change. Long term I think they'll be ok, but not without a lot of pain in the near term.
the rankings were crunched from numbers by the tax foundation, frac - so it's not just the numbers. also, tax foundation isn't non-partisan, no matter what they claim - they shill for large corporations. (which operate on a tax structure much differently than almost all small businesses)
taxes are only a small part in a viable business - having a base of customers is another.
so you're saying we shouldn't listen to krugman, should we keep listening to the idealougues that parroted deregulation and got us into this mess?
steven chu suggests roofs should be painted white, and the drudge crowd goes nuts w/ ratio ad absurdums
the painted suggestion because planting green roofs and switching over to a high albedo roof isn't always feasible. do wingnuts not realize the savings they'd see w/ reduced cooling loads, global warming or not? seriously, clowns.
yeah i have no problem taking sustainable measures to reduce cooling loads - i take my LEED NC exam in 3 days and am all about passive solar energy saving techniques.
but when chu's main reasoning is to 'slow global warming' i just roll my eyes. he should emphasize the savings those conservation measures provide. conservatives believe in conservation!
SSc7.2 Heat Island Effect - Roof: SRI 29 on steep roofs (2:12 and up) and SRI 78 on flat roofs (less than 2:12 slope) for 75% of roof area or a green roof for 50% of roof area. go for the ID exemplary performance point with a 100% green roof!
the previous owner of my house put on a dark asphalt shingle roof and i'm dying to replace it with a historically correct light gravel roof and stick on a layer of (probably) 3" rigid insulation. i installed exterior roller shades over south and west facing windows last summer and it helped a lot, but the roof just soaks up the heat from july to september.
oh god oh god oh god.
all of you bitching about taxes is almost laughable.
anyone who doesn't want to pay taxes but then complains about the lack of services is a hypocrite at best.
really, how expensive is it to move a company's home office every 5 years to avoid a few hundred thousand in taxes? generally, isn't the cost of the move probably more expensive than the cost to pay taxes?
I agree with TK here. With taxes, you get what you pay for. If you want good services, good utilities and good employees... you have to pay taxes.
Called me old fashioned but I think maybe more people should read how the governmental approach to working with businesses rather than looking at the business approach to government.
Blakely and Bradshaw's book is a little conservative... almost bordering on libertarian to me... but it is a good read on economic development practices as the currently stand. They're a little dismissive about the built environment (and by extension architecture) and a little to bend-over-backwards-to-let-crying-eagles-sodomize-you... but... they do take it into great consideration about locationally-based businesses.
Locational-based business is probably the most hurt by a combination of bad planning practices and high taxes; ie, gas stations, mines, farms, various plants, typical city center businesses, print shops. A lot of your soft firms, architecture included, have the ability to conduct business anywhere and are typically your big tax violators. This is turns puts a bigger tax burden on businesses with incredibly slim profit margins... and before you know it, the basic service sector starts to shut down and then the soft firms move because they can't get basic services anymore.
aqua-- Florida actually makes most of its money through phosphate mining, concrete production and shipping. The reason why is because tourism is a "soft product" and therefore doesn't actually exist. There really isn't much in terms of trade or material wealth being gained here.
And even then, the term tourism is loaded. A lot of the money making tourism in Florida really isn't "tourism" per se as snowbirds, outdoorsman, anglers, hunters (have no fucking idea where they do this at) and beach goers spend a lot more than the Disney crowd does. And even then, that's pretty bad when the government counts the snowbirds as "tourists."
And the people who drive to Santa Fe from Albuquerque... Fuck you. Your incessant commuting is ruining both Albuquerque and Santa Fe... for what... saving 400 bucks a month? How much of that 400 bucks are you actually saving? Santa Fe is expensive for a reason... because it is a nice place. It costs money to make a place nice. Kind-of-basic. Don't accept a job in a city unless you are 95% sure you actually want to live where you work.
hillandrock - I disagree with the claim that tourism is a soft product. Over 50 million visitors come to FL every year spending money in that state that was earned elsewhere. It's money coming into the local economy. Yes, it's a service based industry, but it employs more and generates more revenue than any other in the state.
Houston: pretty laid back, has great food, great diversity, weather is hot & humid but is pretty nice Oct-May. Occassional flash floods can be worrisome though. The cool and creative people are concentrated in the more urban areas of the city, which are a lot smaller than the miles of suburbs. And of course your car has to be your best friend.
What California needs is an enema. They need to cut non-essential (about 40%) public services and deny health coverage to a million illegals as well as education.
What is happening to california is not forshadowing the rest of the states because the rest of the states do not have the draw on the populaces pursestrings to the extent that california has let itself get into. Cut the programs and get rid of the fluff and shut down the free medical and education for illegals.
You save us all a lot of money and headache. I am so glad I don't live there anymore even though I do miss the weather.
When there were no booms to save us, there was the federal government (via the mid-century aerospace industry), the studio system (bankrolling an enormous movie industry in the first half of the 20th century), even the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (convincing small towns across the state that a new prison would print money for their local economies). The closer you study California history, the more you realize that the moments in time when we valued hard work and education (I can only come up with one brief era, roughly mid-century, when we decided to pour money into our higher education systems and our infrastructure) over "striking it rich" - the more you realize those moments are the anomalies.
Many of our saviors turned out to be parasites, and all of our booms crumbled to dust, but there was always something else coming down the pike. So of course we could defund education, permanently slash property taxes, tie the Legislature's hands in knots with poorly written propositions, and never have any new taxes ever again.
As the end of California's fiscal year approaches, the Governor and state legislators confront a $24 billion deficit. While Republicans and Democrats wrangle over how to address the gaping shortfall, some members of the press have started to look for a scapegoat for the fiscal train wreck. Many have blamed the California taxpayer's only protection: Prop. 13, the 1978 measure capping state property taxes at 1% of a home's assessed value.
Perhaps the most egregious example of the finger-pointing is a recent piece from TIME's Kevin O'Leary, moaning that "Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase." He insists that "at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13," and concludes that "in California, the conservative legacy lives on."
How ridiculous. Of all the problems contributing to the fiscal mess, state under-taxation is the least of them. California's sales and gas taxes are the highest in the country - and it has the highest vehicle license fees and the second-highest top-bracket income tax, too. Its corporate tax rates are the highest of all Western states, and for the fourth year in a row, a survey of 543 CEO's found that California's toxic combination of high taxes and intrusive regulations made it the worst place in the nation to do business.
---------
Ultimately, any honest assessment of California's plight must assign responsibility for the state's fiscal crisis - not to the taxpayers who voted for Prop. 13 three decades ago - but to the politicians who have subsequently exploited them without mercy. Indeed, if spending had simply reflected average population growth plus the average increase in the cost of living since 1991, there would now be a $15 billion surplus. After adjusting for inflation, the state now spends nearly 20% more per capita than it did 18 years ago; even as California's tax revenues increased by 167% during that period, state spending exploded by 189%.
unfortunately it came to this; DIY state budget deficit buster. i was able to get the deficit down to 8 bil., mainly by new taxes.
governor insists no new taxes. of course biggest tax revenue is going to come from well to do, a.k.a his friends..
correction;
i was now more ruthless and not only got rid of the deficit but also went -4 billion. no cuts on health, retirement, education, human services, parks and recreation and the like public benefitting programs.
all taxes and borrowing 2 b from federal.
I would recommend Austin. I know there seems to be a lot of Texas haters in Cali, but I can speak from experience that most Californians who have lived or gone to school in Texas really like Austin and I get the same vibe about San Antonio as well. Houston and the DFW, from what I've experienced, are kind of hit or miss with people from the west coast. But there are a lot of people moving to Texas from California. My guess would be because it's about half the cost of living and there's no state income tax in Texas were as California has one of the highest state income taxes in the nation. We also haven't had nearly the same economic trouble as everyone else. The state seems to be in a nice economic bubble but that wont last for long if national economy implodes. As for the political atmosphere, it's much more diverse than people give it credit for as long as you stay in or near the big cities. Most of the big city counties and a few of the suburbs in Texas tend to consistently vote Democrat, but they are way out numbered by the small town and conservative suburb population. As far as the stereotypical, obnoxious, Yankee-hating, cowboy Texans (like George Bush), the tend to stick to small towns (like Crawford Ranch). And they also tend hate Austin so you would be safe there.
The biggest problem with New Orleans is that they have one of the most corrupt and incompetent state and local governments in the nation. I lived in the Houston area during Katrina and most of the evacuees blamed the Louisiana government for many of the post Katrina problems in New Orleans. Although the cost and quality of living in the city really is not that bad from what I've seen and heard.
As far as cities outside of Texas and Louisiana, I remember Denver, Albuquerque, and Miami were are all very beautiful cities although I don't know much about them.
what about north carolina? it is relatively cheap, comparatively speaking, is on the ocean relatively equidistant to miami and east coast big cities, has a variety of cities of it's own, and the tallest mountains in the east. it's no california, but when it's too hot in the coastal plain, you can always escape to mountain towns like asheville, and while there's no lake tahoe or pacific ocean you can still surf and ski in the same state. i find the southern appalachians to actually be a pretty impressive range.
albuqueruqe.
we moved here from LA in 2001.
i've heard several old-skool los angeles ex-pats describe it as LA was in the 60's - 70's...
with the national economy tanking, we've made it on several top 10 places to live in the last few months too.
Tell me a little about the climate, weather, housing prices (rentals) and any other parameters that occur to you. I have wondered what it would be like to establish a tourist-oriented woodworking enterprise in such a place. . .
sorry to depart - got a call friday to interview for a new project; spent all weekend prepping for it and just got back.
abq has about 500,000 peeps; the state is a bit over 1MM.
abq straddles the rio grande at the intersection of I-25 and I-40. santa fe is about an hour drive to the north but the new passenger rail service between abq & santa fe is friggin' great and cheap.
abq is a high desert (elevation is one mile), so we get four seasons. winters are pretty mild with a few snowstorms each year but because of the sunshine, snow doesn't last more than a few days. summers are warm, but it cools off at night and the afternoon monsoons that dump for about 30 minutes are fun.
the place a is strange mix of frontier/pioneer/agrarian outcast libertarians, traditional indian, mexican & spanish cultures, and a more recent influx of urbanites fleeing NY & CA, for the most part. the metro area has become significantly more sophisticated in services and goods offered over the last decade, mostly due to transplants to want/demand those things.
the architecture scene is pretty low-key - you try to make the best of the projects you get. sustainability is huge here again (it was big in the 60's & 70's) mostly due to limited aquifer supplies.
the calculus for our move was that purchasing a home vs. renting in LA means we can still afford to hop on southwest and visit CA easily.
i do miss me the water....
oh yeah - there's a big GLBT community here, they just had their pride parade a week or two ago. i've heard that the social & clubbing scene isn't what a lot of transplants were expecting when they moved here considering the size of the GLBT crowd, but that seems to be the case here with all social groups.
best areas for living are around the university,nob hill & north valley.
Whither California?
i'll yield the gas taxes, my source for that was 5 years old, apparently (wtf!?!)
but cali ranked 48th worst state in the nation for business?
the tax foundation is a terrible source (just ask krugman)
tax foundations top ranked states for business:
1-wyoming
2- south dakota
3-nevada
4-alaska
5-florida
6-montana
so frac when ya moving the firm to gilette?
tk- i'd say pdx or austin
Santa Fe is as expensive as any large city in the country but you will most likely get a job selling bolo ties.
land in sante fe is apparently a little absurd, people train in from albuquerque.
How about San Juan, Puerto Rico...being a US territory I assume it would be easier to move there than to expatriate. The tropical weather is hard to beat. It's a large city and offers diversity, culture, good food, etc. Might need to brush up on your Spanish language a bit.
Another thought, Raleigh-Durham, NC....must claim ignorance of those cities as I've only driven through but have always heard good things about that area.
holz - taxfoundation.org is just the numbers, and for business taxes those states are the least 'taxing'. many businesses in southern california have packed up and moved to nevada due to business taxes as well as personal income tax (which is zero in nevada).
did you look at cali's sales and income tax or just concede that california has the highest gas tax?
and i wouldn't ask krugman about much of anything. he recognizes california's irresponsible policies that have doubled debt in the past 6 years and in the next paragraph says the solution is to raise taxes.
taxes are just ONE factor in the success of professional business enterprise. You also need talent pool to get employees, and you need a market - both of which are missing from most of those states on the 'tax foundations' list. If you add up the population of those states (minus florida), you don't even equal the population of los angeles county. There are less architects per capita in those states for a reason.
Florida is a basket case for other reasons - one of the causes of the real estate bubble - it's economy was based on real estate development and trashing the environment (read agribusiness).
well albuquerque ain't santa fe.
TK - Florida has a very big business outside of real estate development and agribusiness....tourism. Unfortunately the economy is hitting that sector too. Cities like Orlando wouldn't be on the top of my list these days.
Miami is still a big banking and finance hub for latin america. I don't expect that to change. Long term I think they'll be ok, but not without a lot of pain in the near term.
the rankings were crunched from numbers by the tax foundation, frac - so it's not just the numbers. also, tax foundation isn't non-partisan, no matter what they claim - they shill for large corporations. (which operate on a tax structure much differently than almost all small businesses)
taxes are only a small part in a viable business - having a base of customers is another.
so you're saying we shouldn't listen to krugman, should we keep listening to the idealougues that parroted deregulation and got us into this mess?
here's a good one for you FRaC:
steven chu suggests roofs should be painted white, and the drudge crowd goes nuts w/ ratio ad absurdums
the painted suggestion because planting green roofs and switching over to a high albedo roof isn't always feasible. do wingnuts not realize the savings they'd see w/ reduced cooling loads, global warming or not? seriously, clowns.
reductio ad absurdum. christ, i need my morning espresso.
yeah i have no problem taking sustainable measures to reduce cooling loads - i take my LEED NC exam in 3 days and am all about passive solar energy saving techniques.
but when chu's main reasoning is to 'slow global warming' i just roll my eyes. he should emphasize the savings those conservation measures provide. conservatives believe in conservation!
SSc7.2 Heat Island Effect - Roof: SRI 29 on steep roofs (2:12 and up) and SRI 78 on flat roofs (less than 2:12 slope) for 75% of roof area or a green roof for 50% of roof area. go for the ID exemplary performance point with a 100% green roof!
the previous owner of my house put on a dark asphalt shingle roof and i'm dying to replace it with a historically correct light gravel roof and stick on a layer of (probably) 3" rigid insulation. i installed exterior roller shades over south and west facing windows last summer and it helped a lot, but the roof just soaks up the heat from july to september.
oh god oh god oh god.
all of you bitching about taxes is almost laughable.
anyone who doesn't want to pay taxes but then complains about the lack of services is a hypocrite at best.
really, how expensive is it to move a company's home office every 5 years to avoid a few hundred thousand in taxes? generally, isn't the cost of the move probably more expensive than the cost to pay taxes?
I agree with TK here. With taxes, you get what you pay for. If you want good services, good utilities and good employees... you have to pay taxes.
Called me old fashioned but I think maybe more people should read how the governmental approach to working with businesses rather than looking at the business approach to government.
Blakely and Bradshaw's book is a little conservative... almost bordering on libertarian to me... but it is a good read on economic development practices as the currently stand. They're a little dismissive about the built environment (and by extension architecture) and a little to bend-over-backwards-to-let-crying-eagles-sodomize-you... but... they do take it into great consideration about locationally-based businesses.
Locational-based business is probably the most hurt by a combination of bad planning practices and high taxes; ie, gas stations, mines, farms, various plants, typical city center businesses, print shops. A lot of your soft firms, architecture included, have the ability to conduct business anywhere and are typically your big tax violators. This is turns puts a bigger tax burden on businesses with incredibly slim profit margins... and before you know it, the basic service sector starts to shut down and then the soft firms move because they can't get basic services anymore.
aqua-- Florida actually makes most of its money through phosphate mining, concrete production and shipping. The reason why is because tourism is a "soft product" and therefore doesn't actually exist. There really isn't much in terms of trade or material wealth being gained here.
And even then, the term tourism is loaded. A lot of the money making tourism in Florida really isn't "tourism" per se as snowbirds, outdoorsman, anglers, hunters (have no fucking idea where they do this at) and beach goers spend a lot more than the Disney crowd does. And even then, that's pretty bad when the government counts the snowbirds as "tourists."
And the people who drive to Santa Fe from Albuquerque... Fuck you. Your incessant commuting is ruining both Albuquerque and Santa Fe... for what... saving 400 bucks a month? How much of that 400 bucks are you actually saving? Santa Fe is expensive for a reason... because it is a nice place. It costs money to make a place nice. Kind-of-basic. Don't accept a job in a city unless you are 95% sure you actually want to live where you work.
i'll rent you a cheap place in Los Cerrillos 15 min from Santa Fe.
hillandrock - I disagree with the claim that tourism is a soft product. Over 50 million visitors come to FL every year spending money in that state that was earned elsewhere. It's money coming into the local economy. Yes, it's a service based industry, but it employs more and generates more revenue than any other in the state.
Houston: pretty laid back, has great food, great diversity, weather is hot & humid but is pretty nice Oct-May. Occassional flash floods can be worrisome though. The cool and creative people are concentrated in the more urban areas of the city, which are a lot smaller than the miles of suburbs. And of course your car has to be your best friend.
NM is completely tourism based too not to mention I heard 75% get their income indirectly threw government jobs.
I left because they started shipping nuclear pollution around the city .
What California needs is an enema. They need to cut non-essential (about 40%) public services and deny health coverage to a million illegals as well as education.
What is happening to california is not forshadowing the rest of the states because the rest of the states do not have the draw on the populaces pursestrings to the extent that california has let itself get into. Cut the programs and get rid of the fluff and shut down the free medical and education for illegals.
You save us all a lot of money and headache. I am so glad I don't live there anymore even though I do miss the weather.
This, from today's SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/01/EDU217SV73.DTL
When there were no booms to save us, there was the federal government (via the mid-century aerospace industry), the studio system (bankrolling an enormous movie industry in the first half of the 20th century), even the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (convincing small towns across the state that a new prison would print money for their local economies). The closer you study California history, the more you realize that the moments in time when we valued hard work and education (I can only come up with one brief era, roughly mid-century, when we decided to pour money into our higher education systems and our infrastructure) over "striking it rich" - the more you realize those moments are the anomalies.
Many of our saviors turned out to be parasites, and all of our booms crumbled to dust, but there was always something else coming down the pike. So of course we could defund education, permanently slash property taxes, tie the Legislature's hands in knots with poorly written propositions, and never have any new taxes ever again.
June 30, 2009
How Politicians Bankrupted California
By Carol Platt Liebau
As the end of California's fiscal year approaches, the Governor and state legislators confront a $24 billion deficit. While Republicans and Democrats wrangle over how to address the gaping shortfall, some members of the press have started to look for a scapegoat for the fiscal train wreck. Many have blamed the California taxpayer's only protection: Prop. 13, the 1978 measure capping state property taxes at 1% of a home's assessed value.
Perhaps the most egregious example of the finger-pointing is a recent piece from TIME's Kevin O'Leary, moaning that "Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase." He insists that "at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13," and concludes that "in California, the conservative legacy lives on."
How ridiculous. Of all the problems contributing to the fiscal mess, state under-taxation is the least of them. California's sales and gas taxes are the highest in the country - and it has the highest vehicle license fees and the second-highest top-bracket income tax, too. Its corporate tax rates are the highest of all Western states, and for the fourth year in a row, a survey of 543 CEO's found that California's toxic combination of high taxes and intrusive regulations made it the worst place in the nation to do business.
---------
Ultimately, any honest assessment of California's plight must assign responsibility for the state's fiscal crisis - not to the taxpayers who voted for Prop. 13 three decades ago - but to the politicians who have subsequently exploited them without mercy. Indeed, if spending had simply reflected average population growth plus the average increase in the cost of living since 1991, there would now be a $15 billion surplus. After adjusting for inflation, the state now spends nearly 20% more per capita than it did 18 years ago; even as California's tax revenues increased by 167% during that period, state spending exploded by 189%.
I learned a new word today:IOU = I owe you
unfortunately it came to this; DIY state budget deficit buster. i was able to get the deficit down to 8 bil., mainly by new taxes.
governor insists no new taxes. of course biggest tax revenue is going to come from well to do, a.k.a his friends..
correction;
i was now more ruthless and not only got rid of the deficit but also went -4 billion. no cuts on health, retirement, education, human services, parks and recreation and the like public benefitting programs.
all taxes and borrowing 2 b from federal.
I would recommend Austin. I know there seems to be a lot of Texas haters in Cali, but I can speak from experience that most Californians who have lived or gone to school in Texas really like Austin and I get the same vibe about San Antonio as well. Houston and the DFW, from what I've experienced, are kind of hit or miss with people from the west coast. But there are a lot of people moving to Texas from California. My guess would be because it's about half the cost of living and there's no state income tax in Texas were as California has one of the highest state income taxes in the nation. We also haven't had nearly the same economic trouble as everyone else. The state seems to be in a nice economic bubble but that wont last for long if national economy implodes. As for the political atmosphere, it's much more diverse than people give it credit for as long as you stay in or near the big cities. Most of the big city counties and a few of the suburbs in Texas tend to consistently vote Democrat, but they are way out numbered by the small town and conservative suburb population. As far as the stereotypical, obnoxious, Yankee-hating, cowboy Texans (like George Bush), the tend to stick to small towns (like Crawford Ranch). And they also tend hate Austin so you would be safe there.
The biggest problem with New Orleans is that they have one of the most corrupt and incompetent state and local governments in the nation. I lived in the Houston area during Katrina and most of the evacuees blamed the Louisiana government for many of the post Katrina problems in New Orleans. Although the cost and quality of living in the city really is not that bad from what I've seen and heard.
As far as cities outside of Texas and Louisiana, I remember Denver, Albuquerque, and Miami were are all very beautiful cities although I don't know much about them.
what about north carolina? it is relatively cheap, comparatively speaking, is on the ocean relatively equidistant to miami and east coast big cities, has a variety of cities of it's own, and the tallest mountains in the east. it's no california, but when it's too hot in the coastal plain, you can always escape to mountain towns like asheville, and while there's no lake tahoe or pacific ocean you can still surf and ski in the same state. i find the southern appalachians to actually be a pretty impressive range.
albuqueruqe.
we moved here from LA in 2001.
i've heard several old-skool los angeles ex-pats describe it as LA was in the 60's - 70's...
with the national economy tanking, we've made it on several top 10 places to live in the last few months too.
Tell me a little about the climate, weather, housing prices (rentals) and any other parameters that occur to you. I have wondered what it would be like to establish a tourist-oriented woodworking enterprise in such a place. . .
Pros
Cons
I've been in California for 30 years. I was asking about Albuquerque ! And I'm gay, so Missy Thongalicious is wasted on me. . .
Isn't that a strange photo of Der Gropenator ? Looks like a cross between W and Mark Valley. . .
SDR> there u go^^
Ouch. Maybe I'm a closet straight. . .
Where's my horoscope ?
do you enjoy a brown smelly sick?
sorry to depart - got a call friday to interview for a new project; spent all weekend prepping for it and just got back.
abq has about 500,000 peeps; the state is a bit over 1MM.
abq straddles the rio grande at the intersection of I-25 and I-40. santa fe is about an hour drive to the north but the new passenger rail service between abq & santa fe is friggin' great and cheap.
abq is a high desert (elevation is one mile), so we get four seasons. winters are pretty mild with a few snowstorms each year but because of the sunshine, snow doesn't last more than a few days. summers are warm, but it cools off at night and the afternoon monsoons that dump for about 30 minutes are fun.
the place a is strange mix of frontier/pioneer/agrarian outcast libertarians, traditional indian, mexican & spanish cultures, and a more recent influx of urbanites fleeing NY & CA, for the most part. the metro area has become significantly more sophisticated in services and goods offered over the last decade, mostly due to transplants to want/demand those things.
the architecture scene is pretty low-key - you try to make the best of the projects you get. sustainability is huge here again (it was big in the 60's & 70's) mostly due to limited aquifer supplies.
the calculus for our move was that purchasing a home vs. renting in LA means we can still afford to hop on southwest and visit CA easily.
i do miss me the water....
oh yeah - there's a big GLBT community here, they just had their pride parade a week or two ago. i've heard that the social & clubbing scene isn't what a lot of transplants were expecting when they moved here considering the size of the GLBT crowd, but that seems to be the case here with all social groups.
best areas for living are around the university,nob hill & north valley.
Thanks, el jeffe. That gives me something to think about. . .
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