So the work I do is 100% remote now. I moved to Southern California because of an industry that has in part moved to remote work. My only requirements are a temperate climate, nature access and hopefully a blue-ish state. Is there a place out there that makes sense financially? I’m hoping to buy a house less then 500k. I don’t need access to large cities as I honestly don’t do anything. The only requirement I can think of is access to solid internet as I stream full screen video for what I do.
I’m currently looking at Michigan and Virginia as options.
A lot of people in Michigan are expecting the state population to boom in the coming decades. No earthquakes or hurricanes, minimal wildfires and tornadoes. Lots of access to fresh water.
We passed a ballot initiative in 2018 that made an independent committee draw up congressional districts and wouldn’t you know it, the state suddenly went blue when no one could gerrymander anymore! Legal recreational weed, legal abortion, free school lunches, the progressives are moving fast with the new majority.
What area all depends on how much winter you can take. Detroit-Ann Arbor area is probably the mildest, followed by Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo (great cities, lake effect snow storms), Up North (even worse snow) and da UP (Marquette is amazing but if you don’t like snow sports you’ll go insane).
$500k will but you a great house in some suburbs or a decent house in a hot market.
The Upper Peninsula is actually one of the places that is likely to be least affected by Climate Change. Expect an influx of climate refugees as time goes on.
If I had to up and move, it’s definitely an area I would consider. I fell in love with Marquette while watching Joe Pera Talks With You which was set in and shot in Marquette.
And to consider another looming environmental catastrophe: the currently rising water scarcity can’t scare you too much if you live next to one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.
Another way of looking at it: if the entire world becomes really desperate for the resource in your backyard, your backyard is about to be ruined
What would you say are the downsides to southern Michigan? I’m seriously considering MI and just curious what the downsides would be. I don’t mind some snow.
Being incredibly car-centric is probably our biggest issue in my opinion. If you’re expecting to be able to use public transit or even walk to basic necessities, and are looking to purchase a house, you’d likely be looking at areas outside of your price range, generally within highly urbanized city centers. Owning a car is very much the norm here, even within those urban environments.
I’m from Kalamazoo. Lived in the sf bay now for the past 12+ years and many other places in between.
Winter is no joke, and drags on for a very long time. Diversity is much less than elsewhere I’ve lived (esp compared to the east bay), as a mixed race person my experience growing up was so much different than my kids’ experience in Berkeley. Kzoo is halfway between Chicago and Detroit so not horrible but any big name concerts or museum shows or whatever require a few hours of travel. Like another poster said, also car culture - nobody walks anywhere nor can you feasibly do so (not just because of winter but also due to the influence of Detroit) and outside of AA public transportation is non-existent. And the job market in general isn’t great (if you are working remote maybe it doesn’t matter, but at least in tech the salaries are significantly less even in Ann Arbor or Chicagoland area vs California, and the number of opportunities way fewer).
Thanks for the info! I don’t care about access to anything significant. I’m currently in SoCal and quite honestly don’t leave my house much do to being remote and many personal issues. Looking to just make ends meet doing my remote job where my money and sanity can go the longest. Enjoy nature, seclusion and a temperate climate.
It’s really flat here compared to California, you can’t just drive a couple hours to get what you call hills and we call mountains. The Great Lakes are great but they’re not an ocean.
Flights from DTW are more expensive than from big cities. It’s funny that Detroit is 2,000 miles closer to Europe than SFO, but flights to Europe from SFO are cheaper.
We started getting wildfire smoke from Canada this year, but I imagine we’re still doing better than SoCal.
California is still more progressive than Michigan, but we also don’t have as much craziness around ballot initiatives.
I adore Detroit, but it’s no LA or SF. Chicago is about 4 hours away.
Regarding Detroit, when I step back and look at the country from a climate perspective, it looks great. From what I’ve been exposed to media wise, it sounds scary and crime ridden. I live on the outskirts of LA county, so I’m no stranger to a large city next door. Why wouldn’t I want to be looking at a town 30 minutes or so from Detroit? It seems like a logical option from my perspective.
If you’ve never experienced upper Midwest winters, you’ll be in for an interesting experience.
Also, not much in the way of topology, contrasting with SoCal.
I grew up in Chicago and got out of the entire area as soon as possible, due to (in no particular order) allergies, weather, and seasonal affective disorder.
I live in SoCal now and love it here, but climate change will probably force us elsewhere within 20 years. We already spend most of the summer somewhere else to escape the heat.
Nothing to add, but this is a wildly distopian thread.
West Virginia. No I’m not kidding.
They will pay you $12,000 to move there. Housing costs are absurdly low. Morgantown is a thriving university town close to Pittsburgh. And the eastern panhandle has a lot of access to VA & MD.
Move there and vote please.
I’m seriously considering this, thanks. If you had to say, what are the downsides of West VA?
I just fell in love with West Virginia a few weeks back. So beautiful and while not a blue state, exactly, the people there were so welcoming and kind.
I know you said the US but have you considered moving abroad? If you want a similar timezone to the States, Mexico and Chile have pretty easy immigration programs you should be able to qualify for without much effort… The crime rate in Chile is about the same as Canada IIRC. I left the US in 2017 and I honestly could not imagine coming back at this point.
If you’re looking at Michigan I would also consider Minnesota. They have voted blue for the most presidential in a row and this last session with democratic majority has made huge gains. Michigan and Minnesota are showing what Midwestern values really mean.
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul are quite large together so you can get most amenities including one of every major sport league. Housing is no longer cheap within the cities because people from out of state are coming back to buy them. But there’s tons of jobs and fortune 500 companies headquartered here.
Greater Minnesota has lots of smaller cities as well. Rochester, Brainard or Duluth all got their charms. Duluth has been listed as best city in the nation for it’s cheaper coat of living with good job opportunities. Duluth gets real bad winters so get prepared for it. But it’s better to be too cold than too hot
One of the other interesting twin cities facts is that we have a very large theater scene, one of the biggest in the nation outside NYC.
