[seanmcdirmid]

Amenities and education for your kids, mostly. Big cities have more than just jobs.

I think resort communities might do better, like Bali, Jackson Hole, Bend, Gulf Shores, but not Hawaii, COL is just too high. Also, decent schooling for kids is still a problem in those areas.

[AnimalMuppet]

When you said "education", I first thought that you meant college. That's not so much a problem - kids go away to college all the time, and there's online if they don't want that. But primary/secondary schooling... yeah, that could be a concern. On the other hand, that's a concern in the city, too, unless you can afford the suburbs. Even there... we lived in the suburbs, and the elementary school in our area was ranked in the bottom third in our state. My wife called the vice-principal there, and asked why we should put our daughter in their school. He said, "Well, going here can toughen kids up." Becoming tough was not our priority for our daughter, and we didn't put her there. (We homeschooled, but I recognize that most people won't want to go that route.)

[seanmcdirmid]

You have options in the city. Make a lot of money? Private school is an option. I live in the Seattle area, according to Zillow Seattle schools are ok, nothing special but definitely better than Spokane or Walla Walla schools. And then there is Bellevue, mercer islands, north lake WA, and so on that are all 10s. Works well enough.

I can see it as a huge problem if one lives in Chicago, I guess. The Midwest isn’t a great place for that kind of thing.

[debaserab2]

Actually I think it's exact opposite - the midwest is great for k-12 education. Illinois is ranked #7 overall in k-12 education (washington sits at #19 for comparison). Most other midwest states are somewhere in the top 20 [1].

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/p...

[JamesBarney]

> Hawaii, COL is just too high Yeah nobody goes there anymore, it's way too popular.

[pchristensen]

Hawaii had the 7th worst out-migration in the nation in 2016.

From "Census data shows that Hawaii has the highest median home value in the entire US, at $617,400. CNBC also ranked Hawaii as the state with the highest cost of living in 2018, with the cost of a half-gallon of milk coming in at $3.64."

Citation: https://www.insider.com/the-top-10-states-people-are-moving-...

[JamesBarney]

Thanks, today I learned something about Hawaii. I assumed with the high COL it must be really desirable. But I guess tourists are pushing out locals?

Oh and there's a lot of housing regulation.

[seanmcdirmid]

Nobody moves there unless they have a few million up spare or are just naive.