Personally, I would consider (although I have no intention) moving to the US under the right circumstances - the main one being an extraordinary employment opportunity. It would be a difficult place to comfortably raise children without substantial money to be able to live in the right school districts, etc. In Canada, not such a worry - far more egalitarian.
As a western Canadian I feel a certain affinity and comfort with western American cities. Many just feel very familiar culturally and in terms of lifestyle.
My preferences (somewhat in order) would be:
- Denver (very much an American Calgary)
- San Diego
- Los Angeles or Santa Barbara
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Austin
- Honolulu
- Portland
Further east:
- Washington DC
- Boston
- Minneapolis
- Chicago
- New York (only if completely loaded).
- Nashville
- Savannah
- Miami
If you have the means, the US is a fantastic place to live. If you don't, it can be one of the worst. There's some great cities on that list, but your experience will vary wildly depending on which neighbourhoods you live in and how much money you have in the bank.
I'm generally a US fan, but if we're dreaming about a move, I'd rather move to Zurich!
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I'd consider it and I'm sure in a lot of ways living in a large american city could be similar to my life in Calgary.
That being said there are fundamental parts of US culture that I wouldn't want to have to deal with on the whole and I think that would sour me a bit, even if my little slice of existence wasn't all that affected by it.
I like the West: San Fran (super expensive), San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Denver (like Calgary) and Tucson (but have not been there in the summer). How about New Mexico? Salt Lake? Reno/Tahoe? Kona is great.
We almost moved to Oregon, a number of years ago, as my husband had an excellent job offer in the Medford area. Didn't pan out, for a variety of reasons, one of the biggest being health insurance.
I'd definitely consider it. I've considered San Diego and San Francisco in the past, and might actively start looking at those options again (single, love beaches, no permanent responsibilties here, have flexibility in education / schedule). As Cecil said, there are fundamental parts of US culture (and politics) that I'm not fond of, but not big enough to have me pass up an opportunity to go down there if the chance arose.
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I'd definitely consider it. I've considered San Diego and San Francisco in the past, and might actively start looking at those options again (single, love beaches, no permanent responsibilties here, have flexibility in education / schedule). As Cecil said, there are fundamental parts of US culture (and politics) that I'm not fond of, but not big enough to have me pass up an opportunity to go down there if the chance arose.
I would imagine I have basically the same objections as you and the others who mentioned American culture. But I think it's overstated.
What I found living there over the years is that Americans are very diverse, and there are tons and tons of great and sensible people there who don't oppose things like common sense gun laws and are very open to a socialized health system among other things. Of course, I was living in SoCal which is a great and modern place.
I don't argue there are some backward places in the US though.
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My wife and I love the Seattle/Bellevue area and would definitely move there if the right opportunity arose. I briefly lived in the Annapolis area for work. Fun experience and loved the proximity to lots of interesting places. That's my main gripe with Calgary, there's no bigger city in a 1000 km radius.
There's a huge urban/rural and coastal/inland divide in the US. Many of the things a Canadian might not like about US culture are less noticeable if you're somewhere like San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles. Unfortunately the price for that is generally very high costs of living and a huge rich/poor divide. If you want to live in a nice area in one of those places you'd better be pretty well off.
For me anyway, the only thing that'd attract me to the US is the weather in some of the places. I'd have zero interest living somewhere with a similar climate to Canada, save maybe for New York. And even then, many of the places with really nice winters have horrible summers, so it's still a trade off.
I think the US would be an awesome place to live if money were no object.
I'd love to live in San Francisco or have some recreation properties in various US locations, but within the context of a normal, working individual/family, I just dont see it.
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Many Canadians have an affinity with Americans as their nearest neighbours, but not being from here originally, I'd say I probably have a strong anti-American attitude. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy plenty of American pop culture, but as a whole, their gun culture, heavy religious beliefs, war mongering patriotism and their politics (regardless of which party is in power) annoys me and would drive me mental if I lived there.
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Living in the United States
