Thanks Ctwickman... what superb photos.. Yes I have been to Chicago, albeit back in the 70s, it was smaller then...pic 3 convinced me to stay right here in Florida...

Been touched on before, but you are quite correct about the east and west coast cities being expensive. However, the salaries are very much larger on the whole. I've been in San Francisco for 3 years, the quality of life is excellent.

I'd have thought most Brits would go and live where their USC spouse is already living, if marriage is the reason for emigrating. No point in both parties upping sticks!

Well, erm, yes...lol

I live "just under" 7000ft , the lake is at about 6200ft.

Actually some of your above statements are false. If you look at domestic outmigration, ALL the cities on either coast are losing population to Domestic Outmigration (Americans leaving the coasts for the expanse in the middle) but are gaining population to International Inmigration.

In simple terms, Americans are leaving the coasts for the middle and parts of the south while International migration and births/deaths are the only reason the coastal cities are growing. If you look at all the boomtowns in America where it is cheapest and easiest to find a job, you will find they are almost always in the between the coasts: Omaha, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas, etc.

And yes, I realize Chicago gets cold in the winter. I fully experienced it. All you need is a winter jacket and a hat and you are fine--there is no reason to walk around Chicago in January with a light jacket or just a sweater on. You need a wind-breaking winter jacket which are readily available on Michigan Ave. The weather is easy to dress for, and there is no more extreme variety of seasons than a place like Chicago--and I happen to love variety.

I invite you all to visit http://www.worldbusinesschicago.com/ for some interesting facts about this city.

I am interested that a lot of you have visited Chicago, but I have a feeling that for every time a Brit or expat visits America's 2nd city, they will have visited Las Vegas 10 times. I guess it is because in Britain Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco are usually what you see in the travel destinations, though if you look at what Americans who actually really know this country, their travel destinations are usually far different. According to Priceline, Chicago was the most visited destination for the 4th of July weekend, and according to World Business it is the 2nd most visited city in America by Americans. Just wondering why these statistics don't match up with British expats.

The reason I even proposed this thread is that I saw someone from Boston on here poke fun at the idea of living in Milwaukee, when Boston and Milwaukee are very similar, and Milwaukee is a LOVELY city with a gorgeous lakefront, corner pubs everywhere, etc. But the thing that is really lovely about places like Milwaukee is the cost-of-living, traffic congestion, and pollution are EXTREMELY low.

Despite this, the fact remains that the average salary in a place like Milwaukee doesn't differ all that much from a place like San Francisco when it comes to white collar jobs. For instance, the median salary of a Human Resources manager in Milwaukee makes $45,000 a year; in San Francisco he/she makes $50,000 a year. You can research all sorts of salary differentials at http://www.collegegrad.com. The median salary for ALL workers (white or blue collar) in San Francisco is $63,000. In Milwaukee it is $35,000. That's a difference of 87%. The salary differences between Milwaukee and San Francisco are not nearly as wide as the differences between cost-of-living.

The average home price in San Francisco is $542,000; in Milwaukee it is $99,900, and the houses in Milwaukee are on average larger. That's a difference of 447%. Bottom line, you can get a lot more for your money in many places in this country, yet all places have approximately equal services and the same radio stations, TV stations, grocery outlets, etc. The only difference is population density and availability of mass transit, but if you look at Milwaukee's and San Francisco's traffic congestion numbers, San Francisco ranks 2nd worst in the country, while Milwaukee ranks 42nd. San Franciscans spend 92 hours per year stuck in traffic. Milwaukeens spend 32. You can read all about traffic congestion rankings at: http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/study/a...xhibit_A-5.pdf

Just figured I'd share some information with you all. I consider myself an amateur to professional demographer when it comes to American cities. If you have any questions please feel free to ask since I have a massive amount of statistics and demography information about this country.

Please post some links that illustrate your point that Americans are moving away from the coasts (do you specifically mean California and Florida only?) and moving towards the US interior.



NC Penguin

I thought some of these Chicago statistics were interesting:

Some statistics to chew on for weather (this copied and pasted directly from the web site):

In the dog days of August, Chicago's average high is a pleasant 81.8 degrees - lower than New York, Atlantic City, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Denver, Washington D.C. (Let's not even talk about places like L.A., or Phoenix)

Chicago's annual average low of 39.5 degrees is warmer than Colorado Springs, Reno, Denver, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, etc.

There is precipitation in Chicago an average of 125 days a year. Other cities get rained on a lot more: Boston, Miami, Cincinnati, San Juan, Asheville, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Seattle, Portland (Oregon and Maine)

How about "The Windy City?" We've got wind, but a whole bunch of places have more: Dallas, San Francisco, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York, Honolulu, Boston

There's nothing better than a clear crisp day of sunny weather, and Chicago has a lot more of them than Colorado Springs, Cincinnati, Miami, Portland, OR, Detroit, Cleveland, and Seattle, etc.

Nobody likes humidity, and if you're waking up in Chicago, you're experiencing equal or less humidity than Key West, Cleveland, Dallas, Austin, Rochester, Kansas City, Atlanta, Atlantic City, St. Louis, Washington D.C., San Antonio, Santa Barbara, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, Tampa, Daytona Beach, New Orleans, Orlando, and Houston, etc.

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For more interesting stats please see http://www.worldbusinesschicago.com/

It's an amazing site and I learned a lot. I was surprised to see that Chicago was rated #1 for Recreation opportunities and #2 for Education. I would post the ranking tables here but I don't know how... sorry to be a Chicago booster here, but this area and other areas of the country don't get nearly the attention they deserve on this forum.

Could you do me a favour please and look up Reno, NV?

It's not far from here (about 26 miles away) and is only a small place by US standards but it's growth rate is pretty impressive.

Again I believe not due to foreign immigrants primarily but due to people from California and Oregon moving there.

It's hardly on the coast either...

and here is where I live ........ lil ole Harbor Springs .. population @ 1,600 in summer, about half a dozen of us in the winter

average winter temp @ -15F (ish) .. average summer temp 70F (ish)

Its a bit blurry due to blowing snow on the bay, but if you look carefully you can make out 5 or so homes

Jan

Just look it up NC Penguin. There are a lot of stats available on the Web.

Here's one: http://www.unm.edu/~bber/demo/dommig99.htm

Note how most of the growing areas of America among Americans are somewhere in the middle states (not Northeast or West Coast). For instance, California and New York lost about 4 million people to domestic outmigration from 1990-9.

If you want, the more interesting statistics are the domestic migration of major cities rather than states as listed above. Places like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are losing an incredible amount of people to domestic migration to places like Denver, Minneapolis, Dallas, and Atlanta. As far as I know, these are the 4 top destinations for domestic inmigration.

BTW I hope I can be of help to some of you... I don't mean to argue or criticize anyone or where they choose to live. I have a lot of information at my disposal and have been researching demographics, quality-of-life statistics, and American cities for about 5 years now, so if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will try to answer it.

Your statistics would carry more weight if they were from some source that is unbiased. The site you gleaned the data from has a financial interest in painting Chicago in a favorable light.

I wonder if a federal website has such statistics for cities throughout the US?




NC Penguin

Oh, another site I HIGHLY recommend is this one:

http://www.skyscraperpage.com/forum

You can learn a TON about the various cities of America from these people.

NC Penguin, yeah I know that web site is biased towards Chicago, but the statistics they use are facts from the 2000 Almanac. If you want any stats about a city just ask and I'll see what I can get. Just trust me though that the coastal cities are losing a lot of people to domestic migration, and the only reason they are growing is because of births/deaths and international migration. There are a few exceptions to this but I am personally not aware of any coastal cities that are gaining population due to domestic migration. Americans who have lived in coastal metros are clearly choosing to move to somewhere in the middle, which probably has a lot to do with cost-of-living, traffic, and jobs.

Gladly... Domestic migration is in red: