Columbus. I moved to Ohio from Florida some years back and do not regret it at all. I get so much more for my money that it feels like a cheat code.

Move to Columbus and look into the various suburban communities. A fantastic one that is up and coming (though it's really getting quite far along that arc) is called Grandview. Leafy, compact, cute, cool shops, bike paths and restaurants and only 10 minutes from downtown, even in traffic. There are many more so do dig in and look around. I live in the greater Cleveland area and it's also good... just not Columbus good. If you want space look to the northern suburbs. There are a number that are extremely nice.

Looking at a 5 bedroom home and the prices seem just in line with Miami prices here in West Kendall (3000 sq feet). Where are you looking that feels like a cheat code?

I just checked 5 bedroom homes in Kendall and the cheapest on the first page of results was just under $800k. The average (first 6 results on Realtor.com) is $1,029,333. With Columbus you have to check the various neighborhoods (like Kendall is to Miami) so checking one of the nicer ones (Dublin) I see 4 in the $600k range with an average of the first 6 results of $837,283. That makes Dublin (a suburb of Columbus with top schools and higher than average incomes) quite a bit cheaper in the huge house arena.

Kendall's average household income is $73,612 while Dublin's is $137,867. If I picked a neighborhood with an equivalent household income the price difference would be even more stark.

Cleveland has older and higher quality cultural institutions on your doorstep if that sort of thing is your jam.

Moving to Ohio was one of the worst decisions I made in my life. Dayton is proud of its history of innovation but most of the innovators left for California 50 years ago where innovation was allowed. What's left is the lumbering bureaucracies and sprawling empires that grew from the innovators' products: NCR, the GM plant, Otis.

The region you live in matters greatly. Take Dayton. It doesn't impact me as I have not been anywhere near Dayton in all the years I've live in Ohio. Columbus, on the other hand, is a really nice city with a great vibe. I'm guessing it could be like saying, "Don't move to California. Moving to Riverside was the worst decision of my life." The real message is don't move to places that are down and out.

Columbus did seem nicer when I visited. But is it really "not down and out"?

It's one of only 14 cities in the US to gain 100k residents in the last decade.

What startups has it produced in the last decade? Or, more knowably, the decade before that, 02002–02012?

Root insurance has been a recent one

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/rootinsurance

CoverMyMeds another

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/covermymeds-com

At least for a Midwest city, investment does seem to be picking up

https://news.yahoo.com/columbus-startup-funding-skyrocketing...

That's pretty significant!

CoverMyMeds was the recent poster child ($1B exit). Ohio has a large focus on insurance and med/biotech.

CoverMyMeds, Root Insurance, and Olive are a couple of unicorns.

Aside from Cal, which other State(s) do you consider to be at least growing a culture of innovation? Just curious because might move to US from Canada in the future.

Innovation is a function of you and the people you work with, not where you live. You should be looking at the team you will be working on, not the reputation of a physical place or company. If you fail to do that, you will be disappointed when the reality inevitably doesn't match the hype. Nearly every state has loads of smart and innovative people, despite what HN's regional bias would lead you to believe. The exception would be the very tiny states, but they still have smart people, just fewer of them.

The people you work with (in person) is to a significant extent a function of where you live, though, and what the team is allowed to attempt is even more so. Maybe there are a hundred smart and innovative fluorine chemists in your state, but 30 of them are assholes, 20 retired, 40 already have jobs too good to hire them away from, and the other 10 aren't allowed to do any lab work because of NIMBYs or because your legislature associates chemistry primarily with Breaking Bad. (That's a big problem in California today, but it wasn't 50 years ago.)

Thanks, sounds reasonable. Although I'll probably look at the area too.

Chicago, IL is a hotbed. Boston, MA also is doing great these days. Texas and Ohio seem to be in a race to the bottom in terms of the types of work they're trying to attract.

Minnesota's twin cities plus Rochester. Excellent place if you're interested in biomedical, health care technology innovation. Top ranked companies headquartered there, a great university, the Mayo Clinic. Really top notch.

But if you're moving from Canada to escape the cold, Minnesota is not the place to stop. It's a bit warmer than Winnepeg, but colder than Toronto and the rest of Eastern Canada by quite a bit.

I'm sure there are more, and I haven't been everywhere, but these are ones that stand out to me:

- Greater Boston area (outside of Boston, the high tech companies are pretty scattered)

- Chicago (and the North/West suburbs)

- Virginia (Tysons, Alexandria)

- North Carolina (Research Triangle)

- Portland

- Austin

The obvious ones: Bay Area, LA, NYC, Seattle area

If you're into specific industries, then there are areas that are more focused than others.

Boston isn't as scattered as it was 20 years ago. A lot of pharma and biotech in Kendall Square as well as outposts of California companies. And there are various startups maybe especially in the Seaport. Amazon has a lot of space in the Seaport as well.

But, yes, the computer industry in Massachusetts always tended to be in Metrowest and the defense contractors were/are out in the suburbs as well.

Maybe Taiwan, Singapore, and Bangladesh? Canada's pretty great too.

Most people are trying to move in the opposite direction. With that being said, here's a few interesting things about Ohio:

  1. Vehicle safety inspections are not required
  2. It's very flat, but their flag is the only non-rectangular state flag
  3. Due to an oversight (congress never voted -- oops!), Ohio was not officially admitted to the union until 1953.

If you want stuff to do within a reasonable distance you might want to look at the eastern side, near Pittsburgh.

I'm not sure what #1 means. Can you expand on it? I don't recall ever putting a car through something like that.

Many states require an annual vehicle safety inspection, often accompanied by an emissions test.

In Pennsylvania, I have to have my car tested each year. They make sure that tire tread depth, remaining brake pads, exterior lamps, and windshield wipers are all functional / within tolerance. There's other stuff that you can be failed for, such as excessive rust, etc.

That's one other thing to know about Ohio. Your car will rust. It's a cancer that will slowly eat your car, even if you do an undercarriage wash.

Some states do an annual safety inspection of vehicles - it's usually more or less "do your turn signals, brakes, and head lights work". Nowadays some states also need to do an emissions check. Some states require it every other year, some states I guess don't really require it at all?

I had to do an "inspection" when I moved to AZ and first registered my car. I dreaded what they might find since it was kind of a heap of junk. The inspection consisted of making sure the VIN matched up on the various locations on the car.

I did that too when buying a car out of state and bringing it to Kansas, but I don't think it was even called a _safety_ inspection. And definitely not an emissions inspection either. :)

IDK how many states don't require it, but Indiana, just to the west of Ohio, does not require safety inspections for personal vehicles. A few counties near Chicago do emissions testing I think.

Not sure I'd suggest eastern Ohio, that's rural Appalachia, I would not recommend for interesting things.

I was more suggesting that you leave Ohio to do interesting things in the Pittsburgh area.

When people ask me about Ohio, I always whole-hartedly recommend Cincinnati.

But then you added "stuff to do within a reasonable driving distance," and I think that tips the scales in favor of Cleveland.

And if you want to leave the car at home, you can take Amtrak from Cleveland to New York, Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C.

I still love Cincinnati, but until international flying gets back in order, it's not an ideal starting point for adventure.

I mean, you can take the Amtrak from Cleveland to Chicago... but it leaves at like 3:30 AM which is why I never take Amtrak to Cleveland to visit my family from Chicago.

Isn't Cincinnati excessively humid? On the other hand I hear the winters are cold but they lift pretty quick and don't linger on.

Humid, yes. Excessively so? Not compared to a lot of other places in America. Houston. Louisiana. Florida. Coastal Carolinas. I guess it depends on how well your particular body handles humidity.

Cincinnati has fairly mild winters compared with the rest of Ohio. A meteorologist there explained it to me once. I think something about being in a valley, and the rivers (Ohio and Little Miami) moderate things a bit.

He said in weather circles, it's sometimes called "the banana belt of Ohio."

Toledo's pretty good too, and there's a bunch of smaller cities around that have already shrunk as much as they're going to. Roads are decent too, even though everyone complains about the construction (until they take a trip through Michigan).

Be careful going too cheap, as the rural parts have utterly terrible Internet service. A buddy of mine can't even play Deep Rock Galactic with us and his Discord calls sound robotic.

If you are looking at Northern Ohio, Strongsville, North Royalton, Solon, Perrysburg, Parma Heights, Massillion all are decent places.

Parma/Parma Heights has the reputation of being the "Staten Island" of Cleveland FYI

I spent a few days in Cincinnati on our baseball tour a few years ago and had a great time. Seemed to have a city/small town vibe, and is a days drive from Chicago or Atlanta.

Don’t know the area terribly well, but it seemed like a place that we wanted to “get to know” better.

My family also really liked Pittsburgh.

Both Columbus and Cincy are great. Cleveland is iffy and too snowy in my opinion

I am very happy in Columbus. I hear Cleveland has better nightlife, but I came from up that way and the snow difference between Columbus and Cleveland is huge. I do not miss it.

Has snowplow service improved at all in Columbus? I was always struck by how bad it was compared to Cleveland. They got less snow, but dealt with the snow they got pretty badly.

I am not sure. WFH keeps me inside most days and we have barely had any snow this year.

Living in Cincy and it's pretty okay! If you're like me and you're coming from the bay then, well, you need a car. Many people that aren't in tech. Smaller town vibes, but that's a pretty good thing. Mortgage for a 3/4 bedroom with a garden etc. is 1/2 of my SF rent.

I'm an Ohio native that's recently moved back to the Columbus area myself. I know the area pretty intimately. Happy to respond to any questions about the area, as I'd love for there to be a larger tech scene around here.

Just out of curiosity, as another Ohio native who left and sometimes thinks of returning, where did you move back to Ohio from?

I was in Seattle before moving back.

Columbus to Seattle was my journey as well, but I have no intention of going back. What brought you back to Ohio?

A few things, some that are pretty general, and some that are pretty specific to my situation.

1. Family in general plays a large role.

2. I'm able to make stronger financial moves. Property is appreciating relatively quickly in the Columbus area, and purchase-cost-to-rent ratios are better here, from the investor PoV.

3. Full remote means that I'm still able to visit Seattle for the larger mountaineering trips, etc. that I like to take part in while being based out of a lower-CoL area. After several years, I was going to have to start taking flights to new destinations, anyway.

4. Opportunity to give back to the communities that gave me my start.

And some other factors come in, too. Covid definitely reduced my perceived benefit of living in Seattle. Nothing's forever though. It's a two-way door.

Two questions, does the area have symmetric gigabit fiber? If so, how reliable is it in your opinion? If not, what is the best option for multiple family members working from home?

How are water, electricity, sewage, road condition, utilities situation? Any reasons why a work from home worker might not want to live there?

I pay $70/mo for full duplex gig FTTH thru AT&T in Columbus. Super reliable but not available everywhere. You can get 1gb down/100mb up cable for similar price city wide.

No issues with utilities. Suburbs are better at handling snow removal/road maintenance than Columbus proper.

The internet infrastructure in Columbus isn't on par with a lot of the larger cities, and I think you'd have a hard time finding the speeds you're looking for, judging by what I've found - seems like there's some limited AT&T fiber, but it's not widespread. My service is reliable, though, and I haven't found bandwidth to be a problem as a full-remote employee.

Utilities are solid and seem much less suspect to outages compared to Seattle, a city I have a lot of experience living in. It's as though having more extreme weather more often ensures that the infrastructure is up to a certain rigor.

Roads are important here, and are well-maintained and addressed (e.g. expect trucks to be salting roads in anticipation for snow storms). Roads are also incredibly well-laid out in an inner/outer belt system that I miss when driving in other cities.

Cleveland and Cincinnati have the best architecture and natural features.

And spectacular symphony orchestras.

As well as world class museums.