“Did you see Yahoo’s front page?” wrote my friend Venus yesterday. “There was a story about America’s smartest cities and Fort Collins made the list… not bad at #12. I’m sure they wouldn’t have made the board had you not moved there!”
The last part was pretty funny since I am just a dumdum. But it is true that in this progressive college town there are lots of educated folks. How Fort Collins beat out, say, Berkeley, California, is beyond me, but maybe the latter’s vagrants and panhandlers helped us. 
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As the Vietnam adventure winds down I cannot help but count the days towards a rejoiceful return home. Augmenting my eagerness is a recent Money Magazine article that a friend just sent me proclaiming its best places to live in America for 2006. Can you guess which city tops the list? Continue reading »
Apparently, I was not the only one who thought Fort Collins was a special place when I decided to move here. The Fort has racked up a ridiculous number of awards in the last decade. Probably its most notable award was when Money Magazine proclaimed it in 2006 as the “Best Place to Live” in the U.S. of all cities with less than 300,000 people. Below is a list of some of its other awards. Continue reading »
To help me decide where to relocate to, I created a spreadsheet summarizing some of the vital statistics of various cities under consideration in the U.S. The spreadsheet is here, with cities arranged in order of decreasing preference:
http://felixwong.com/world/us_cities_comparison.xls
All of these cities were visited in my Great American Road Trip of 2005.
10/1: Added Ashland & Medford. I have now visited every single city that was on my list, concluding the Great American Western Road Trip! A recap of the GAWRT will be coming soon. Right now I am revisiting Bend, which is still on top of the rankings! Also added property tax data for each locale. With the exception of Portland, property tax rates are low in the west (esp. CO and UT), and much higher in the eastern and southern U.S. Continue reading »
Ashland marked the end of my Great American Western Road Trip, which began on July 28th. Hard to believe it has been over 2 months already! In any case, Ashland was a wonderful end to an amazing trip. This town of 20,000 people has lots of character, culture, and beauty. Excerpts from an email are below: Continue reading »
“I keep trying to move out of Boulder,” said my friend Micah, citing the high cost of living here plus congestion problems. “But I just have not found a place that can offer all that Boulder can.”
Indeed, Boulder offers world-class cycling, skiing, and rock climbing, along with one of the nation’s hippest pedestrian malls and perhaps the fittest population in the country. It also has been named the healthiest town in the country, the best city for runners, the town with the highest percentage of people having a bachelor’s degree (an astounding 67%), and the most dog-friendly town, as well as the Denver metro area being voted one of the best towns for singles. At least from a city standpoint (neglecting scenery), this is my favorite town in all of Colorado. More impressions coming soon. In the meantime, you can check out these photos.
