Hmmm...perhaps some perspective. I live in Socal, with folks and family in Texas (San Antonio to be accurate) and spend a great deal of my vacation time in the upper midwest (Montana).
San Antonio is getting pretty bad (even my elderly folks are talking about leaving), and they live on the north side.
I think it depends on what you want, because you ain't going to get both. Easy, convenient city living (with all the associated bullshit that comes with living in a city) or harsh, desolate (and free) living that requires some planning and intestinal fortitude to gut out the rough times (whether it be weather, loneliness, sparse employment), etc.). Personally, I'm of the "get off my fucking lawn" type of guy that prefers the wide open spaces, cordial but irregular neighborly interactions that goes with real country living (not the suburban version of "country estate living" which never lasts more than 10 years before it starts to fill up, traffic gets crazy, and you end up as just another planned community). Kind of impossible to have both (country living and urban convenience), so I tend to prefer the "plan you shit, stock your pantry, always have a back up plan to the back up plan" that goes with rural life.
As to Texas...well, my mother (who has lived there now for 20+ years with my father) has a humorous saying that is oft quoted around the Christmas dinner table...
"Welcome to Texas, where everything is bigger...especially the assholes."
San Antonio is getting pretty bad (even my elderly folks are talking about leaving), and they live on the north side.
I think it depends on what you want, because you ain't going to get both. Easy, convenient city living (with all the associated bullshit that comes with living in a city) or harsh, desolate (and free) living that requires some planning and intestinal fortitude to gut out the rough times (whether it be weather, loneliness, sparse employment), etc.). Personally, I'm of the "get off my fucking lawn" type of guy that prefers the wide open spaces, cordial but irregular neighborly interactions that goes with real country living (not the suburban version of "country estate living" which never lasts more than 10 years before it starts to fill up, traffic gets crazy, and you end up as just another planned community). Kind of impossible to have both (country living and urban convenience), so I tend to prefer the "plan you shit, stock your pantry, always have a back up plan to the back up plan" that goes with rural life.
As to Texas...well, my mother (who has lived there now for 20+ years with my father) has a humorous saying that is oft quoted around the Christmas dinner table...
"Welcome to Texas, where everything is bigger...especially the assholes."