Why is everyone headed to Texas?
By Gus Wezerek Graphics Editor, Opinion |
My first job after college was in San Francisco. I grew up in the Midwest and went to school there, too. Stepping outside the San Francisco airport, I could have counted the number of friends I had in the city on one hand. |
I spent much more than the recommended 30 percent of my salary renting a windowless room that could barely fit a full-size bed. Statues of angels and aliens filled the apartment — courtesy of my landlord, who was also my roommate. She had a habit of leaving half-eaten food around the kitchen and arguing loudly with her boyfriend into the early morning. |
It was the best year of my life. |
In San Francisco, I fell in love. Not with a person or a job but with the Bay Area itself. My apartment didn't matter because I was rarely at home. There were too many parks to explore. I biked everywhere, grinding up and bombing down the city's hills. Dinner meant tacos from El Farolito, loaded with so many toppings from the salsa bar that the tissue paper that lined the red plastic basket would soak through. |
I arrived in San Francisco in 2012, and I left in 2013. I had fallen in love again — this time with a man, and that man lived in Boston. |
More recently, I've been dwelling on the memories of my stint in California. My partner and I slipped into our 30s during the Covid pandemic and have been researching where we can afford to raise a family. San Francisco seems prohibitively expensive, but maybe another city in California would fill the bill? Sacramento, maybe, or San Diego? |
For the past year, I've been working with my colleague Yaryna Serkez on a quiz that helps people like me decide where to live. We gathered data for 16,847 towns and cities across more than 30 metrics, from sources like Yelp, AccuWeather and Realtor.com. Pick the metrics that matter to you, and we'll show you places that match your priorities. |
The Times columnist Farhad Manjoo has also been mulling a move, away from California. He took the quiz, looking for a place with high-paying jobs, racial diversity and lower climate-change risks. Most of his top matches were in the Dallas suburbs, so he decided to visit and see what all the fuss over Texas is about. |
Whether you're open to living anywhere in the country or deciding among a few nearby towns, choosing a place to live is one of life's most consequential decisions. The open-endedness of searching can be paralyzing. |
We hope that this quiz will make the decision feel less overwhelming. My partner and I haven't settled on where we want to move, but the quiz has given us a solid shortlist, including a few places that we weren't previously considering. I hope it will do the same for you. |
(If you're the kind of reader who likes reading the fine print, you're in luck. We also published a long explanation of how the quiz works.) |
Subscriber Exclusive: Parenting during the pandemic hasn't been easy. Kick back and laugh about the trials and triumphs of raising tiny humans, with the comedian Michelle Buteau and Jessica Grose of The Times's parenting newsletter at a virtual event on Dec. 8. R.S.V.P. here. |
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