What's your dreamtown?

‘Dreamtowns’ offer refuge from big cities - Many Americans would prefer to live in a smaller town, surveys show

Excerpt:

America may be a metropolitan nation, but most of us don't seem very happy about it.

A total of 252 million people — 83.5 percent of all Americans — live in metropolitan areas. That includes 164 million in the 51 biggest metros, the ones with populations above 1 million.

Yet a substantial number of these residents of big cities and inner-ring suburbs don't have their hearts in it. They would prefer to live on the suburban fringe or in small-town America, as repeatedly shown by surveys during the past decade

Comment: Note from the article that for the Midwest, Mankato, Minn. & Stevens Point, Wisc. are considered "dreamtowns". What's the definition of a "dreamtown"?: "well-rounded places with light traffic, healthy economies, moderate costs of living, impressive housing stocks, strong educational systems, and easy access to big-city attractions".

So my question (to my handful of readers) is this: Do you have a "dreamtown"?

Mine is Owatonna MN. Why:

• It is close to the Twin Cities (where our family is). Just 75 miles South of where I now live
  
• It has a nice-sized population of 20,000.
  
• It has all the required shopping including a very nice Cabelas
  
• It has easy access (an hour's drive) to the MSP airport
  
• Housing is very reasonable. I could buy "my house" (a house comparable to what I have in Plymouth) for about $ 150,000 less. So I could trade down and cash out at retirement.
  
• In Minnesota I am also very impressed with Hibbing.
  
• I don't want to live in Wisconsin, Iowa, or Michigan
  

So what's (or where is) your "dreamtown" and why?

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Have you every checked out Bestplaces.net. It enables you to compare cities. Here is the comparison between Plymouth and Owatonna.

Exurbs untenable?

Life on the fringes of U.S. suburbia becomes untenable with rising gas costs

Excerpt:

Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the outer edges of metropolitan areas.

Just off Singing Hills Road, in one of hundreds of two-story homes dotting a former cattle ranch beyond the southern fringes of Denver, Phil Boyle and his family openly wonder if they will have to move close to town to get some relief.

They still revel in the space and quiet that has drawn a steady exodus from U.S. cities toward places like this for more than half a century. Their living room ceiling soars two stories high. A swing-set sways in the breeze in their backyard. Their wrap-around porch looks out over the flat scrub of the high plains to the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

But life on the distant fringes of suburbia is beginning to feel untenable. Boyle and his wife must drive nearly an hour to their jobs in the high-tech corridor of southern Denver. With gasoline at more than $4 a gallon, Boyle recently paid $121 to fill his pickup truck with diesel. The price of propane to heat their spacious house has more than doubled in recent years.

Comment: It would be great if the energy crisis revitalized the cities!