I didn't read every page of this thread, but the topic is something I struggle with a lot and thought I could add some suggestions and points to consider. I live in Portland, Oregon, I hate my job, the weather gets on my nerves for about half the year, our cost of living is high, making our lives stressful, and I wish I could have more land and a simpler life. On the other hand, I live on what I assume is probably the best street in the nation for community, I earn a decent salary, and I love so many things about Oregon that I just need to take little vacations to remind myself why I moved here and what it is that makes me stay here despite its drawbacks. The fact that I can't have both my neighborhood and a home on acreage is a constant source of frustration. But I can't have my cake and eat it too.
I work as a market analyst, which gives me access to lots of time to research places, demographics, and statistics, so it's perfect for my constant daydreaming about leaving Oregon and finding the perfect new place. I actually think I've posted two threads about this topic on the BYC. I think the most important point I have to make, besides listing places that have caught my fancy or telling you that you have to keep in mind the weak economy and the lack of jobs in most cheap places, is what you said about your high taxes. And the list of states ranked by high to low taxes that someone posted early on. Here's the thing about taxes: we all hate them, but whether we admit it to ourselves or not, they are directly related to the quality of life in a place no matter how you cut it. Both as a cause and effect. People wouldn't pay those taxes if the place weren't desirable. And while I'm sure people are going to bring up how much bureaucratic waste costs in our nation when I say this, property taxes fund the important public services that result in you being surrounded by the type of people you want. Which leads me to this comment, which I want to address before going on.
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Are you serious?? Both of you are going to use hateful, cliche labels in reference to a crowd that probably makes up a good 80% of the folks on here?? I'll have you know those "hicks" you are referring to probably know more about making a good, honest living off the land than I'm sure you ever will. WE are good, hard-working folks, who may talk a little funny but be darned if any of our neighbors go hungry or without. But what do I know, I'm just a hick.
I know how you feel about this, and I think I could lend a little bit of perspective to the matter. When I was a kid, I was forced to move to the South with my parents, leaving my adult siblings behind. Their derisive attitude taught me to be the kind of bigot who uses words like hick too and I moved out of Alabama as fast as possible. But I've gained enough life experience since then to understand a few things I didn't get when I lived there, and I won't be using terms like that again. I've learned that there's so much to love about both California (where I was born) and Alabama, where I hated to live, that maybe there's no such thing as a bad place to live, and it's what you make of it. People tried to tell me that as a kid and I never believed them. In retrospect, I was surrounded by an awesome community in Alabama, and I should have appreciated them more.
After having said that, it's important for people who take offense at that kind of sentiment to understand that while it's not totally fair, it is grounded in some tiny kernel of truth. Maybe the derision and judgment could be done without, but you have to see through it to the thing she actually is trying to convey, instead of the way it was put. After I go back to Alabama to visit my husband's family, I always remember why I left, and sadly, no matter how much I love them, it's largely because of the people. Don't get me wrong: they are family, they are generally good people, and I'm teaching myself that there's no good reason for me to feel like I'm better than them. They have things that I don't have, blessings I'll never get, and skills that I envy. On the other hand, not one of my husband's many family members is what I would call literate. I'm serious. They can't read. Few of them graduated high school, and the one that is going to college barely has the cognitive skills necessary to do well. Being a hard worker, and a good kid, she's going to succeed in life. She's spotted the social links she needs to make that happen and she's working with them. But the fact is that the overall failure of her peers, friends, and neighbors is directly related to the education system there. Her parents' and grandparents' generations have repeatedly voted down the property tax increases that would fund the schools in the area, and her grandmother still has the gall to ask how come her grandkids' teachers couldn't have been bothered to put in work after hours to help her grandkids succeed. The link between being willing to invest in one's community through taxes and having neighbors one can stand is lost on them, while it seems so obvious to me.
Now I know the OP stated she is homeschooling her kids, and I think that's great. I plan to do the same thing. But despite this, I won't move to a place with low property taxes, which result in low quality of education (compare the lists of the states with high taxes to the states with the best schools...and also the lowest rates of obesity, if you don't agree with me) because I don't want my kids to be the only educated kids around. I want them to have friends who have bright futures and ambitions, and I don't want them to feel like loners simply because they can read, like I did when I lived in Alabama. My parents put me in private school when we moved there because of the poor quality educational offerings, and it was still not anywhere near as good as what I had in public school in California. And kids ogled me for knowing silly little facts I picked up in books. These were rich, private school kids, whose parents actually cared about their development. When you live in a place where people aren't willing to invest in schools, you end up with an overall lower level of capability, even among the kids whose parents are willing to invest in them.
The short version of the last two paragraphs can be summarized by saying that if you don't want to live by what you call "hicks" then don't move to a place with low property taxes. Maybe you'll get lucky and be surrounded by gentlemen farmers like Thomas Jefferson, but look around you...do you see much of that in modern America? There's only one Monticello. Property taxes fund schools, which improve the community your kids will have to live in.
Ok, on to any tangible advice I have about actual places in this great, large nation we live in. Since I spend so much time reconsidering my move away from Alabama, I think you might consider it. It's far from your family, but it's got low property taxes, several major cities, good land for very cheap, and not a bad economy. It's near the beach and near the very bottom of the Appalachians. The climate is great if you like to feel warm like I do. If I were you, I'd look at the small towns near Birmingham, which is the state's largest city. You could have lots of land but not be totally cut off from culture. Montgomery actually has quite a bit more culture than I ever gave it credit for when I lived there, and the population overall seems almost more educated in some ways than I've found here in Portland, despite what statistics say. Or you could choose a nice little college town like Auburn, Montevallo, or Tuscaloosa. Alabama doesn't have the same water shortage problem that Georgia faces because its population isn't so large as to be sucking its water resources dry. If it weren't for the water issue, I'd recommend Athens, Georgia.
Virginia, where you mentioned having family, is a great choice actually. Another place I couldn't wait to get out of, and now sort of regret leaving, the property values in the country are very cheap there. I'm talking southern Virginia along the NC border. The military presence here keeps the economy very stable. Suffolk, which used to be country, is getting really built up, but you can go to one of the farther-flung areas outside the Hampton Roads metro and have some of the nation's best farmland while being close to both the Hampton Roads and Richmond metros. Not to mention DC. But I'd stay away from the area outside DC. Too much growth too fast in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. There are major infrastructural problems there because of that. You can always visit the culture in DC without living there.
Aside from that, I can only speculate about places I've researched but have never been. You say upstate New York is too cold for you, but you would have the best of both worlds there in terms of low property value but high educational levels and good community, especially outside a place like Ithaca. One of the people I most respect in life came from there and is back there now and loving it. The cost of living is low, but the quality of community is high. And the economy isn't bad either from what I hear.
Pennsylvania has always fascinated me too. Pittsburgh is beginning to enter a phase of renaissance, from what I hear, and the land outside the city is also very cheap. For what you'll earn from the sale of your house, you could get a house inside Pittsburgh, with enough leftover for a nice down payment on a good sized chunk of land outside the city. A major drawback is that I hear that pollution there is very high and I don't think the state's education is that great...but I may be mis-remembering.
Finally, if you didn't have the restriction of wanting to be near your family, I'd suggest coming out here to Portland. People here hate religion to the degree that I'm constantly made uncomfortable by their bigotry, being a religious person myself. It's unreal how rude people can be about others' faiths, and how closed-minded, while at the same time criticizing people of faith for being closed-minded and bigoted. Immediately assuming that if you have faith it's because you're stupid, or brainwashed, or illiterate. The economy is pretty bad here so I'd wait till I had a job lined up before selling a house to come here. But the climate is a lot milder than New York's winters (despite the very cold weather we've had this week). We rarely get snow in the valley, but we're an hour or less away from the mountain, which has all the skiing, hiking, canoeing, and tubing you could want. Farmland is too expensive, but you could get a cabin on the mountain for not very much. We have rivers, mountains, and beaches galore and the state's educational levels are reasonably good. I think our property taxes are about a third of what you pay. Our schools aren't great, but educated people move here for the benefits of the lifestyle, so there's high literacy. A major drawback is that there are so many hippies. Despite there being a lot of educated people here who snub their nose at people of faith, those same people in the next breath will begin spouting all manner of hippie pseudoscience as if it were something to take for granted. But you'll rarely find a more beautiful place.
Except for where I used to live in Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula, across Puget Sound from Seattle. I dream of going back there a lot. The property in Oregon and Washington will never be as cheap as it is in the South, but the proximity to culture and a more educated populace makes up for it.
For your purposes, I'd make a list of college towns in the states you'd actually consider living in, and then research jobs, property values, income levels, and educational levels. Then visit them. It's probably the best way to find what you're looking for.
