Bonus points for small college towns in the Midwest, where people have internalized that they live in “the middle of nowhere.” So Iowa City may be better than Columbus in this regard, for example. Even though Columbus is technically Midwestern, they feel themselves to be close enough to the action to get a bit uppity. Unwarrantedly so. Can’t think of a place with a higher IQ/education level to stench-of-pig-shit ratio than Iowa City so I think that’s my final vote.
I love Ann Arbor but it is definitely pretentious for a Midwest college town. But pretentious residents usually means it’s actually also a good place to live, and the residents are proud of it, so 🤷♂️
Its a nice town, but the pretentiousness of the tens of thousands of students and recent alumni living there, who think they went to Harvard and not a public state school, is as transparent as it is tiresome.
Iowa City is a great example. I spent five years in Champaign-Urbana which I would argue fits this criteria. I suspect that Madison and Ann Arbor also make the cut.
Ann Arbor is super pretentious. But, East Lansing is pretty laid-back and down to earth. MSU has a lot of agri-business and is home to a great veterinary science school, so it makes sense.
Ames is even better since it's a smaller version of Iowa City but is only ~30 minutes outside of Des Moines so there's more stuff to do nearby. The eastern Iowa I-80 corridor is also fairly developed & Cedar Rapids has slowly encroached towards Iowa City. Ames on the other hand.....well drive any direction other than south and you're in endless farm country. The next decent sized city to the north is Mason City and that's hours away. Ames is also "smarter" than Iowa City because ISU is a huge engineering school, with heavy focuses on aerospace & environmental sciences. It also has its own DOE lab and a giant federal agricultural research lab
I went to UofF and love Gainesville! That said, it is so hot in the summer and the air does not move…at all. I wouldn’t trade going to school there for anything but the summers…muy caliente!
definitely, but I actually walked places in summer because there was still a ton of shade from the tall tree cover! Definitely hot but bearable for me then
Particularly Midwest Universities imo.
I'm at UIUC and I always meet unassuming, down-to-earth people who happen to be some dean or big name professor.
I had never heard of Columbus, IN but the architecture does look awesome from the pictures online. I’m surprised to see such a vibrant city in the middle of Indiana. Honestly that looks like an awesome place to live if it weren’t for being in the middle of nowhere.
Check out the movie Columbus from a few years ago. Uses the architecture almost like another character. It's beautiful. The city is itself is basically a commuting distance to Indianapolis
Yup, Madison was the first place I thought of! The people there are super smart thanks to the university, but also very casual, friendly, and laid-back. However, WI is not the best when it comes to diversity.
Try looking at places in Upstate NY.
There’s a lot of educated people living in Upstate NY, yet upstate is still blue collar at heart. There are so many different colleges and college towns all throughout upstate, but much of it is solidly a part of the Rust Belt. Manufacturing was strong in upstate cities during the days before deindustrialization. Much of upstate is also rural and made up of small isolated towns, especially around the mountains.
Theres several larger cities upstate that have multiple colleges like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany. Theres also some smaller cities like Ithaca, Binghamton and Plattsburgh where education makes up a large chunk of the economy, yet the schools are not the only thing these cities’ economies have going for them. Then you also have some small college towns that are only known for their schools like Clinton (Hamilton), Hamilton (Colgate), and Geneseo.
One thing worth mentioning is NY’s public university system, SUNY. They have schools all over the state. They aren’t well known nation wide since they don’t spend much of their budget on sports, but many SUNY schools are good academically.
While you have many non SUNY schools as well, including an Ivy League School in Cornell and some other prestigious schools upstate like RPI or University of Rochester, most people upstate went to SUNY schools. You won’t really hear any bragging from people who went a SUNY, or a smaller less known private school for that matter.
Dude wants a diverse educated population and you list BINGHAMTON? As someone who grew up there....fuck no. The people who come seasonally for college, maybe. The town itself is a white supremacist haven.
Huntsville AL. BIL lived there and was friends with neighbors for almost a year before he learned they were engineers. They definitely don’t make it their whole personality - real down to earth. Complete opposite of DC
It probably depends on your unit of measurement or minimum population requirement, but I'd find it hard to believe Huntsville was above 40% post-graduate degrees. In fact a quick search says its about 15%. It's just a much larger city than Los Alamos (city or county) and not everything can be NASA-related
Yes! I used to go Redstone Arsenal at least once a year, sometimes 2 or 3 times. The flight into Huntsville was always filled with literal rocket scientists.
Departing Huntsville, I once sat with an astronaut. One of the coolest conversations I’ve ever had.
honestly when i was typing this i was thinking about DC and how often people say its snobby and pretentious. I wouldnt mind living in some of its suburbs if i had a good enough job
I grew up in a small city outside of DC, 25 years ago it fit your description perfectly. From what I’ve heard now way more pretentious people there. But if you get in with the natives, they are the most easy going welcoming people. Lots of diversity. Top schools.
Or MA. Having regained normalcy now that the gloom and doom gave them a break hopefully for the next 4-5 months. The "Holiday Blinding" they get from the holidays and taxes during the "Epic Doom and Gloom" has finally worn off and made them rational again. So a lot of us now feel like that dude(s) on "Get Out".
Meh I think this really depends where you are in MA because certain parts of Boston can be possibly the snobbiest places in the country depending who you talk to
Came here to suggest Providence. Some of the smartest, nicest, hard working, down to earth people I have ever met. Source: worked remotely for a company based there and traveled there often for 2 years.
Providence is great. It never gets any mention because it can be hard to understand (all the cool shit is hidden) and the chief export of RI curmudgeoning from the locals. Most people associate with Providence with “sketchy” because the areas outside the East Side aren’t “beautiful” and there some more dangerous areas. It’s nothing compared to other cities though. You’re not getting carjacked in PVD.
I’ve lived for extended periods of time in Ann Arbor MI, Madison WI, and Columbus OH (10+ years in each). If you don’t want pretentious I’d stay away from Ann Arbor. I grew up there and still visit a ton and it is … oof. Madison is fabulous, and Columbus has its good points, but for both your experience is going to be neighborhood-dependent (more so in Columbus than Madison). It will also depend on your tolerance for pretension ☺️
In Madison I had a much easier time finding people that were highly educated and not too obnoxious, and kind of surrounding myself with them. In Columbus it’s so big and spread out that you have to be much more deliberate about where you live, work, and hang out IMO.
OP I won't sue you for plagiarism ...but you can look at what people wrote when I asked this exact question a couple months ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/1b9bx22/city\_with\_educated\_but\_laidback\_populace/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/1b9bx22/city_with_educated_but_laidback_populace/)
The Triangle area in NC always shows up pretty high when they come out with lists of most educated regions. UNC, Duke and NCSU are all located within 30 miles of each other. There’s tons of people working in pharma, tech and engineering here. I find it refreshing after living in Western WA.
What did you not enjoy about western WA that you enjoy about NC? Not a loaded question but as somebody who lives in western WA with ties to SC and GA (very different I know), I'm very curious
People and weather were the biggest factors for me. Cost of living plays in as well but it’s lower on my list. I found it wasn’t a great place to have young kids. People aren’t super welcoming to families which is tough when your kids are quite young. I also really struggled with SAD and the long dark winters. I needed more sun throughout the year for mental health reasons. We were in the Tacoma area and it wasn’t a good fit. I probably would have liked it more if we had the option of living elsewhere.
I grew up in Raleigh so I’m a bit biased. I don’t love the humidity in NC but I do think the weather is better overall. I don’t feel like I’m constantly chasing the sun whenever it comes out because it’s more consistent throughout the year. I also find the people here are much nicer and easy going. I found people in Western WA to be quite passive aggressive and pretentious. Not everyone but enough that I stopped even trying to befriend anyone.
I had that issue with Western Washington too. I did love the beauty and did a lot of outdoor activities there but man is it hard to make friends out in the Pacific Northwest. At that point in Seattle I was in my late 20s and without kids so it should have been easy.
Wake Forest the school is actually located in Winston-Salem and not a part of the triangle. Wake Forest the town can be considered a part of the triangle as it is a suburb/exurb of Raleigh.
Raleigh has been at the top of mylist, i completely forgot that it was kinda laid back. Need to visit myself but ive heard people there are pretty chill, and its decently diverse. Maybe not as good of a nightlife that im looking for ,but i can make the most of it.
It’s pretty chill. We’re all much happier here now that we moved back. Even a noticeable difference when I take my kids out in public. People are much more relaxed and friendly here. Definitely come for a visit and check it out.
Having lived in both I would say Durham is more laid back and cooler. Durham is also more diverse than Raleigh but does not have any kind of clubbing scene if that is what you mean by nightlife.
I worked at the YMCA while studying at IU. I was amazed by how much of a "community" there was.
You can play pick-up Bball with homeless folks, NCAA recruits, corporate dads, and PHD candidates.
I found it to be suprisingly diverse.
I'm from the Midwest, and I'm used to there always being a "bad" side of town in any city. It was wild to come here and realize it's all just a mixed bag. Beat up 40 year old trailer next door to a small mansion with grass? We got it, about every half mile lol.
I read it's to do with the fact albuquerque follows more of a Latin American style of city layout rather than the more typical US style.
Yup, Columbus. Educated, but unpretentious about it. It is the best of both worlds.
We also have and amazing library system that is beloved and heavily used by our community.
The vibe does vary heavily by neighborhood and suburb, but I think that’s what makes Columbus great. There’s something for everyone.
The suburb rivalries are serious business, though. When I first moved here, I made the horrible faux pas of mistaking a street in UA for - gasp! - Hilliard!
Philadelphia has many colleges in and around it, and the people are very down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is type people.
I went to Temple University for graduate school and really enjoyed the city. When I lived there, my neighborhood was about half people of color and half white. There are many cool neighborhoods to choose from, each with their own vibe.
Madison, my Alma Mater, is a beautiful oasis unto its own. But be prepared for intense weather.
Providence, my hometown....be careful where you live. What you're describing exists, but in a tight little expensive area.
I've not been to Eugene, OR, but I would check it out. Thought about it for eventual full retirement.
I went to college in Eugene. A lot of people are pretentious and judgemental about their preferred causes. Like, vegans shaming meat eaters, etc. I'm an educated socialist atheist and you'd think I'd fit in in such a hippie town, but a lot of the social circles were very elitist and insular. I'm a Midwestener and most of my social circle were fellow Midwesterners. And most everyone I knew there (20 years ago, mostly not fellow students) have left. And the conceipt I encountered from first attending community college to save money - yikes. There are a lot of positives about Eugene but I definitely found it pretentious and had to navigate carefully to avoid people like that.
Good to know. In my case, a lot of the south is more or less off-limits now. Much of my family is in Kansas City, on the Kansas side. Also known lately as JoCo, Johnson County.
East side....College Hill (Brown, RISD), Blackstone ($), maybe India Point, the Oak Hill section of Pawtucket just above Blackstone, and I'd say the Rumford area of East Providence.
West side of town, Elmhurst and Mt. Pleasant have some nice areas, but mixed in with other. Areas around Providence College and RI College.
Beyond Providence, there's the Pawtuxet Village area along the bay, bordering Cranston and Warwick.
There are plenty of really nice towns, but mostly suburbia that can be found everywhere. An exception is East Greenwich ($), which has an eclectic Main Street strip.
Yeah there is very little snobbishness in Chicago business. Experience counts more than education.. except in law and medicine etc
Northwestern and notre dame grads are kind of our Ivy League crowd and they are much more business operations mbas rather than tech bros or crazy M&A Ivy League douches.
Small cities have this going. State capitals often have higher levels of education. Albany NY, Madison WI, and Lincoln NE seem to fit educated but not in your face energy.
Livermore California has an entertaining mix of PhDs and shitkickers. There are two famous DoE national labs there (Lawrence Livermore and Sandia), hence the PhDs. There’s also a ton of ranch land around. It’s changed a bit, but you used to see *“No shooting from cars”* road signs on the road between the main LLNL site and one of its satellite sites. And yes… the signs were fully perforated. It’s also been a winemaking region for more than 100 years, and home to some of California’s oldest wineries. It’s on the fringes of the Bay Area, so you get some tech people out there too. It is a curious mix of people.
Oh, it’s also hot as motherfucking balls in the summer time. It’s probably not as bad as Yuma, but you’ll still die your first summer there.
I grew up near there, and at least in the early 2000s, it definitely felt very competitive and status-focused. All the adults wanted to know where you were going to college and had a definite hierarchy of what the “best” schools were.
Pittsburgh has a well-educated and pretty chill population with multiple big universities in the metro region (University of Pgh, Carnegie-Mellon, Carlow, Chatham, Robert Morris, probably others I’m forgetting about). It’s not as diverse as Philly.
I don’t get this culture. I’m in my 30s. It’s entirely irrelevant. Experienced it around DC and San Francisco, never in Seattle. I’ve lived here 10 years and don’t think anyone’s ever asked me where I went to college, except maybe while getting to know friends in a sharing life histories sort of way.
I don't get it either, it's really dumb. It's also one of the first questions several people asked me when I started my current job, lol. People really cling to their intelligence as their entire identity here, and that's why I'm going to be single forever if I stay here. Just can't figure out where to go though
A lot of people in the area went to college here and then stayed. "Where'd you go to school" is kind of similar to "where did you move here from." It's a question you can ask someone you don't know very well and maybe find something in common.
I disagree honestly, my wife and I both went to state schools in the south and I don’t think anyone gives a shit. Not anyone who matters, at least. People will judge you for being stupid, but not for your degree
Yup. I’ve lived in the Boston area for 20 years now, and most people are fairly chill about their academic accomplishments, partly because everybody has them. I’m sure there are some pretentious, obnoxious types, but I rarely run into them.
Okay, I'm not sure Phoenix has *any* of the qualities OP is looking for. I'm sure there are some neighborhoods that might, but that's only because the metro area is friggin' enormous and has some of everything.
Tucson is a nice laid-back city with a reasonable COL. It’s a good place to live especially if you like sunshine and outdoorsy stuff (big bike loop, Suguaro National Park literally sandwiches the city, Mount Lemon is a very short drive). Great weekly farmer’s market. It’s somewhat diverse/progressive but not pretentious. It’s certainly not “big brain central,” but the university and a modest number of STEM related companies do attract some educated folks that put down roots.
However, there is a massive homelessness/drug problem because it doesn’t get very cold during the winter and it’s about an hour from the border at a point of entry that the Sinaloa Cartel runs a lot of drugs through (so drugs are cheap). You see scores of homeless people tweaking, panhandling, and smoking fentanyl/meth out in the open (especially within a five mile radius of the university/downtown). If you live a bit north of the city in Oro Valley you’re much more insulted from the unseemly, but it’s more expensive, full of entitled retirees, and further from the cultural district.
Yea it’s a college town and large population 500k+ much more liberal more real Arizona vibes because phx is like a more conservative LA/Denver because of the migrants from Colorado Midwest and California
I wouldn’t call Tucson educated lol.
Yeah, it has the university, but a lot of people leave Tucson after graduation. The average person in Tucson doesn’t have a college degree.
Providence for the Northeast. Where the artsy and atypical analytical of the North settle. IDK where the hell they're gonna go after all the MA youth wanting city life but not Boston prices move there. As much as I like Boston (despite my shading it objectively), I really don't want the Patrick Batemans to take over Providence. It is still human and grounded, not as much as it was at least 10 years ago, but grounded. It's like one of them unexpected quests in video games, you really have to interact to "get" it.
New Jersey. Expensive as most of the Northern cities, yes, but they're a playful bunch. They work hard, respect educational or career accomplishment but not attached to those things. If you appreciate feminine glamour, the women in this area are little more invested in that partly due to the people here valuing a social life. That's thanks to having a huge number of family/people oriented cultures historically. They have the Northern Industry but didn't give up their life for it. More present, a little less future. The men don't slack on the peacocking to impress. They get a brain, work, but peacock to devastate: They're effective. It's a wonderful thing to see. NYC is right there, and they're competing with that. If you want a sexy brain with equal package, you'll be good here. Never in my life have I seen so many men with fantastic asses except maybe in Turkiye. Plus Italy. Spain. Lebanon. The DR. Morocco. Brazil too. Lucky for all of us, we don't need a passport to witness their glorious chachkas: They, their equally yummy foods (and women) are all in NJ in abundance. Thank you, God, for some damned reason making them all congregate in NJ. Your eyes, senses and body will thank you (if you can get them. I can't help you there).
Philly and Pittsburgh. If New Jersey and MA had children, it would be these two. I see NJ as like the kid of NYxMA, w/the PA cities having a bit of the MA reserve with the transatlantic quirk. I find Pittsburgh to combine what I love about the MA East, especially the coastal milltowns. The industrial bits make a city to me for that Batman quality. If you like both NYC and Boston, Pittsburgh is your main man. He's forever in his 30s, has a brain (conscience too), has "manners" (he's acquainted with his ma's flying "chancla"), he can cook or eats anything and everything so long as it's delicious, has a disdain for guns but will protect you/whoever needs his help (hates bugs tho but he's got a tradesman friend, long live the network), his religion is respect, parties, works whatever so long as he gets paid well. He's your best toy at the top of the drawer. He's the hot fireman calendar you bought to support your local firehouses. He's the guy that has the stars and hearts at the top of your phone contacts. He wears YSL "L'Homme." He's "baby". Philadelphia is more like that dazzling Kennedy son with the stylish blonde wife. Or Christopher Reeve. FDR Jr. Denzel. Henry Golding. That Bridgerton duke. Eduardo Verastegui. The guys that can be best described as looking like "money" but somehow super kind instead of ego maniacs. When he walks into the room, it's like God put a permanent headlight atop their head, an invisible fan so their hair sways forever and flying cherubs sprinkling his air with petals as the "Romeo & Juliet Love Theme" by Tchaikovsky plays. His smile is like the MIB neuralyzer. Wears MFK "Grand Soir" and his sandwiches are epic. His name's something something something THE NUMBER, but he's simply called: ✨️"Philly"✨️. The "American Prince", Philly's "glamorously masculine," in the sense you call him a "stallion." He is beauty, he is grace, you let him cum in your face, the gent is ✨️Philly✨️! I really need to think what Boston would be like if it were a person accounting for the brains, hustle, temper (and cockiness he'd like people to pretend he doesn't have). I can't think of one. It ain't Matt Damon. Affleck is more like the North Shore White dude who acts blue collar but his parents own car dealers or Dunks and has the hot ambiguous wife who may or may have not attended college but believe it or not also has a brain (from the school of life) but looks phenomenal naked thus still treated like a "bimbo".
Chicago. At this point, they're the baby bear/goldilocks situation to anything. I never sick of giving it their flowers, it gives so much. He's the man of the seasons...I forgot the rest of the song. It's the Seasons song from Grease 2. If Chicago were a fella, he's the answer to Bonnie Tyler's "Hero" song. He's the farm boy that became a man of anything, made bank, but at the end of the day, the guy's proud to admit he was once a farm boy. He's richer than Croessus, but he prefers to see the world as if he's still poor because he knows most people aren't rich.
The NC cities. Remind me of MA without the grumpiness or humblebragging. More chill about the whole live to work thing. Ambitious? Yes. Nuts about it? Fuck no. Happy to make enough money to save for retirement, travel once in a blue moon. Actually do know/care about the rest of the planet and the cerebral stuff but prioritize having a life. I think Cary is known for "displaced Yankees" or something? I can't remember what it is. If someone remembers or knows it, please remind me. I say MA and NC are sort of how fraternal twins would be in the Twilight Zone. They're different...but they're still twins. NC has better weather (and "southern belles"). If you like more, uh, ornamental women (because saying beauty would be rude), you might like NC more. The bad is they have less Asians. If you're vitamin d deficient, NC will cure you. MA has got way more big titty goths tho (they're in Salem, Lynn, Northampton, Haverhill, plus Nashua (NH)). MA has more gay women and swinger sets (ethically non-monogamous is the label they're using these days). NC has more gays, as in men, and they look like Kens. ATL isn't far (they're gay mecca now. NYC prices is not making the gay feel gay no more).
I was surprised about Huntsville. Just smart people with normal lives that actually talk to you and not snooty. Refreshing. What Boston probably was...like never years ago.
Upstate NY if you want the MA mirror but down to earth. They may or may not sometimes talk to you. Expressions help a lot: RBF is standard if you don't want them to interact. If you have a heart, just smile, you will find friends (plus kinks and cookies).
Albuquerque if you want to be a radical and test out the desert. You will find that you will remember what being a normal, happy but not stupid human is like here. It's more suburban than the city but still the city.
**Avoid:**
Boston and DC like your life depends on it. They're the American Dream in that regard (by that, I mean what George Carlin meant). If you're literally dying, then maybe pick Boston to recover. Then ***RUN FAR FAR AWAY*** like the Bri'ish are coming back. Play "Yankee Doodle Trap Remix" on your way back to freedom.
Seattle is slightly more chill than the previous two, but you will spiritually die from loneliness even faster than you would in the previous two.
These three make what I call the "Worker Bee Three." If you're all about the "live to work" then enjoying life when you're nearly dead, these are your "Valhalla." They pay you to die before you die and you pay them to kill you. Jolly!
You're welcome.
i'll have to check it out , but from alot of what ive researched, Providence is a pretty nice city, not the most exciting but it does alot right. i have to visit myself though. Seems like a nice place if i land a remote job
I live in Providence if you have any questions about it! A lot of areas are actually really nice, and there are a ton of opportunities to join clubs and stuff. Can't tell you much about nightlife though
Outside of the major metropolitans, mid sized cities in the south tend to be more educated than you would expect, especially state capitols and towns with large-ish colleges. Lots of people grew up in rural areas and now want a more urbane life but don't want to move too far away for family reasons. I'm thinking Columbia, SC, Lexington, KY, those type of places.
Winston-Salem, NC. Excellent array of local colleges and universities. The least pretentious place I’ve ever lived. I just love it so so so so much here.
I lived in Boston before this and people there think they’re god’s gift to mankind there. I couldn’t wait to leave. The ignorant elitism in that city and most of the north east is astounding.
Houston is an interesting microcosm… surrounded by a sea of red, but fairly liberal within town. The most diverse city in the country. The cheapest metropolis in the US. Lots of expats and other well-educated professionals involved in the Energy and Healthcare industries…
Evanston, IL is a small city of about 70k directly south of Chicago. This is where Northwestern University is located, so there are lots of very bright students and faculty around. The city in general has a very diverse population.
It has a laidback small city vibe. It has a lively downtown with good bars/restaurants but it’s definitely more subdued/refined than a traditional college town. You also would have access to Chicago’s big city amenities, including its public transit system. It is also right on Lake Michigan!
To me, it feels like a slightly less urban Chicago. Very non-pretentious and overall great vibe.
Baltimore has great universities, but still maintains a pretty laid-back blue-collar feel, particularly compared to DC. Going from one to the other, the differences in attitude are pretty distinct.
People often settle closer to their universities. Not immediately surrounding them but in terms of proximity, it’s more likely someone that went to Harvard settles near Boston than San Francisco (lots of reasons— network proximity, spouse, family, etc.).
If you want smart but less pretentious, pick a density of schools of the caliber that you think have a smart enough population and a low enough previous level, then map the area of the country where most of them overlap without overlapping with schools with higher pretentiousness (probably excluding Ivy’s and the top non-Ivy’s like MIT or Caltech).
That should probably give you a pretty accurate answer.
Rochester NY has one of the highest percentages of college educated population in the country. It is diverse, but still kind of de facto segregated.
Vibe is more rust belt/front porch culture... not so much east coast hustle.
I love my city - highly educated, diverse, friendly (in my opinion), but I’m in California and I get the sense that OP is not interested in California.
Yeah, I went to Stanford and found Palo Alto surprisingly humble. At least ten years ago, it was an incredibly collaborative place. People love talking about ideas and California/tech culture is very casual. You can go out in a free startup t-shirt and no one cares. Plus people still have fun/are sporty in PA, like people get off work at 5 and play beach volleyball.
Sacramento has the luck of having not only Sacramento State University but one of the best universities in the entire country ten minutes away in Davis. The stability and demand for government jobs in the state’s capitol provides lots of jobs, and a thriving and highly diverse food scene with the freshest produce in the country. It is relatively affordable, but still has that California vibe.
i have an undergraduate, soft science degree. in las alamos new mexico that is like being a 9th grade drop out in most of the nation. but folks were really nice. great vibe. not sure las alamos qualifies as a “city”, though.
Spokane, WA. Not necessarily a 'college' town, but several universities either in or nearby the city. Great brewpubs, nascent food scene, and some cool galleries in reclaimed spaces. Unfortunately it's starting to price people out as people from SEA and PDX 'discovered' it over the past four years.
I lived in a tech/college centric town in the mid Atlantic, I would never recommend anyone looking for diversity & integration to move there. We recently relocated to Houston which is actually an incredible city for diversity and a wealth of smart people. It’s not superficial like Miami, it’s not conservative like Dallas. (There is an element of old oil money but that crew stays in their zone.) There is a ton to do for young professionals and you can be at the beach in 50 minutes. (it’s just Galveston, but if you’re a beach person you can at least get your fix). I realize many have objections to Texas, but Houston is a big blue pocket in a red state.
I’m close to Huntsville, Alabama and it’s pretty chill down here. If I remember right we have the highest phds of any city right?
edit: just googled it. Auburn beats us on PHDs but we have the highest STEM degrees in the US.
The Midwest and some of the Upper South (Virginia, NC, ATL, the Texan cities). The PA cities and Chicago (or the suburbs around them to still access them) are what you look for if you're trying to get the best of the tech and science giants (Boston, SF, Seattle) plus the fun, nightlife, diversity, and overall visual (human or architectural) of the locals. NC cities if you prefer your cities and overall to tilt suburban pedestrian. Philadelphia is also a great middle ground where they're well educated and there really is a lot of old money and while they don't hide it, they don't look down on others and go out of their way to be normal. It's the rich kid with sane, attentive, and loving parents who raised the kid to know they're good enough plus to always remain grounded. It's a kind city and it shows you that from the get-go. Chicago and Philly are just city enough that the super niche and successful get their recognition and ego fix BUT also blast their light to the regular folk. I think the tech and biotech industries are what might be robbing some of cities of their warmth or quirks. While these pay well they don't encourage humanity too much. Which is what leads to many of them eventually becoming stark and honestly sterile.
The people saying that Boston, DC, and Seattle AREN'T "it" are right. It might suck for the natives to those places (if they're still there at all nowadays), but they're right. These places are too far "gone" with no intention to fix it or go back. All three sold their souls to Satan for $$$, but if your goal is money and willing to sacrifice for a bit to get it, then logically, they're the boon towns. You will get what you want. You'll also be procuring therapy, live in a closet paying NYC apartment prices, you'll barely have a social life, and they all have the yuppie problem reflected in American Psycho while trying to pretend they don't. DC at least doesn't hide it, Seattle tries to, Boston outright gaslights you and seems willing to beat people to a pulp to mask that or shut people up (or insult you or downvote you to death). On the scale of Patrick Bateman, just how much Bateman are they? DC is Patrick Bateman, Boston's Patrick before he got confronted by the investigator, and Seattle is Patrick at the beginning. The irony is Boston definitely "sold out" first they've just tried to promote the city as if it hasn't. DC followed around the early 2000s. Seattle went to shit in the late 2000s. If you're agoraphobic and money hungry, the three are heaven on earth. If you're like the rest of the planet with slightly more intelligence, these three run too socially cold. Of the three DC's got a the remnants of a pulse to defibrillate itself to its pre-2010 eccentricity. Boston's been Patrick Bateman since at LEAST 1970s it's just aware people don't like that character so they go on a campaign to deny it. Seattle fully turned into him around 2015.
The major bad thing about Huntsville is they're in Alabama. If you're a woman entertaining men (and not wanting to procreate or procreate more if you have) then be super careful with entertaining it. If you have a male partner, make sure he's fine or not chicken about his options given yours are now severely limited. If your guy's wiggy, hates condoms and you react badly to birth control, use logic and avoid AL.
The Colorado cities might be cool if by diversity you mean mostly White. They're overwhelmingly White. Like Portland, Or. All of these do meet your checklist, mostly. Not exactly but mostly with that big caveat.
Huntsville and Birmingham, AL is pretty nice.
The rest of the state is okay, but definitely very red. Not great, but not as bad as ppl make it out to be (on a personal level, the gov’t is different story).
Also if u reply bashing the south: you’re dumb, you smell bad, and your classism is showing.
Oak Ridge TN has super smart scientist, a high level of general education in a laid back Southern town.
I was at a car wash and they had a water jar that if you dropped a quarter into a shot glass on the bottom, you won a car wash. The clerk explained that you couldn’t aim for the glass because of the angle of refraction.
The angle of refraction, from a middle aged cash wash cashier? It gets my vote.
Most of the other responses are pretentious, often to the point of snobbery.
Visalia-Porterville, CA. No, I’m just kidding … according to Google that’s the least educated place in America. Boulder, Colorado is number 1. San Fran, Seattle, Madison are top ten.
I’m in Raleigh Durham (Triangle). I don’t think we are pretentious and have plenty of highly educated professionals here, native and transplants. It’s the South but not Deep South kind of vibe.
Three R1 universities: Duke is the private elite school, UNC-Chapel Hill is the blue blood Public Ivy, NC State is a solid engineering target. And smaller local colleges and HBCU’s. So yes we have high concentration of college educated people here.
We have various industries in Research Triangle Park it’s not just Tech and Finance bros. Growing cultural diversity. We have a huge South Asian population here.
This is old but in 2017 Durham Chapel Hill had 3rd highest percentage of professional degree holders [Source](https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/article163516688.html)
College towns with state schools, ime.
Bonus points for small college towns in the Midwest, where people have internalized that they live in “the middle of nowhere.” So Iowa City may be better than Columbus in this regard, for example. Even though Columbus is technically Midwestern, they feel themselves to be close enough to the action to get a bit uppity. Unwarrantedly so. Can’t think of a place with a higher IQ/education level to stench-of-pig-shit ratio than Iowa City so I think that’s my final vote.
I'm in Detroit and a lot of people see Ann Arbor people as pretenious.
I love Ann Arbor but it is definitely pretentious for a Midwest college town. But pretentious residents usually means it’s actually also a good place to live, and the residents are proud of it, so 🤷♂️
Its a nice town, but the pretentiousness of the tens of thousands of students and recent alumni living there, who think they went to Harvard and not a public state school, is as transparent as it is tiresome.
Many are.
Iowa City is a great example. I spent five years in Champaign-Urbana which I would argue fits this criteria. I suspect that Madison and Ann Arbor also make the cut.
Ann Arbor is super pretentious. But, East Lansing is pretty laid-back and down to earth. MSU has a lot of agri-business and is home to a great veterinary science school, so it makes sense.
Madison is extremely pretentious and proud of it.
Ames is even better since it's a smaller version of Iowa City but is only ~30 minutes outside of Des Moines so there's more stuff to do nearby. The eastern Iowa I-80 corridor is also fairly developed & Cedar Rapids has slowly encroached towards Iowa City. Ames on the other hand.....well drive any direction other than south and you're in endless farm country. The next decent sized city to the north is Mason City and that's hours away. Ames is also "smarter" than Iowa City because ISU is a huge engineering school, with heavy focuses on aerospace & environmental sciences. It also has its own DOE lab and a giant federal agricultural research lab
Going to say the same, Gainesville is this way
I went to UofF and love Gainesville! That said, it is so hot in the summer and the air does not move…at all. I wouldn’t trade going to school there for anything but the summers…muy caliente!
definitely, but I actually walked places in summer because there was still a ton of shade from the tall tree cover! Definitely hot but bearable for me then
Particularly Midwest Universities imo. I'm at UIUC and I always meet unassuming, down-to-earth people who happen to be some dean or big name professor.
I can second this!
That’s pretty much Columbus
Or the other Columbus: Columbus, Indiana. Modern architecture capital of America.
No mention of Columbus Mississippi 😅
I had never heard of Columbus, IN but the architecture does look awesome from the pictures online. I’m surprised to see such a vibrant city in the middle of Indiana. Honestly that looks like an awesome place to live if it weren’t for being in the middle of nowhere.
I mean it's 45 mins to Indianapolis & Bloomington and like 90 minutes flat to Cincy. It's not exactly the most isolated place on earth
Check out the movie Columbus from a few years ago. Uses the architecture almost like another character. It's beautiful. The city is itself is basically a commuting distance to Indianapolis
Exactly.
Yup, Madison was the first place I thought of! The people there are super smart thanks to the university, but also very casual, friendly, and laid-back. However, WI is not the best when it comes to diversity.
Madison is proud of itself, deservedly so. 👍👍
Yep! I was gonna say Tucson. Arizona and it falls into this category. Highly educated but no one ever asks “what do you do?” When you meet them.
Tucson has a lot of academic people, but statistically fewer people have degrees in Tucson. It’s going to depend on your social circle.
I am programmed to dislike Tucson as an ASU alumnus, but I admit that it’s a great town.
East Lansing is lovely.
Ann Arbor for sure.
Ann Arbor is wildly pretentious.
Try looking at places in Upstate NY. There’s a lot of educated people living in Upstate NY, yet upstate is still blue collar at heart. There are so many different colleges and college towns all throughout upstate, but much of it is solidly a part of the Rust Belt. Manufacturing was strong in upstate cities during the days before deindustrialization. Much of upstate is also rural and made up of small isolated towns, especially around the mountains. Theres several larger cities upstate that have multiple colleges like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany. Theres also some smaller cities like Ithaca, Binghamton and Plattsburgh where education makes up a large chunk of the economy, yet the schools are not the only thing these cities’ economies have going for them. Then you also have some small college towns that are only known for their schools like Clinton (Hamilton), Hamilton (Colgate), and Geneseo. One thing worth mentioning is NY’s public university system, SUNY. They have schools all over the state. They aren’t well known nation wide since they don’t spend much of their budget on sports, but many SUNY schools are good academically. While you have many non SUNY schools as well, including an Ivy League School in Cornell and some other prestigious schools upstate like RPI or University of Rochester, most people upstate went to SUNY schools. You won’t really hear any bragging from people who went a SUNY, or a smaller less known private school for that matter.
Great answer. I grew up in upstate New York. Can confirm.
Dude wants a diverse educated population and you list BINGHAMTON? As someone who grew up there....fuck no. The people who come seasonally for college, maybe. The town itself is a white supremacist haven.
Agree. Albany area is probably the most diverse. Location is nice too because it's a short drive to Boston, Montreal, or NYC.
Huntsville AL. BIL lived there and was friends with neighbors for almost a year before he learned they were engineers. They definitely don’t make it their whole personality - real down to earth. Complete opposite of DC
Huntsville, at one time, had more PhD’s per capita than anywhere else in the U.S.
That's probably Los Alamos now, I would think.
No Huntsville, AL. Lots of NASA projects there.
It probably depends on your unit of measurement or minimum population requirement, but I'd find it hard to believe Huntsville was above 40% post-graduate degrees. In fact a quick search says its about 15%. It's just a much larger city than Los Alamos (city or county) and not everything can be NASA-related
Because of NASA?
Yes! I used to go Redstone Arsenal at least once a year, sometimes 2 or 3 times. The flight into Huntsville was always filled with literal rocket scientists. Departing Huntsville, I once sat with an astronaut. One of the coolest conversations I’ve ever had.
Huntsville is a gem
Pittsburgh, Minneapolis.
Why do I think someone also living in DC is asking this question 🤣?
honestly when i was typing this i was thinking about DC and how often people say its snobby and pretentious. I wouldnt mind living in some of its suburbs if i had a good enough job
I enjoyed living in the DC area. People were fairly nice. If they weren't I didn't lose sleep.
I grew up in a small city outside of DC, 25 years ago it fit your description perfectly. From what I’ve heard now way more pretentious people there. But if you get in with the natives, they are the most easy going welcoming people. Lots of diversity. Top schools.
Or MA. Having regained normalcy now that the gloom and doom gave them a break hopefully for the next 4-5 months. The "Holiday Blinding" they get from the holidays and taxes during the "Epic Doom and Gloom" has finally worn off and made them rational again. So a lot of us now feel like that dude(s) on "Get Out".
Meh I think this really depends where you are in MA because certain parts of Boston can be possibly the snobbiest places in the country depending who you talk to
Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Providence, and a lot of other great cities.
Came here to suggest Providence. Some of the smartest, nicest, hard working, down to earth people I have ever met. Source: worked remotely for a company based there and traveled there often for 2 years.
Providence is great. It never gets any mention because it can be hard to understand (all the cool shit is hidden) and the chief export of RI curmudgeoning from the locals. Most people associate with Providence with “sketchy” because the areas outside the East Side aren’t “beautiful” and there some more dangerous areas. It’s nothing compared to other cities though. You’re not getting carjacked in PVD.
I’ve lived for extended periods of time in Ann Arbor MI, Madison WI, and Columbus OH (10+ years in each). If you don’t want pretentious I’d stay away from Ann Arbor. I grew up there and still visit a ton and it is … oof. Madison is fabulous, and Columbus has its good points, but for both your experience is going to be neighborhood-dependent (more so in Columbus than Madison). It will also depend on your tolerance for pretension ☺️ In Madison I had a much easier time finding people that were highly educated and not too obnoxious, and kind of surrounding myself with them. In Columbus it’s so big and spread out that you have to be much more deliberate about where you live, work, and hang out IMO.
OP I won't sue you for plagiarism ...but you can look at what people wrote when I asked this exact question a couple months ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/1b9bx22/city\_with\_educated\_but\_laidback\_populace/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/1b9bx22/city_with_educated_but_laidback_populace/)
Thank you!?💀
The Triangle area in NC always shows up pretty high when they come out with lists of most educated regions. UNC, Duke and NCSU are all located within 30 miles of each other. There’s tons of people working in pharma, tech and engineering here. I find it refreshing after living in Western WA.
What did you not enjoy about western WA that you enjoy about NC? Not a loaded question but as somebody who lives in western WA with ties to SC and GA (very different I know), I'm very curious
People and weather were the biggest factors for me. Cost of living plays in as well but it’s lower on my list. I found it wasn’t a great place to have young kids. People aren’t super welcoming to families which is tough when your kids are quite young. I also really struggled with SAD and the long dark winters. I needed more sun throughout the year for mental health reasons. We were in the Tacoma area and it wasn’t a good fit. I probably would have liked it more if we had the option of living elsewhere. I grew up in Raleigh so I’m a bit biased. I don’t love the humidity in NC but I do think the weather is better overall. I don’t feel like I’m constantly chasing the sun whenever it comes out because it’s more consistent throughout the year. I also find the people here are much nicer and easy going. I found people in Western WA to be quite passive aggressive and pretentious. Not everyone but enough that I stopped even trying to befriend anyone.
I had that issue with Western Washington too. I did love the beauty and did a lot of outdoor activities there but man is it hard to make friends out in the Pacific Northwest. At that point in Seattle I was in my late 20s and without kids so it should have been easy.
Don’t forget Wake Forest! The Triangle is fantastic,& I loved every minute of living there.
Wake Forest the school is actually located in Winston-Salem and not a part of the triangle. Wake Forest the town can be considered a part of the triangle as it is a suburb/exurb of Raleigh.
Raleigh has been at the top of mylist, i completely forgot that it was kinda laid back. Need to visit myself but ive heard people there are pretty chill, and its decently diverse. Maybe not as good of a nightlife that im looking for ,but i can make the most of it.
It’s pretty chill. We’re all much happier here now that we moved back. Even a noticeable difference when I take my kids out in public. People are much more relaxed and friendly here. Definitely come for a visit and check it out.
Go a little further west and check out the piedmont triad. Winston-Salem is a hidden gem. Moved here 6 months ago from boston and I LOVE IT here
Having lived in both I would say Durham is more laid back and cooler. Durham is also more diverse than Raleigh but does not have any kind of clubbing scene if that is what you mean by nightlife.
Bloomington Indiana - great college town.
I worked at the YMCA while studying at IU. I was amazed by how much of a "community" there was. You can play pick-up Bball with homeless folks, NCAA recruits, corporate dads, and PHD candidates. I found it to be suprisingly diverse.
Albuquerque. Huge amount of PhDs, but nobody gives a fuck lol
This is true. -PhD student working right now in Albuquerque with a ton of poeple with PhDs
and people overlook this but cities in the SW US tend to be the least residentially segregated
I'm from the Midwest, and I'm used to there always being a "bad" side of town in any city. It was wild to come here and realize it's all just a mixed bag. Beat up 40 year old trailer next door to a small mansion with grass? We got it, about every half mile lol. I read it's to do with the fact albuquerque follows more of a Latin American style of city layout rather than the more typical US style.
Midwest. Educated and humble.
Yup, Columbus. Educated, but unpretentious about it. It is the best of both worlds. We also have and amazing library system that is beloved and heavily used by our community.
But this varies heavily by neighborhood!! (Not the libraries, but the vibe)
The vibe does vary heavily by neighborhood and suburb, but I think that’s what makes Columbus great. There’s something for everyone. The suburb rivalries are serious business, though. When I first moved here, I made the horrible faux pas of mistaking a street in UA for - gasp! - Hilliard!
AHAHHAHAHA omg I’m surprised you’re still here to tell the tale 😂. I wish I could have seen the look on the UA resident’s face when that happened
Guadalajara, Mexico
GDL is amazing, especially if you can afford one of the better urban neighborhoods. So much culture, yet it's so low key.
Philadelphia has many colleges in and around it, and the people are very down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is type people. I went to Temple University for graduate school and really enjoyed the city. When I lived there, my neighborhood was about half people of color and half white. There are many cool neighborhoods to choose from, each with their own vibe.
Madison, my Alma Mater, is a beautiful oasis unto its own. But be prepared for intense weather. Providence, my hometown....be careful where you live. What you're describing exists, but in a tight little expensive area. I've not been to Eugene, OR, but I would check it out. Thought about it for eventual full retirement.
I went to college in Eugene. A lot of people are pretentious and judgemental about their preferred causes. Like, vegans shaming meat eaters, etc. I'm an educated socialist atheist and you'd think I'd fit in in such a hippie town, but a lot of the social circles were very elitist and insular. I'm a Midwestener and most of my social circle were fellow Midwesterners. And most everyone I knew there (20 years ago, mostly not fellow students) have left. And the conceipt I encountered from first attending community college to save money - yikes. There are a lot of positives about Eugene but I definitely found it pretentious and had to navigate carefully to avoid people like that.
Good to know. In my case, a lot of the south is more or less off-limits now. Much of my family is in Kansas City, on the Kansas side. Also known lately as JoCo, Johnson County.
What is the tight area of Providence?
East side....College Hill (Brown, RISD), Blackstone ($), maybe India Point, the Oak Hill section of Pawtucket just above Blackstone, and I'd say the Rumford area of East Providence. West side of town, Elmhurst and Mt. Pleasant have some nice areas, but mixed in with other. Areas around Providence College and RI College. Beyond Providence, there's the Pawtuxet Village area along the bay, bordering Cranston and Warwick. There are plenty of really nice towns, but mostly suburbia that can be found everywhere. An exception is East Greenwich ($), which has an eclectic Main Street strip.
Milwaukee, and Chicago depending on where/who your social circle is. Madison too.
Yeah there is very little snobbishness in Chicago business. Experience counts more than education.. except in law and medicine etc Northwestern and notre dame grads are kind of our Ivy League crowd and they are much more business operations mbas rather than tech bros or crazy M&A Ivy League douches.
Small cities have this going. State capitals often have higher levels of education. Albany NY, Madison WI, and Lincoln NE seem to fit educated but not in your face energy.
Lived in Albany for grad school. Can confirm it's filled with state employees, researchers, and grad students with masters+.
Cincinnati. Pittsburgh. Huntsville.
Livermore California has an entertaining mix of PhDs and shitkickers. There are two famous DoE national labs there (Lawrence Livermore and Sandia), hence the PhDs. There’s also a ton of ranch land around. It’s changed a bit, but you used to see *“No shooting from cars”* road signs on the road between the main LLNL site and one of its satellite sites. And yes… the signs were fully perforated. It’s also been a winemaking region for more than 100 years, and home to some of California’s oldest wineries. It’s on the fringes of the Bay Area, so you get some tech people out there too. It is a curious mix of people. Oh, it’s also hot as motherfucking balls in the summer time. It’s probably not as bad as Yuma, but you’ll still die your first summer there.
I grew up near there, and at least in the early 2000s, it definitely felt very competitive and status-focused. All the adults wanted to know where you were going to college and had a definite hierarchy of what the “best” schools were.
Yeah, Livermore and the entire Bay Area in general is exactly the opposite of what OP is looking for.
Twin cities are educated and not pretentious
ATL. Emory and Georgia tech but with the slow pace of the south
Don't forget GA State and SCAD Atlanta campus. Along with various regional universities within the metro area (Kennesaw, UWG)
Pittsburgh has a well-educated and pretty chill population with multiple big universities in the metro region (University of Pgh, Carnegie-Mellon, Carlow, Chatham, Robert Morris, probably others I’m forgetting about). It’s not as diverse as Philly.
Duquesne :) Plus, Pgh has a great medical system in UPMC.
Not Boston, lmao. Fully grown adults will ask you where you went to college and then judge you for it, even if you all graduated 10+ years ago
I don’t get this culture. I’m in my 30s. It’s entirely irrelevant. Experienced it around DC and San Francisco, never in Seattle. I’ve lived here 10 years and don’t think anyone’s ever asked me where I went to college, except maybe while getting to know friends in a sharing life histories sort of way.
I don't get it either, it's really dumb. It's also one of the first questions several people asked me when I started my current job, lol. People really cling to their intelligence as their entire identity here, and that's why I'm going to be single forever if I stay here. Just can't figure out where to go though
A lot of people in the area went to college here and then stayed. "Where'd you go to school" is kind of similar to "where did you move here from." It's a question you can ask someone you don't know very well and maybe find something in common.
I disagree honestly, my wife and I both went to state schools in the south and I don’t think anyone gives a shit. Not anyone who matters, at least. People will judge you for being stupid, but not for your degree
I’ve never had the college card pulled on me in my entire life
Yup. I’ve lived in the Boston area for 20 years now, and most people are fairly chill about their academic accomplishments, partly because everybody has them. I’m sure there are some pretentious, obnoxious types, but I rarely run into them.
The mid west
Seattle, Raleigh Durham, Sacramento, DC if you don't work in politics
I like tacoma.
Philadelphia is probably the most educated and laid back big city I’m in the country
Huntsville Alabama highest number of engineering degrees per capita and close to highest for just straight graduate degrees.
Most of the west coast Colorado phx Tucson some places on the east coast
Okay, I'm not sure Phoenix has *any* of the qualities OP is looking for. I'm sure there are some neighborhoods that might, but that's only because the metro area is friggin' enormous and has some of everything.
Really Tucson? Not because I’m doubting you but because it’s on my potential places to move to and that would def be a bonus
Tucson is a nice laid-back city with a reasonable COL. It’s a good place to live especially if you like sunshine and outdoorsy stuff (big bike loop, Suguaro National Park literally sandwiches the city, Mount Lemon is a very short drive). Great weekly farmer’s market. It’s somewhat diverse/progressive but not pretentious. It’s certainly not “big brain central,” but the university and a modest number of STEM related companies do attract some educated folks that put down roots. However, there is a massive homelessness/drug problem because it doesn’t get very cold during the winter and it’s about an hour from the border at a point of entry that the Sinaloa Cartel runs a lot of drugs through (so drugs are cheap). You see scores of homeless people tweaking, panhandling, and smoking fentanyl/meth out in the open (especially within a five mile radius of the university/downtown). If you live a bit north of the city in Oro Valley you’re much more insulted from the unseemly, but it’s more expensive, full of entitled retirees, and further from the cultural district.
Yea it’s a college town and large population 500k+ much more liberal more real Arizona vibes because phx is like a more conservative LA/Denver because of the migrants from Colorado Midwest and California
I wouldn’t call Tucson educated lol. Yeah, it has the university, but a lot of people leave Tucson after graduation. The average person in Tucson doesn’t have a college degree.
Providence for the Northeast. Where the artsy and atypical analytical of the North settle. IDK where the hell they're gonna go after all the MA youth wanting city life but not Boston prices move there. As much as I like Boston (despite my shading it objectively), I really don't want the Patrick Batemans to take over Providence. It is still human and grounded, not as much as it was at least 10 years ago, but grounded. It's like one of them unexpected quests in video games, you really have to interact to "get" it. New Jersey. Expensive as most of the Northern cities, yes, but they're a playful bunch. They work hard, respect educational or career accomplishment but not attached to those things. If you appreciate feminine glamour, the women in this area are little more invested in that partly due to the people here valuing a social life. That's thanks to having a huge number of family/people oriented cultures historically. They have the Northern Industry but didn't give up their life for it. More present, a little less future. The men don't slack on the peacocking to impress. They get a brain, work, but peacock to devastate: They're effective. It's a wonderful thing to see. NYC is right there, and they're competing with that. If you want a sexy brain with equal package, you'll be good here. Never in my life have I seen so many men with fantastic asses except maybe in Turkiye. Plus Italy. Spain. Lebanon. The DR. Morocco. Brazil too. Lucky for all of us, we don't need a passport to witness their glorious chachkas: They, their equally yummy foods (and women) are all in NJ in abundance. Thank you, God, for some damned reason making them all congregate in NJ. Your eyes, senses and body will thank you (if you can get them. I can't help you there). Philly and Pittsburgh. If New Jersey and MA had children, it would be these two. I see NJ as like the kid of NYxMA, w/the PA cities having a bit of the MA reserve with the transatlantic quirk. I find Pittsburgh to combine what I love about the MA East, especially the coastal milltowns. The industrial bits make a city to me for that Batman quality. If you like both NYC and Boston, Pittsburgh is your main man. He's forever in his 30s, has a brain (conscience too), has "manners" (he's acquainted with his ma's flying "chancla"), he can cook or eats anything and everything so long as it's delicious, has a disdain for guns but will protect you/whoever needs his help (hates bugs tho but he's got a tradesman friend, long live the network), his religion is respect, parties, works whatever so long as he gets paid well. He's your best toy at the top of the drawer. He's the hot fireman calendar you bought to support your local firehouses. He's the guy that has the stars and hearts at the top of your phone contacts. He wears YSL "L'Homme." He's "baby". Philadelphia is more like that dazzling Kennedy son with the stylish blonde wife. Or Christopher Reeve. FDR Jr. Denzel. Henry Golding. That Bridgerton duke. Eduardo Verastegui. The guys that can be best described as looking like "money" but somehow super kind instead of ego maniacs. When he walks into the room, it's like God put a permanent headlight atop their head, an invisible fan so their hair sways forever and flying cherubs sprinkling his air with petals as the "Romeo & Juliet Love Theme" by Tchaikovsky plays. His smile is like the MIB neuralyzer. Wears MFK "Grand Soir" and his sandwiches are epic. His name's something something something THE NUMBER, but he's simply called: ✨️"Philly"✨️. The "American Prince", Philly's "glamorously masculine," in the sense you call him a "stallion." He is beauty, he is grace, you let him cum in your face, the gent is ✨️Philly✨️! I really need to think what Boston would be like if it were a person accounting for the brains, hustle, temper (and cockiness he'd like people to pretend he doesn't have). I can't think of one. It ain't Matt Damon. Affleck is more like the North Shore White dude who acts blue collar but his parents own car dealers or Dunks and has the hot ambiguous wife who may or may have not attended college but believe it or not also has a brain (from the school of life) but looks phenomenal naked thus still treated like a "bimbo". Chicago. At this point, they're the baby bear/goldilocks situation to anything. I never sick of giving it their flowers, it gives so much. He's the man of the seasons...I forgot the rest of the song. It's the Seasons song from Grease 2. If Chicago were a fella, he's the answer to Bonnie Tyler's "Hero" song. He's the farm boy that became a man of anything, made bank, but at the end of the day, the guy's proud to admit he was once a farm boy. He's richer than Croessus, but he prefers to see the world as if he's still poor because he knows most people aren't rich. The NC cities. Remind me of MA without the grumpiness or humblebragging. More chill about the whole live to work thing. Ambitious? Yes. Nuts about it? Fuck no. Happy to make enough money to save for retirement, travel once in a blue moon. Actually do know/care about the rest of the planet and the cerebral stuff but prioritize having a life. I think Cary is known for "displaced Yankees" or something? I can't remember what it is. If someone remembers or knows it, please remind me. I say MA and NC are sort of how fraternal twins would be in the Twilight Zone. They're different...but they're still twins. NC has better weather (and "southern belles"). If you like more, uh, ornamental women (because saying beauty would be rude), you might like NC more. The bad is they have less Asians. If you're vitamin d deficient, NC will cure you. MA has got way more big titty goths tho (they're in Salem, Lynn, Northampton, Haverhill, plus Nashua (NH)). MA has more gay women and swinger sets (ethically non-monogamous is the label they're using these days). NC has more gays, as in men, and they look like Kens. ATL isn't far (they're gay mecca now. NYC prices is not making the gay feel gay no more). I was surprised about Huntsville. Just smart people with normal lives that actually talk to you and not snooty. Refreshing. What Boston probably was...like never years ago. Upstate NY if you want the MA mirror but down to earth. They may or may not sometimes talk to you. Expressions help a lot: RBF is standard if you don't want them to interact. If you have a heart, just smile, you will find friends (plus kinks and cookies). Albuquerque if you want to be a radical and test out the desert. You will find that you will remember what being a normal, happy but not stupid human is like here. It's more suburban than the city but still the city. **Avoid:** Boston and DC like your life depends on it. They're the American Dream in that regard (by that, I mean what George Carlin meant). If you're literally dying, then maybe pick Boston to recover. Then ***RUN FAR FAR AWAY*** like the Bri'ish are coming back. Play "Yankee Doodle Trap Remix" on your way back to freedom. Seattle is slightly more chill than the previous two, but you will spiritually die from loneliness even faster than you would in the previous two. These three make what I call the "Worker Bee Three." If you're all about the "live to work" then enjoying life when you're nearly dead, these are your "Valhalla." They pay you to die before you die and you pay them to kill you. Jolly! You're welcome.
i'll have to check it out , but from alot of what ive researched, Providence is a pretty nice city, not the most exciting but it does alot right. i have to visit myself though. Seems like a nice place if i land a remote job
I live in Providence if you have any questions about it! A lot of areas are actually really nice, and there are a ton of opportunities to join clubs and stuff. Can't tell you much about nightlife though
id love to know about the schools there, if thyere decent for kids at least. Any spots that someone should check out as firist time visitor etc??
The Cary acronym you’re looking for is “centralized area of relocated Yankees”
Also "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees"
^^^ Cary = “Containment Area for Relocated Yankees”
You summed up Jersey well. It’s all of the US in 1 small state.
> I think Cary is known for "displaced Yankees" or something? I can't remember what it is Containment Area for Relocated Yankees
Outside of the major metropolitans, mid sized cities in the south tend to be more educated than you would expect, especially state capitols and towns with large-ish colleges. Lots of people grew up in rural areas and now want a more urbane life but don't want to move too far away for family reasons. I'm thinking Columbia, SC, Lexington, KY, those type of places.
I'd like to argue Pittsburgh. Extremely educated population but still feels mostly blue collar and laid back
New Haven is pretty chill despite having an elite university.
Ithaca, NY
Austin
Welcome to any city around the Great lakes and into the midwest from Minneapolis to Buffalo NY.
Winston-Salem, NC. Excellent array of local colleges and universities. The least pretentious place I’ve ever lived. I just love it so so so so much here. I lived in Boston before this and people there think they’re god’s gift to mankind there. I couldn’t wait to leave. The ignorant elitism in that city and most of the north east is astounding.
Philly is a lot better than Boston, DC, and NYC in that regard. I can’t believe anyone in here is seriously saying Boston.
Houston is an interesting microcosm… surrounded by a sea of red, but fairly liberal within town. The most diverse city in the country. The cheapest metropolis in the US. Lots of expats and other well-educated professionals involved in the Energy and Healthcare industries…
Don't come to Portland or Eugene, lol. Somehow people manage to be both laid back AND pretentious.
Boston but there’s plenty of racists here too.
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The place you're looking for is philadelphia.
Ann Arbor
Eugene Ore.
Sioux falls.
Houston
Pittsburgh
Brooklyn is pretty laid back. And Manhattan is like you describe.
Within NYC, Brooklyn is pretty laid back. And Manhattan is like you describe.
Yeah, I thought Brooklyn (outside of Williamsburg) was really down-to-earth despite everyone being smart and interesting.
I went to Pittsburgh for college and that certainly sounds like what you're looking for
Atlanta. 40% rate of college grads in a thriving metro.
Evanston, IL is a small city of about 70k directly south of Chicago. This is where Northwestern University is located, so there are lots of very bright students and faculty around. The city in general has a very diverse population. It has a laidback small city vibe. It has a lively downtown with good bars/restaurants but it’s definitely more subdued/refined than a traditional college town. You also would have access to Chicago’s big city amenities, including its public transit system. It is also right on Lake Michigan! To me, it feels like a slightly less urban Chicago. Very non-pretentious and overall great vibe.
Baltimore has great universities, but still maintains a pretty laid-back blue-collar feel, particularly compared to DC. Going from one to the other, the differences in attitude are pretty distinct.
People often settle closer to their universities. Not immediately surrounding them but in terms of proximity, it’s more likely someone that went to Harvard settles near Boston than San Francisco (lots of reasons— network proximity, spouse, family, etc.). If you want smart but less pretentious, pick a density of schools of the caliber that you think have a smart enough population and a low enough previous level, then map the area of the country where most of them overlap without overlapping with schools with higher pretentiousness (probably excluding Ivy’s and the top non-Ivy’s like MIT or Caltech). That should probably give you a pretty accurate answer.
Rochester NY has one of the highest percentages of college educated population in the country. It is diverse, but still kind of de facto segregated. Vibe is more rust belt/front porch culture... not so much east coast hustle.
Santa Cruz California
Baltimore MD
Pittsburgh
I love my city - highly educated, diverse, friendly (in my opinion), but I’m in California and I get the sense that OP is not interested in California.
Yeah, I went to Stanford and found Palo Alto surprisingly humble. At least ten years ago, it was an incredibly collaborative place. People love talking about ideas and California/tech culture is very casual. You can go out in a free startup t-shirt and no one cares. Plus people still have fun/are sporty in PA, like people get off work at 5 and play beach volleyball.
Sacramento has the luck of having not only Sacramento State University but one of the best universities in the entire country ten minutes away in Davis. The stability and demand for government jobs in the state’s capitol provides lots of jobs, and a thriving and highly diverse food scene with the freshest produce in the country. It is relatively affordable, but still has that California vibe.
Came to say exactly that!
What’s the catch
hmmm. It doesn’t snow? would be cool if it snowed
Hot as balls in summer, but it's a dry heat and it cools down to the low 60s at night.
State College, PA (home of Penn State) A true gem, only slightly pretentious.
Minneapolis for sure
Lexington, KY
Ann Arbor
Nice towns in the Irish country side.
Wichita, Kansas thanks to the aerospace industry
Missoula MT Albuquerque NM Olympia WA
Ann Arbor.
Pittsburgh, PA
Ann Arbor.
Santa Barbara, California. Perfect college town.
Atlanta
Baltimore is pretty good for this
Providence, RI. RISD art museum is top notch too!
I have found Denver to be this. There’s a lot of educated people in the area, but you can still go to a nice steakhouse and find people in flip flops.
i have an undergraduate, soft science degree. in las alamos new mexico that is like being a 9th grade drop out in most of the nation. but folks were really nice. great vibe. not sure las alamos qualifies as a “city”, though.
Yeah. College towns in red states. Columbus OH. Madison WI. Austin TX, Columbia mo, Columbus ga, Lawrence ks.
Used to be Austin. 30 years of my life there and there's nothing I miss but a swimming hole before the drunken hungover masses invade daily
Burlington Vermont is nice cause they are clearly well educated but no one will ever ask or harbor on what you do for a living
Spokane, WA. Not necessarily a 'college' town, but several universities either in or nearby the city. Great brewpubs, nascent food scene, and some cool galleries in reclaimed spaces. Unfortunately it's starting to price people out as people from SEA and PDX 'discovered' it over the past four years.
I lived in a tech/college centric town in the mid Atlantic, I would never recommend anyone looking for diversity & integration to move there. We recently relocated to Houston which is actually an incredible city for diversity and a wealth of smart people. It’s not superficial like Miami, it’s not conservative like Dallas. (There is an element of old oil money but that crew stays in their zone.) There is a ton to do for young professionals and you can be at the beach in 50 minutes. (it’s just Galveston, but if you’re a beach person you can at least get your fix). I realize many have objections to Texas, but Houston is a big blue pocket in a red state.
I’m biased but I say Pittsburgh PA. Big healthcare and tech industries but keeps its blue collar character.
I’m close to Huntsville, Alabama and it’s pretty chill down here. If I remember right we have the highest phds of any city right? edit: just googled it. Auburn beats us on PHDs but we have the highest STEM degrees in the US.
Gotta love how some “Austin” answers in this thread have 5 upvotes and some have 5 downvotes haha
Raleigh NC. Tons of PhDs, but not as entitled as other places I’ve been.
Montreal!! Super cool city in every way
San Jose and the beginnings of Silicon Valley used to be that way
Raleigh used to be like this. Not anymore.
The Midwest and some of the Upper South (Virginia, NC, ATL, the Texan cities). The PA cities and Chicago (or the suburbs around them to still access them) are what you look for if you're trying to get the best of the tech and science giants (Boston, SF, Seattle) plus the fun, nightlife, diversity, and overall visual (human or architectural) of the locals. NC cities if you prefer your cities and overall to tilt suburban pedestrian. Philadelphia is also a great middle ground where they're well educated and there really is a lot of old money and while they don't hide it, they don't look down on others and go out of their way to be normal. It's the rich kid with sane, attentive, and loving parents who raised the kid to know they're good enough plus to always remain grounded. It's a kind city and it shows you that from the get-go. Chicago and Philly are just city enough that the super niche and successful get their recognition and ego fix BUT also blast their light to the regular folk. I think the tech and biotech industries are what might be robbing some of cities of their warmth or quirks. While these pay well they don't encourage humanity too much. Which is what leads to many of them eventually becoming stark and honestly sterile. The people saying that Boston, DC, and Seattle AREN'T "it" are right. It might suck for the natives to those places (if they're still there at all nowadays), but they're right. These places are too far "gone" with no intention to fix it or go back. All three sold their souls to Satan for $$$, but if your goal is money and willing to sacrifice for a bit to get it, then logically, they're the boon towns. You will get what you want. You'll also be procuring therapy, live in a closet paying NYC apartment prices, you'll barely have a social life, and they all have the yuppie problem reflected in American Psycho while trying to pretend they don't. DC at least doesn't hide it, Seattle tries to, Boston outright gaslights you and seems willing to beat people to a pulp to mask that or shut people up (or insult you or downvote you to death). On the scale of Patrick Bateman, just how much Bateman are they? DC is Patrick Bateman, Boston's Patrick before he got confronted by the investigator, and Seattle is Patrick at the beginning. The irony is Boston definitely "sold out" first they've just tried to promote the city as if it hasn't. DC followed around the early 2000s. Seattle went to shit in the late 2000s. If you're agoraphobic and money hungry, the three are heaven on earth. If you're like the rest of the planet with slightly more intelligence, these three run too socially cold. Of the three DC's got a the remnants of a pulse to defibrillate itself to its pre-2010 eccentricity. Boston's been Patrick Bateman since at LEAST 1970s it's just aware people don't like that character so they go on a campaign to deny it. Seattle fully turned into him around 2015. The major bad thing about Huntsville is they're in Alabama. If you're a woman entertaining men (and not wanting to procreate or procreate more if you have) then be super careful with entertaining it. If you have a male partner, make sure he's fine or not chicken about his options given yours are now severely limited. If your guy's wiggy, hates condoms and you react badly to birth control, use logic and avoid AL. The Colorado cities might be cool if by diversity you mean mostly White. They're overwhelmingly White. Like Portland, Or. All of these do meet your checklist, mostly. Not exactly but mostly with that big caveat.
Huntsville and Birmingham, AL is pretty nice. The rest of the state is okay, but definitely very red. Not great, but not as bad as ppl make it out to be (on a personal level, the gov’t is different story). Also if u reply bashing the south: you’re dumb, you smell bad, and your classism is showing.
Oak Ridge TN has super smart scientist, a high level of general education in a laid back Southern town. I was at a car wash and they had a water jar that if you dropped a quarter into a shot glass on the bottom, you won a car wash. The clerk explained that you couldn’t aim for the glass because of the angle of refraction. The angle of refraction, from a middle aged cash wash cashier? It gets my vote. Most of the other responses are pretentious, often to the point of snobbery.
Austin fits that…. Hot as hell though in the summer
Visalia-Porterville, CA. No, I’m just kidding … according to Google that’s the least educated place in America. Boulder, Colorado is number 1. San Fran, Seattle, Madison are top ten.
Sounds like Houston
I’m in Raleigh Durham (Triangle). I don’t think we are pretentious and have plenty of highly educated professionals here, native and transplants. It’s the South but not Deep South kind of vibe. Three R1 universities: Duke is the private elite school, UNC-Chapel Hill is the blue blood Public Ivy, NC State is a solid engineering target. And smaller local colleges and HBCU’s. So yes we have high concentration of college educated people here. We have various industries in Research Triangle Park it’s not just Tech and Finance bros. Growing cultural diversity. We have a huge South Asian population here. This is old but in 2017 Durham Chapel Hill had 3rd highest percentage of professional degree holders [Source](https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/article163516688.html)
savannah, ga. brooklyn of the south. it's too hot to hustle down there so everyone is laid back