Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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When people move long distances in the US, their primary consideration seems to be "jobs". But what does that actually operationalize to for people who aren't professionals or otherwise in some extremely niche industry? Let's say you don't hope for much more than working at Costco or maybe as an administrative assistant at some small business, or as some random entry-level lab technician. What sort of metrics are you even supposed to look at when deciding on a destination?
Something like income per capita or unemployment rate seem too crude to be useful. Perhaps Region A has higher income per capita than Region B because of a thriving industry (e.g., diesel engine manufacturing) that has no relevance to your skills.
A random snapshot of job listings on indeed.com seems too unrepresentative. Job openings come and go all the time, and it seems unwise to write off a whole area because the current job openings don't suit you.
A region's level of educational attainment seems meaningless, except perhaps for some highly skilled professions, because a less-educated region has fewer workers who might compete for the white collar job you want. And it doesn't seem obvious to me that less-education regions would have fewer white collar jobs relative to the population of qualified candidates.
A region's rate of growth seems irrelevant. What's the difference between a region that has grown 30% in the last decade from 100,000 to 130,000 to a region that has grown only 10% in the last decade from 118,000 to 130,000? If it's because there's something more desirable or economically healthy about the former, then look at that metric and skip the middleman. (And what is that metric, and why does it matter for the prospective mover?)
I can't find any clearly great data on this, but I would wager that when people move long distances in the U.S., their primary consideration is a job--like, one they have already been offered. While I have known a few people who went somewhere looking for opportunities, it seems much more common, in my experience, to have a job offer, or at least a somewhat specific lead. The main exception seems to be when people have a landing pad in the form of friends or family.
This survey is not limited to long distance moves, but the question "what brought you here" gets the answer "family" almost 1/3rd of the time--followed closely by "I grew up here" (27%) and then "job" at just 14%. Interestingly, the two biggest hypothetical reasons people imagine would get them to leave their current residence is "a new job elsewhere" followed closely by "the opportunity to move to my dream city"--which, realistically for most people, means "a new job in my dream city."
In other words, very few Americans "decid[e] on a destination" as a matter of primary consideration. Rather, people tend to make decisions based on what is familiar (geography, family) while possibly keeping an open mind should sufficiently good opportunities become available elsewhere.
The main exception to this seems to be people whose circumstances (wealth, retirement, remote work) permit them to live more or less wherever they want--in which case again, family and friends would be primary considerations, along with stuff like leisure, culture, housing prices, etc. In such cases, jobs are not generally at issue, so the relevant metrics will be highly dependent on individual preferences.
So to your question:
I would answer, "whichever metrics happen to matter to your personal case." If all you're doing is launching yourself somewhere else on a proverbial wing and a prayer, though... I don't know. If you're not independently wealthy, I feel like this would be a huge risk to take. Maybe find a place that seems likely to have some demand for the skills you personally possess?
The whole reason I ask is because I'm moving to the US from Canada later this year to be with my significant other, who is American. She currently works in Buffalo so she can drive to be with me weekly when not working. We want to move to a Red state, but neither of us have job offers or family (at least not family that we'd want to move to be near). I have no work history besides my BA degree and no idea what I want to do; she has a BA in biology and a work history as a lab tech.
It's easy enough to find a decent state (pretty much any red Midwest state, in our case). The real daunting task is finding a place within a state. Ruling out large cities because of personal preference, that still leaves dozens of cities per state. I'm having trouble figuring out how to systematically filter these hundreds of possibilities. The options that come to mind (e.g., income per capita, growth rate, and other things I've mentioned) don't seem obviously important to me, but I could be wrong. I have no experience in this area.
I see. Well, standard responses in this area are typically stuff like minimizing commute, maximizing access to preferred leisure activities, preferred housing, shopping, low crime rates, and good public schools. Not every city of the "dozens" mentioned will have a Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, Best Buy, whatever you like. Not every city will have a board game cafe or video game store or rock climbing station. Not every city will have lake views or mountain views. Most non-cities will have relatively low crime rates, but not all. You may not care about public school quality but maybe you will in the future.
Barring considerations like that, you can always just follow the efficient market hypothesis and find the most expensive housing you can afford, and get that on the assumption that there must be some good reason for it to cost what it costs.
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