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I know I'm a broken record on the matter, but I want to once again highlight the quality of life in small cities and big towns throughout the American Midwest. Places like Duluth, Madison, and Cedar Rapids are genuinely fantastic places to live, work, play, and raise a family. When all factors are considered, I will put these types of cities up against any place in the world for overall quality of life. Each of the complaints you register in your post are quite true about the United States more broadly, but don't resemble anything I see around me in my daily life - my city is walkable, bikeable, filled with upwardly mobile, fit professionals, has very little crime, tons of great food options, and so on. All of the perks of outer suburbs are present, plus the upsides of a decent-sized urban core (sports, concerts, art, festivals).
One of the great things about the US is the variety of different places one can live with the same passport. I can live and work in Miami or Austin or Denver or LA or the rural gulf coast or west Texas or north Arkansas, and I don’t need anyone’s permission to do so. A lot of these places are truly incredible and many of them have fantastic companies to work for even if you want to live somewhere rural and do something relatively normal and corporate. Being able to live in rural Arkansas and work for Walmart, for instance, is an incredible opportunity for anyone that wants a chance at a corporate exec income and lifestyle but to live in a cabin in the woods.
Being American feels like infinite opportunity.
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I lived in Madison and did not like it. It's expensive, full of entitled overeducated people, entitled state politicians, and entitled and officious bureaucrats, it's poorly policed, and they elect actual communists to local government. Outside the University and the Capitol areas it's generic suburban sprawl with little to recommend it other than a few decent parks. North Shore of Milwaukee is also expensive, but I feel you like you get what you pay for at least. The city government is all liberals of course, but they're mostly old, and understand that the point of their existence is to keep big city problems away.
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The problem is that the non-Americans dreaming of escaping to have their very own American Life are not imagining "Sigh, if only I lived in Duluth". They want the movie version of America: the hustle and bustle of the big city, the thrill of fast-paced life with exotic cultures and nightlife and new people to meet and museums and art galleries and it never rains in California and the city that never sleeps and you work hard but you make a ton of money and live the good life.
I don't want to traduce self_made_human, but I doubt they're dreaming of living in a 85% white suburban enclave where you bring Perfection Salad to the monthly community potluck and the big event of the year is the Magic Smelt Parade. Yes, doubtless this is unfair to Duluth, but this is the attitude you're struggling against. People want the movie version of America.
An overall improvement from where I am currently, but you're correct in that it's not my aspiration per se, just something I could see myself settling for when it's time to be family man.
I would ideally live in the Bay Area if I could, I'm a rat through and through, and it's a lovely place, most of the time.
If not, there are plenty of acceptable cities and towns in both red and blue states I can dwell amicably in.
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