A lot of people in Michigan are expecting the state population to boom in the coming decades. No earthquakes or hurricanes, minimal wildfires and tornadoes. Lots of access to fresh water.

We passed a ballot initiative in 2018 that made an independent committee draw up congressional districts and wouldn’t you know it, the state suddenly went blue when no one could gerrymander anymore! Legal recreational weed, legal abortion, free school lunches, the progressives are moving fast with the new majority.

What area all depends on how much winter you can take. Detroit-Ann Arbor area is probably the mildest, followed by Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo (great cities, lake effect snow storms), Up North (even worse snow) and da UP (Marquette is amazing but if you don’t like snow sports you’ll go insane).

$500k will but you a great house in some suburbs or a decent house in a hot market.

Nothing to add, but this is a wildly distopian thread.

West Virginia. No I'm not kidding.

They will pay you $12,000 to move there. Housing costs are absurdly low. Morgantown is a thriving university town close to Pittsburgh. And the eastern panhandle has a lot of access to VA & MD.

Move there and vote please.

https://ascendwv.com/

I know you said the US but have you considered moving abroad? If you want a similar timezone to the States, Mexico and Chile have pretty easy immigration programs you should be able to qualify for without much effort.. The crime rate in Chile is about the same as Canada IIRC. I left the US in 2017 and I honestly could not imagine coming back at this point.

If you're looking at Michigan I would also consider Minnesota. They have voted blue for the most presidential in a row and this last session with democratic majority has made huge gains. Michigan and Minnesota are showing what Midwestern values really mean.

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul are quite large together so you can get most amenities including one of every major sport league. Housing is no longer cheap within the cities because people from out of state are coming back to buy them. But there's tons of jobs and fortune 500 companies headquartered here.

Greater Minnesota has lots of smaller cities as well. Rochester, Brainard or Duluth all got their charms. Duluth has been listed as best city in the nation for it's cheaper coat of living with good job opportunities. Duluth gets real bad winters so get prepared for it. But it's better to be too cold than too hot

When you're looking at Virginia keep in mind that Northern Virginia is what makes Virginia blue. Most of Virginia is purple or red especially the farther you get from DC.

NM has what you're looking for; cost of living is very low, you can kind of pick the climate you want. We're also blue as a twitter check-mark. We're not super-diverse though; mostly white and Mexican descent depending on where you hang your hat.

fwiw you should probably add walkability and public transport to that list, it's one of the most significant improvements you can make to your general physical and mental health, as well as saving a disgusting amount of money on not needing a car to buy groceries.

north of Sacramento and south of Seattle.. for that price you'll have to be inland a few miles.

Seriously consider Scranton, PA. I live here and most houses go for well under your budget. You get all the seasons, are surrounded by state forest, and multi gigabit internet is available (thru Comcast unfortunately but other ISP's are moving in soon). Also it's in a county that remained blue during PA's 2016 turn to red.

It sounds like you want to move to Oregon or Washington. They have way better climates than Michigan.

You can do ok for 500k here in Rhode Island. No mountain wilderness, but the beaches and islands are gorgeous, and there’s lots of nature to the western part of the state.

Pennsylvania, depends on what you’d like exactly. Small city? Lancaster fits the bill perfectly. Big city? You have Pittsburg. Massive city? Philadelphia.

I’d vouch for Lancaster though, it’s very blue, very diverse, the area is on the cheaper side; and the city is thriving and growing extremely well. It’s a quaint little city. Further you get access to the absolutely gorgeous Appalachia with just a 20min-1 hour drive to various breathtaking national parks, state parks, lakes, mountains, and game lands.

The city is very walkable and is mainly pedestrian focused with a pretty good public transit system. Everyone also bikes everywhere and they are more common then cars. There are also several colleges and the historical Franklin and Marshall College so the area is maintained well and looked after.

Plenty of houses and apartments for less then 500k and the vast majority of the market is under 800k with not many outliers.

Climate is temperate year round, you have access to a major city as Philly is 1 hour away, there are scenes for pretty much anything, LGBT? Check. Art? Check. Film? Check. Alcohol? Check. Politics? Check. There’s something for every hobby.

Due to Franklin and Marshall and several companies there is a decently sized programmer, streamer, Youtuber, and computer scene as well since you might be interested in that.

The broadband and internet infrastructure is also very good and you can have direct access to fiber ground wire if you pay, so internet speeds can be lightening fast.

It honestly ticks all your boxes!

Western MD, upstate NY, somewhere in Illinois that’s not Chicago, western Oregon that’s not Portland…just off the top of my head. Those are all decent places in terms of long-term climate change issues, as well. Basically, pick a blue state, go to a red rural part. Blue state laws, red state prices. I’d be careful long-term considering Michigan and Virginia safely blue, as well.

How "temperate" are we talking here? Michigan will for sure have actual winter. Is temperate comparable to SoCal, or just not absolutely miserable winters?

Come to Manitoba lmao

Washington would for the bill once you get outside the Seattle area. You can find things on the peninsula or up in B-ham for get $500k.

Rural western Virginia has fiber internet to your home in a lot of places.

For example: https://www.alleghanyhighlandsbroadband.com/

I've been thinking of Puerto Rico.

For fully remote anywhere in the midwest is good as long as you don't need the big city nightlife. You can buy a starter house in the rich parts of KC for 500k, or a nice house in the middle-class areas.

I can't recommend Kentucky enough. It ain't blue, but it meets your other criteria. House prices are very reasonable. We live just outside Fort Knox and when the Army is done with my wife we're moving back

I might be a bit biased for my own state, but Oregon sounds like it could be right up your alley. Real estate prices have kinda settled down recently after the inflation we had the past few years, so you can find nice houses for 350-500k in the slightly-rural areas surrounding Portland like Gresham, Oregon City, Estacada or Sandy.

Nature access is excellent, especially if you were to live around the Columbia River Gorge like in Corbett. A drive to the coast is under 2 hours from there also.