Not to rub it in, but: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, not that you care, but you didn’t make this list. You either, Chicago. Instead, we found the places you may want to move the next time your landlord jacks up your rent. Or when you realize your novel is a pipe dream so long as you have to bang out 55-hour work weeks (plus commute).
Fact is, whether or not they admit it, most writers, musicians, painters, and tinkerers of every stripe aspire to remove the “struggling” from the “struggling artist” way of life. No matter what rom-coms suggest, the country is full of cities where you can find a vibrant life, in a home with room to sprawl, where you can cook or play music or just get friends together to conspire and collaborate.
This list takes into account the full livability spectrum: artistic communities (check), a good dose of nature (check), a food, craft beer/cocktail, or music scene, or all of the above (check), and a level of affordability that actually allows you to partake therein. (Apartment List’s July report accounts for the housing stats, unless noted; and the population figures are the latest from the Census Bureau.) These are places where you can actually make it, the “it” being whatever you dream up.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Metro area population: 1.2 million
Median 1BD rental: $650
Key stat: $70 million -- estimate of what Breaking Bad spent filming in town
Next time the powers-that-be create a show based in the ABQ, it shouldn’t be about the development and sale of high-potency methamphetamine. It should be about making green chili, because damn is it delicious. You know you’ve attained hero status when you can eat it three times in a day: on some eggs for breakfast, a bowl of it at high noon, and a heavy dose for your burger at dinner. When that spice hits, it might just make you more creative than if you had taken a tab of acid. Whoa, sorry, got carried away there. (But, seriously, try Frontier or Sadie’s and you won’t want to ever leave town again.)
If New Mexican cuisine doesn’t make you feel as though you’ve been transported to another country altogether, the city’s Pueblo Revival architecture and striking Sandia Mountains will. Albuquerque, the state’s biggest city, has made leaps in recent years toward being as diverse and cosmopolitan as you’d expect from a major US hub. To boot, its housing prices are as low as Walter White and Jimmy McGill are willing to ethically sink, and, while the economy ain’t exactly gangbusters, aren’t you supposed to be busy writing that script for a new AMC series anyhow? -- Colin St. John, Thrillist contributor
Nashville, Tennessee
Metro population: 1.8 million
Median 1BD rental: $1,110
Key stat: 59 -- local yellow pages listings for record labels
A pretty serious crush on Nashville developed the first time we dropped my brother off at Vanderbilt, and my love for it proved to spring eternal. The people are nice, the BBQ isreally nice, the economy is actually booming there (tech startups have been catching wind of the city’s awesomeness) -- and you just want to chuck your life and become a line dancer. And since affordable housing market is aplenty, you actually could.
One of the best parts about Nashville is that a lot of its finest gems are totally free. It’s called the Music City for a reason; the place holds 120 live music venues, and some of the best shows you’ll see are the ones at little hole-in-the-wall honky-tonks (but still opt for the big shows at Nashville Opera and Jazz Workshop, at least once). You can also spend hours -- or days, really -- exploring its 3,000 acres of biking, walking, and even horse trail; urban greenspace borderline outnumbers the just urban space in this Southern town. And speaking of Southern, the food does not disappoint. Celeb chefs make a home there for the same reason others want to: quality of life. And residents reap the benefits at spots like Hattie B’s (the famous Hot Chicken, do it) and Husk. -- L.N.
Baltimore, Maryland
Metro population: 2.8 million
Median 1BD rental: $1,360
Key stat: 36 -- books by newspaperman H.L. Mencken, the “Sage of Baltimore”
I used to think Baltimore would be a terrible place to live. As in “what are you honestly thinking”-level suckage. (Thanks, The Wire.) Then my best friend moved there; as a result, I found myself visiting a lot more, and subsequently eating my words between fistfuls of great crab cakes. Turns out the Charm City thing is actually real.
It’s one of the major cities that doesn’t make feel like you need to “escape,” a genuine rarity. This owes to the pace, two steps slower than New York and DC, though the waterfront bar scene doesn’t hurt -- even Inner Harbor isn’t exactly besieged by tourists. The music and art scene hold their own, especially during Artscape, the largest free arts festival in the country. Lexington Market is like the Pike Place of the East Coast, except a hell of a lot older; it’s been pedaling fresh fish, meats, and pretty much every food that exists since the 1700s. No wonder the bars and restaurants that line brick roads in Mt. Vernon and Fell's Point feel leftover from another era.
The selling point, above all else, is you can actually do all these things. Cost of living is a fraction of New York’s (and a meaningful one, actually, like half) and convenient to most of Northeast’s major cities by train, plane, or car. But if you live there, people most will likely be visiting you for crab cakes and Ravens games. Because that is what Maryland does. -- Liz Newman, Thrillist contributor
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