Top States To Live In The U.S.
By Neil On October 21st, 2010The Harris Poll has released their annual survey of top states to live in the U.S. for 2010. The survey asked 2,620 U.S. adults, “If you could live in any state in the country, except the state you live in now, what state would you choose to live in?” Sun belt and western states predominated the top responses, with California again ranking number one for the seventh straight year.
California is known for its abundant sunshine, beautiful beaches, and fantastic cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. It also has diverse terrain with everything from glaciers to wooded pine forests, scrub oaks, to the country’s driest desert, the Mojave. California also has eight national parks: Yosemite, Redwoods, Sequoia, King’s Canyon, Channel Islands, Lassen Volcanic, Joshua Tree, and Death Valley, along with beautiful Lake Tahoe, which it shares with the state of Nevada.
Following California was Hawaii, Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. Rounding out the top ten were North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, New York, and Washington State. Colorado has consistently received a high response rate, placing fourth place or higher nine times in the past twelve years. Oregon, despite having a 10.6% unemployment rate, jumped up three spots from last year. Among the top 10 states, Washington fell the furthest, four spots from last year’s sixth place finish. Washington has ranked as high as five and as low as eleventh in the fourteen years the survey has been conducted.
Breaking down the numbers by age, California topped the list among those ages 18 to 45. For ages 45 and higher, Hawaii was tops on the list. For those 18 to 33, Hawaii actually was not even in the top 5. The Harris Poll has conducted the survey annually since 1997.