In Chicago, for sure. Now that I'm in Texas, the budget is a bit tighter. Back in Chicago, I could've done fine with $25,000 a year.

Indeed.

It's stunning the number of terrific writers that city has produced/harboured. Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Walter Scott, Ian Fleming, J.K. Rowling! Ok, popular writers.

40k isn't very comfortable in the big cities, but it should be fine anywhere else. I'd love to have a 40k salary right now.

40k is not enough here in Oz anymore - not if you want to own a house and rental is extremely high. Infact land prices in this country are ridiculous - definitely not worth it.

Paris is extremely beautiful. With enough cash i would move there in a heartbeat.

I love Castles and medieval history so i can imagine i'd love Edinburgh.

40k would be plenty in Pittsburgh. God knows you'd be living almost paycheck to paycheck, but it would do.

Boston, no doubt. But thats a s city. Telluride, Colorado is where we're planning to move in a few years when i got more $$$

Never mind the black metropolis, as Drayton calls it.... poor Chicago. Going thru a loop right now in terms of planning theory. Despite a rather turbulent past (and a nightmare case-study for any planner), it's one of the most charming cities. Of course, I question the very reasons for why it's so charming....

If money wasn't a problem, then probably London, or just outside. Within the US, I'd love to live in Boston, San Fransisco, or New York.

My personal experience is with living in Uptown Chicago, i.e. North-and-poor Chicago. And yes, it is positively charming. Nothing beats being within walking distance of African supermarkets, Asian supermarkets, American supermarkets, $5 barbershops, the lakefront, and a half-dozen homeless shelters.

Chicago and modernist planning have a long and angry relationship, for sure. I passed by Cabrini-Green every day, and the place reeked of hopelessness... you can almost hear the ghosts speaking. Cabrini-style public housing is one of the worst judgment calls in architectural history.

Oh, I agree on all counts. I wouldn't trade Berkeley for any other community in the state of California - those that have visited can attest that it's certainly different (it's probably America's only socialist city, heh). Flavor is the spice of life, right?

I was born on the fringes of the Chicago metropolis (sort of, in any event) and have spent quite a bit of time there... and, yes, I passed Cabrini Green before it was removed. The image alone of the complex sitting - rotting - was provoking enough to a kid - I can't imagine how it would make me feel now. Modernism, for the most part, is a miscalculation on behalf of the architects (be it of the specific spaces or of communities) in that it makes the assumption that, with enough aggregate knowledge, one can calculate, plan, and control every vector in an urban environment. Simplistically, that's how I see it. I think many people I study with and under would agree with that general statement, too. As for the solution.... well, I'm not a grad student yet...

A city in Australia or Bath.