#cheap party venues in salt lake city

[siempreweddings]

Creative Wedding Reception Entertainment Ideas to Wow Your Guests

Make your wedding reception a standout celebration with unforgettable entertainment that delights and surprises your guests. Consider unique options like hiring a live artist to capture the magic of the day on canvas or setting up a themed photo booth with custom props to match your wedding style. For an enchanting twist, invite a magician or mentalist to entertain with mind-boggling tricks that will leave everyone talking. For a cozy, intimate feel, consider outdoor lounges with fire pits and s'mores stations for a warm, inviting vibe. These distinctive details will create a wedding experience your guests will remember for years to come. Visit us: https://www.siempreutah.com/

[mab1905]

More Fitzjames content? Yeah... here’s a playlist for ya’ll...

These are songs which I think describe him at different points in his character developement or simply different aspects of his personality. Somewhat James/Crozier (Fitzier) but all about James.

(25 songs, 1 hour 33 min)

Song List + Most Character-Relevant Lyrics:

Fancy — Orville Peck

We didn't have money for food or rent / To say the least, we was hard pressed / Then Mama spent every last penny we had / To buy me a dancin' dress / Mama washed and combed and curled my hair / And she painted my eyes and lips / Stepped into a satin dancin' dress / That had a slit in the side clean up to my hips / It was red velvet trim, and it fit me good / Starin' back from the lookin' glass / There stood a woman where a half-gown boy had stood / ... / It sounded like somebody else that was talkin' / Askin', "Mama, what do I do?" / She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy / They'll be nice to you" / "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down / Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down / Lord, forgive me for what I do / But if you want out, well, it's up to you / Now don't let me down now / Your mama's gonna move you uptown"

gold rush — Taylor Swift

What must it be like / To grow up that beautiful? / With your hair falling into place like dominos / ... / At dinner parties / I call you out on your contrarian shit / And the coastal town / We wandered 'round had never / Seen a love as pure as it / And then it fades into the gray of my day old tea / 'Cause you know it could never be

The Name Of The Game — ABBA

Your smile, and the sound of your voice / And the way you see through me / Got a feeling, you give me no choice / But it means a lot to me / So I wanna know / What's the name of the game?

Spectrum — Florence + The Machine

And when we come for you / We'll be dressed up all in blue / With the ocean in our arms / Kiss your eyes and kiss your palms / And when it's time to pray / We'll be dressed up all in grey / With metal on our tongues / And silver in our lungs / ... / And when we come back we'll be dressed in black / And you'll scream my name aloud / And we won't eat and we won't sleep / We'll drag bodies from the ground / So say my name / And every colour illuminates / And we are shining / And we'll never be afraid again

Dreamy Bruises — Sylvan Esso

How can we question / What we knows feels right / Black eyes turn to marigolds / In the morning light / Ohweeohweeoh kids move so slow / Shaken all over like some dogs at the pool / Ohweeohweeoh kids move so slow / They’re kicken all the records over acting like they hanging water / Ohweeohweeoh kids move so slow / Down in the basement where the sun don't show / Ohweeohweeoh kids movie so slow / Naked dollars wonder piles dreamy bruises rotten lovers / And they say I want you / To bend me back in two / To make me sing your tune / To make those words so smooth / Fill me like a song do

Wolf — Sylvan Esso

But no birds nor beast does he eat / He only wants the tenderest meat / And oh the sounds he makes them speak / Under all different patterns of sheets / ... / The modern wolf, the modern wolf / Drippin' in all the lives that he took / He'll go on home, try to wash them off / But when he shaves, he hears them call

Francis Forever — Mitski

On sunny days I go out walking / I end up on a tree-lined street / I look up at the gaps of sunlight / I miss you more than anything / I don't need the world to see / That I've been the best I can be, but / I don't think I could stand to be / Where you don't see me / And autumn comes when you're not yet done / With the summer passing by, but / I don't think I could stand to be / Where you don't see me

James — MGMT

James / If you need a friend / Come right over / Don't even knock / And I'll be home / The door is always open / And we both can say, "Who's laughing now?" / Oh, James / My little doll / You just go outside and you call / Oh, James / Oh, you're never too far off / If your fire's out / There's no need to shout / I'm always home / And walk on in / I'll make you tea and breakfast / And we both can say, "Who's laughing now?"

South London Forever — Florence + The Machine

I drive past the place that I was born / And the places that I used to drink / Young and drunk and stumbling in the street / Outside the Joiners Arm's like foals unsteady on their feet / With the art students and the boys in bands / High on E and holding hands with someone that I just met / I thought it doesn't get / Better than this / There can be nothing better than this / Better than this / And we climbed onto the roof, the museum / And someone made love in the glass / And I'd forgot my name / And the way back to my mother's house / With your black cool eyes and your bitten lips / The world is at your fingertips / It doesn't get better than this / What else could be better than this? / Oh, don't you know I have seen / I have seen the fields aflame / And everything I ever did / Was just another way to scream your name

Oh! You Pretty things — David Bowie

I think about a world to come / Where the books were found by the Golden ones / Written in pain, written in awe / By a puzzled man who questioned / What we work here for / All the strangers came today / And it looks as though they're here to stay / Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things) / Don't you know you're driving your / Mamas and Papas insane / Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things) / Don't you know you're driving your / Mamas and Papas insane / Let me make it plain / You gotta make way for the Homo Superior

Venus As A Boy — Björk

His wicked sense of humor / Suggests exciting sex / His fingers they focus on her and touches / He's Venus as a boy / ... / All across your lips, oh, then until / Well be that it's a little now, until / He believes in a beauty / He's Venus as a boy / He believes in a beauty and gentle

Winds Change — Orville Peck

Had a lover but I lost my patience / Gonna get a song on a radio station / Got a fire but you just can't use it / I don't mean no lies, baby, please don't lose it / Lost my way on the other side / I know why, I don't know when / From the way that we said goodbye / I knew I'd never see you again / Left my mind in the Salt Lake City / Met a lot of men who would call me pretty / Pack of reds, watch the days get colder / Don't it make you cry, how we're getting older?

Fluorescent Adolescent — Arctic Monkeys

Oh the boy's a slag / The best you ever had / The best you ever had is just a memory / And those dreams weren't as daft as they seem / Not as daft as they seem / My love, when you dream them up... / Flicking through a little book of sex tips / Remember when the boys were all electric? / Now when she's told she's gonna get it / I'm guessing that she'd rather just forget it / Clinging to not getting sentimental / Said she wasn't going but she went still / Likes her gentlemen not to be gentle / Was it a Mecca dauber or a betting pencil? / Oh the boy's a slag / The best you ever had / The best you ever had is just a memory / And those dreams weren't as daft as they seem / Not as daft as they seem / My love, when you dream them up / Falling about / You took a left off Last Laugh Lane / Just sounding it out / But you're not coming back again.

Cheerleader — St. Vincent

I've had good times / With some bad guys / I've told whole lies / With a half smile / Held your bare bones / With my clothes on / I've thrown rocks / Then hid both my arms / I've played dumb / When I knew better / Tried so hard / Just to be clever / I know honest thieves / I call family / I've seen America / With no clothes on / I don't know what I deserve / But for you I could work / Cause I don’t want to be a cheerleader no more

Queen Bitch — David Bowie

She's so swishy in her satin and tat / In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat / Oh God, I could do better than that / Oh, yeah / She's an old-time ambassador / Of sweet talking, night walking games / Oh and she's known in the darkest clubs / For pushing ahead of the dames / If she says she can do it / Then she can do it, she don't make false claims / But she's a queen and such a queen / Such a laughter is sucked in their brains / Now she's leading him on / And she'll lay him right down / Yes, she's leading him on / And she'll lay him right down / But it could have been me / Yes, it could have been me

Boys Keep Swinging — David Bowie

Heaven loves ya / The clouds part for ya / Nothing stands in your way / When you're a boy / Clothes always fit ya / Life is a pop of the cherry / When you're a boy / When you're a boy / You can wear a uniform / When you're a boy / Other boys check you out / You get a girl / These are your favorite things / When you're a boy / Boys / Boys / Boys keep swinging

Caterpillars (Of The Common Wealth) — Will Connolly

You know you'll always be my valentine / Now swear to god that you will never tell / They're streaming every indiscretion live / For caterpillars of the commonwealth / Gotta go / You can stay / Make yourself at home / Gotta go / This campaign / Don't run itself you know / You've got potential little parasite / I tie your hands so i can wish you well / Cuz i'm a gentleman and you are like / A caterpillar of the commonwealth / Gotta go / I said no / You need to know your role / Gotta go / I said no / It's all under control

Imposters (Little By Little) — The Fratellis

You wear your mask, I'll wear mine / They don't come cheap, but they fit just fine / You can be her and I can be him / We can both sink when the rest all swim / ... / We can pretend that our fates were entwined / A beautiful lie is the beautiful kind / Everybody knows that the sun still sets / And everybody gives and everybody gets / ... / I could be the one that you just can't shake / Till you swear that your eyes go blind / We can disappear till the sun burns a hole / In the life that we left behind

Sweet Painted Lady — Elton John

I'm back on dry land once again / Opportunity awaits me like a rat in the drain / We're all hunting honey with money to burn / Just a short time to show you the tricks that we've learned / If the boys all behave themselves here / Well, there's pretty young ladies and beer in the rear / ... / Forget us we'll have gone very soon / Just forget we ever slept in your rooms / And we'll leave the smell of the sea in your beds / Where love's just a job and nothing is said

Super Trouper — ABBA

Super trouper beams are gonna blind me / But I won't feel blue / Like I always do / 'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you / ... / So I'll be there when you arrive / The sight of you will prove to me I'm still alive / And when you take me in your arms / And hold me tight / I know it's gonna mean so much tonight

Babooshka — Kate Bush

She sent him scented letters / And he received them with a strange delight / Just like / His wife / But how she was before the tears / And how she was before the years flew by / And how she was when she was beautiful / She signed the letter / All yours...

Paris is Burning — St. Vincent

I write to give word the war is over / Send my cinders home to mother / They gave me a medal for my valor / Leaden trumpets spit the soot of power / They say, "I'm on your side / "When nobody is, 'cause nobody is / "Come sit right here and sleep / "While I slip poison in your ear" / We are waiting on a telegram / To give us news of the fall / I am sorry to report / Dear Paris is burning after all

Dream of Sheep — Kate Bush

Oh I'll wake up to any sound of engines / Every gull a seeking craft / I can't keep my eyes open / Wish I had my radio / I'd tune into some friendly voices / Talking 'bout stupid things / I can't be left to my imagination / Let me be weak, let me sleep and dream of sheep / Ooh, their breath is warm / And they smell like sleep / And they say they take me home / Like poppies, heavy with seed / They take me deeper and deeper

Hunger — Florence + The Machine

At seventeen, I started to starve myself / I thought that love was a kind of emptiness / And at least I understood then, the hunger I felt / And I didn't have to call it loneliness / ... / Tell me what you need, oh, you look so free / The way you use your body, baby, come on and work it for me / Don't let it get you down, you're the best thing I've seen / We never found the answer but we knew one thing / ... / And it's Friday night and it's kicking in / In that pink dress, they're gonna crucify me / Oh, and you in all your vibrant youth / How could anything bad ever happen to you? / You make a fool of death with your beauty, and for a moment / I forget to worry

[princessweddingdressesbyalf-blog]

Princess Wedding Dresses Pictures

Wedding Venues - Greenbrier Valley

Table of Contents49+ Of The Best Connecticut Wedding Venues (Find Amazing ...Wedding Locations - Virginia Beach - Visit Virginia BeachWedding Venues In San Diego - Dream Beach WeddingTop 10 Best Free Wedding Venues In San Diego, Ca - Last ...

State your promises below looming ancient oaks, in a sophisticated ballroom, an intimate yard, a gold marsh, along the coastline, or in the residential property's enchanting chapel. And also the choices do not stop there, considered that the resort uses a wide variety of activities for visitors to take part in throughout the wedding celebration weekend break.

Sea Island, GA Vizcaya Gallery & Gardens Invest the wedding celebration weekend at one of Miami's lots of amazing resorts, swimming pools, dining establishments, and clubs prior to unexpected your guests with a ceremony and function here. Although it resembles someplace much as well as away in Europe, Vizcaya Gallery & Gardens is easily situated in the heart of Miami.

A jewel amongst Miami's high-rises, this building is for couples looking for something easily accessible, with an abroad ambiance. Miami, FL, UNITED STATES Ashford Castle This 800-year-old castle in Ireland has an incredible background and also a fairytale really feel that can be yours solely for approximately 160 visitors. The castle's 83 bed rooms, suites, and also Lakeside Hideaway Home permit you as well as your wedding party to appreciate the full castle experience without disruption.

Wedding Venues - Zola

Wedding Venues - City Of Los Angeles Department Of ...

Cong, Region Mayo, Ireland Pelican Hillside Best recognized for its Rotunda venue, The Hotel at Pelican Hill is iconic in it's timeless layout as well as contemporary The golden state style. Set on a picturesque rise, its dramatization and also simpleness have actually made it a remarkable background for numerous West Coastline wedding celebrations. Newport Coastline, CA Fairmont Banff Springs Styled on a Scottish Baronial castle, this palatial house is located among some of one of the most excellent woodlands you are most likely to see.

This globe heritage site is renowned for its outdoor activities and relaxing warm springtimes. If you're seeking something besides a beach or a ballroom, consider preparing a great winter months wedding event here. Banff, Alberta, Canada The Breakers Be it an intimate event of 50 or a grand affair for 500, The Breakers weddings and celebrations group is understood for first-rate service as well as thoughtful, indulgent information.

Napa Valley Wedding Venues - Vineyards, Resorts & Gardens

Specifically if you're intending a large affair with a substantial visitor listing, the skies is the limit at this Palm Beach residential or commercial property. Hand Beach, FL Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Book Once an exclusive plantation, this 'Ritz-y' get developed by a Rockefeller is known for it's remoteness, improvement, as well as regard for Puerto Rico.

While you're on building, see to it to take the time to delight in the remarkable food at their numerous on-site dining alternatives as well as the beyond zen health experiences at Health club Botanico. Dorado, Puerto Rico Cart's Montauk Resorts Situated on Montauk's a lot of immaculate stretch of oceanfront property, Cart's Montauk Hotel & Salt Water Health spa is an organization and the only year-round hotel on Montauk.

Be it for the rehearsal supper, after celebration, or throughout the days surrounding the wedding, hang around at The Beach Club, it's where any person whose any person goes to see and also be seen come summer season. Montauk, NY, UNITED STATES The Factory The Foundry is a 19th Century historic building situated steps from the East River in Long Island City.

Bay Area Wedding Sites - Wedding Locations Bay Area - Napa ...

This is the only foundry in the location still standing today, and it's cherished for its rawness and also multiple ivy-covered balconies. If you're looking for a more European vibewith a sky line sight as well as the industrial influence of New York Cityhead below. Brooklyn, NY Montage Palmetto Bluff This 20,000-acre area in between Hilton Head and Savannah features a collection of elegant venues on the water with unrivaled panoramas of the South Carolina shore.

Bluffton, SC Rosecliff Mansion Maintained by Rhode Island's biggest social organization, this historic house museum channels old-world style with its French baroque rebirth style and also sprawling premises. An impressive estate for any kind of event, this East Coastline spots allows you live like Gatsby for a day. Choices are limitless at this Gilded Age masterpieceit's one of many historical bryllup københavn chateaus in Newport along the city's legendary High cliff Stroll along the water.

35+ Fall Wedding Venues — Best Locations For Fall Weddings

Patrick's Sanctuary and also 5th Avenue from a manicured historic garden atop Rockefeller Plaza. Complete with a shimmering reflective swimming pool, 620 Loft space & Garden is an enchanting oasis that can be tented all year long and is totally customizable. You're guests will certainly enjoy the renowned, one-of-kind views of New York City classicsfrom the Prometheus sculpture to the Rockefeller Facility Xmas Tree.

Carefully polished gardens breaking with color, sculpted balconies, as well as scenic lakes make this National Historic Spots a remarkable setup for Southern-style and also one-of-a-kind weddings. Charleston, SC Save These Concepts For Later on! Adding Weddings Writer Heather Hall is a weddings, fashion, and way of living writer and editor.

Wedding Places on The KnotFind relied on wedding celebration locations in your area. Select a CategoryReception VenuesWedding PhotographersBridal SalonsDJsFloristsWedding PlannersHotel Area BlocksJewelersBeautyVideographersWedding BandsWedding CakesAccessoriesAlterations + PreservationBar Services & BeveragesBed and also BreakfastsBoudoir PhotographersCalligraphersCaterersCeremony AccessoriesCeremony VenuesDance LessonsDecorDessertsEnsembles + SoloistsFavors + GiftsFitnessInvitations + Paper GoodsLightingMenswearNewlywed ServicesOfficiants + Premarital CounselingPhoto BoothsRegistry ServicesRehearsal Dinners, Bridal Showers + PartiesRentalsService StaffTechnologyTransportationTravel SpecialistsVariety ActsVacation Residences + VillasWedding DesignersWedding JewelrySearchAdvice From The KnotIcons/ Action Based/ heartCreated with Sketch. (Uncertain? Request for more information!) Icons/ Messaging/ chatCreated with Sketch. Start a ConversationFound a place you enjoy? Connect! Inquire about their availability and also see if their capacity straightens with your visitor count. Likewise try The Knot's "Request Quote" feature. It helps you choose what details to share so you can conveniently attach with locations.

Auberge du Soleil not only uses one of one of the most extravagant breakfasts in America, however it's additionally a decadent as well as picturesque place to have your wedding. According to Yelper Jean T., "Everything from the planner to the food to the view to the solution personnel was simply remarkable." If the climate permits, having your function or event outside offers you a stunning breathtaking sight of the surrounding valley.

Additionally, the food is an outright standout. Jo. C composed: "This was the first wedding celebration where our steaks actually appeared as everyone asked for. The scallops were completely cooked. The treat was very imaginative cookie bottom, cake facility, pastry cream on inside, surrounded by chocolate mousse, after that decorated with a stick of chocolate as well as a tiny scoop of whipped cream on the side." Appears unbelievable!.

10 Best Cheap Destination Wedding Locations - U.s. News ...

Site 860-425-3686 Email THE CONSUMMATE NEW ENGLAND INN, A STORYBOOK SETTING FOR YOUR WEDDING. Invite to Wedding Celebrations at Norwich Inn, among New England's finest wedding destinations. You take a trip down a winding country roadway and go into a personal drive lined with century old maples. There before you sits a Georgian Colonial Estate, its red block faade simultaneously sophisticated as well as inviting.

Inside, you will discover our stylish Grand Ballroom, a comfortable Nation Home, as well as other special occasion spaces, the majority of with wood-burning fireplaces.

Below comes the bride. Planning to say, "I do" in Hill Country? Why not walk down the aisle at one of Cedar Park's premier wedding event locations. Whether you are looking for a peaceful family celebration or a joyful fete, the estates, inns as well as clubs in and also around the city deal picture-perfect backgrounds to your special day.

55 Salisbury Road, Worcester, 508-793-4327, worcesterart.orgIndustrial stylish is a wedding event fad, as well as this seaside winery is loaded with it. The location was originally the home of the Plymouth Rope Company, a 19th-century rope maker that created rigging made use of on the USS Constitution and also run through the mid-20th century. Now the block wall surfaces, rustic wood floors, as well as beamed ceiling supply a sensational backdrop for weddings of as much as 200 visitors, with an ordinary cost of the place, food, and alcohol coming in at $25,000.55 Rope Park Circle, Plymouth, 508-746-3532, 1620winery. comYou may have become aware of James Beard Honor semifinalist Will certainly Gilson, the chef-owner of Puritan & Firm in Cambridge.

Gilson's loved ones developed the ranch's residence and carriage residence in the late 1800s, and the team behind his restaurant runs all wedding events at the farm. Host an intimate, 30-person wedding celebration in the carriage house or a 150-person event in the greenhouse. "There truly is no location else that I can think about in the region where you 'd have the ability to go and see such well manicured as well as storied yards that somebody driving by wouldn't also be able to inform [are] there," Gilson says.

[princessweddingdresssweetheartne]

Princess Wedding Favors

Top Wedding Venues In San Diego, California

Table of ContentsThe Best Virginia Wedding Venues For Washingtonian CouplesWeddings: 9 Expensive Wedding Venues Around The Country ...16 Cheap Budget Wedding Venue Ideas For The Ceremony ...America's 65 Highest-rated Wedding Venues, According To ...

State your pledges beneath looming ancient oaks, in a sophisticated ballroom, an intimate courtyard, a golden marsh, along the coastline, or in the residential property's quaint chapel. And also the options don't quit there, considered that the resort provides a wide variety of activities for guests to take part in throughout the wedding weekend break.

Sea Island, GA Vizcaya Museum & Gardens Spend the wedding weekend break at one of Miami's several spectacular resorts, swimming pools, dining establishments, as well as bars before surprising your guests with a ceremony and also function here. Although it looks like somewhere by far in Europe, Vizcaya Museum & Gardens is easily located in the heart of Miami.

A gem amongst Miami's high-rise buildings, this residential property is for pairs seeking something accessible, with an abroad vibe. Miami, FL, UNITED STATES Ashford Castle This 800-year-old castle in Ireland has an extraordinary background as well as a fairytale feel that can be yours specifically for approximately 160 guests. The castle's 83 bed rooms, suites, and Shore Retreat Cottage allow you and your wedding party to delight in the complete castle experience without interruption.

Wedding Venues In San Diego - Dream Beach Wedding

The Top 20 Wedding Venues In Nashville - Southern Living

Cong, Area Mayo, Ireland Pelican Hill Best recognized for its Rotunda location, The Hotel at Pelican Hillside is famous in it's timeless layout and also contemporary California design. Establish on a stunning rise, its drama as well as simplicity have actually made it an extraordinary backdrop for plenty of West Coast weddings. Newport Beach, CA Fairmont Banff Springs Styled on a Scottish Baronial castle, this palatial residence is nestled among several of one of the most immaculate forests you are most likely to see.

This globe heritage site is renowned for its outside activities and also peaceful warm springs. If you're searching for something besides a beach or a ballroom, think about intending an awesome winter wedding below. Banff, Alberta, Canada The Breakers Be it an intimate ceremony of 50 or a grand affair for 500, The Breakers wedding events and parties team is understood for first-rate service and thoughtful, indulgent information.

The Best Wedding Venue In Every State - Insider

Specifically if you're planning a large-scale event with a sizable visitor listing, the sky is the limit at this Hand Beach residential property. Palm Beach, FL Dorado Coastline, a Ritz-Carlton Get Once a personal ranch, this 'Ritz-y' book created by a Rockefeller is recognized for it's remoteness, improvement, as well as respect for Puerto Rico.

While you're on building, make certain to make the effort to delight in the phenomenal food at their numerous on-site eating options and the beyond zen health experiences bryllup københavn at Medspa Botanico. Dorado, Puerto Rico Cart's Montauk Resorts Situated on Montauk's a lot of excellent stretch of oceanfront actual estate, Cart's Montauk Hotel & Salt Water Medical spa is an establishment as well as the only year-round resort on Montauk.

Be it for the practice session supper, after party, or throughout the days surrounding the wedding celebration, invest time at The Coastline Club, it's where any individual whose any person visits as well as be seen come summertime. Montauk, NY, USA The Shop The Foundry is a 19th Century historic structure located actions from the East River in Long Island City.

Bali Hai Events - San Diego Wedding Venue

This is the only shop in the location still standing today, and it's cherished for its rawness and multiple ivy-covered terraces. If you're looking for a much more European vibewith a horizon view and also the industrial impact of New York Cityhead below. Brooklyn, NY Montage Palmetto Bluff This 20,000-acre area in between Hilton Head and also Savannah features a collection of sophisticated locations on the water with unmatched breathtaking views of the South Carolina shore.

Bluffton, SC Rosecliff Mansion Preserved by Rhode Island's largest social company, this historic residence gallery channels quaint style with its French baroque resurgence style as well as sprawling premises. An epic estate for any occasion, this East Shore landmark lets you live like Gatsby for a day. Options are infinite at this Gilded Age masterpieceit's one of numerous historic chateaus in Newport along the city's famous High cliff Stroll along the water.

18 Affordable San Diego Wedding Venues - See Prices

Patrick's Basilica and also 5th Avenue from a manicured historical garden atop Rockefeller Plaza. Full with a shimmering reflective pool, 620 Loft space & Garden is a romantic oasis that can be tented all year long as well as is entirely adjustable. You're visitors will certainly like the iconic, one-of-kind views of New York City classicsfrom the Prometheus statue to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

Carefully polished yards rupturing with shade, sculpted terraces, as well as beautiful lakes make this Nationwide Historic Site a remarkable setting for Southern-style as well as distinctive wedding events. Charleston, SC Save These Suggestions For Later on! Contributing Weddings Writer Heather Hall is a wedding celebrations, style, and also lifestyle author as well as editor.

Wedding celebration Venues on The KnotFind relied on wedding celebration venues in your location. Select a CategoryReception VenuesWedding PhotographersBridal SalonsDJsFloristsWedding PlannersHotel Space BlocksJewelersBeautyVideographersWedding BandsWedding CakesAccessoriesAlterations + PreservationBar Solutions & BeveragesBed as well as BreakfastsBoudoir PhotographersCalligraphersCaterersCeremony AccessoriesCeremony VenuesDance LessonsDecorDessertsEnsembles + SoloistsFavors + GiftsFitnessInvitations + Paper GoodsLightingMenswearNewlywed ServicesOfficiants + Premarital CounselingPhoto BoothsRegistry ServicesRehearsal Dinners, Bridal Showers + PartiesRentalsService StaffTechnologyTransportationTravel SpecialistsVariety ActsVacation Homes + VillasWedding DesignersWedding JewelrySearchAdvice From The KnotIcons/ Activity Based/ heartCreated with Map out. (Not exactly sure? Request even more details!) Symbols/ Messaging/ chatCreated with Lay out. Begin a ConversationFound a venue you enjoy? Connect! Ask concerning their availability and also see if their ability lines up with your visitor matter. Also attempt The Knot's "Request Quote" feature. It helps you choose what details to share so you can quickly get in touch with locations.

Auberge du Soleil not only offers one of the most luxurious brunches in America, yet it's also a decadent and picturesque place to have your wedding celebration. According to Yelper Jean T., "Everything from the coordinator to the food to the view to the service personnel was just remarkable." If the weather condition allows, having your function or event outside deals you a stunning panoramic sight of the bordering valley.

Likewise, the food is an outright standout. Jo. C created: "This was the first wedding event where our steaks really came out as everybody requested. The scallops were flawlessly cooked. The treat was extremely innovative cookie base, cake center, bread lotion on inside, surrounded by delicious chocolate mousse, then decorated with a stick of chocolate as well as a little scoop of whipped lotion on the side." Sounds extraordinary!.

50 Amazing Wedding Venues - Best Places In The World To ...

Web site 860-425-3686 Email THE CONSUMMATE NEW ENGLAND INN, A STORYBOOK SETUP FOR YOUR WEDDING CELEBRATION. Invite to Wedding Events at Norwich Inn, one of New England's finest wedding celebration destinations. You take a trip down a winding back road and also enter a personal drive lined with century old maples. There prior to you sits a Georgian Colonial Manor, its red brick faade at the same time classy as well as inviting.

Inside, you will discover our classy Grand Ballroom, a relaxing Nation Home, and also other one-of-a-kind occasion spaces, many with wood-burning fireplaces.

Below comes the bride. Planning to say, "I do" in Hillside Country? Why not walk down the aisle at one of Cedar Park's premier wedding celebration locations. Whether you are trying to find a quiet family event or a cheery fete, the estates, inns as well as clubs around the city deal picture-perfect backgrounds to your wedding day.

55 Salisbury Road, Worcester, 508-793-4327, worcesterart.orgIndustrial chic is a wedding event pattern, as well as this coastal winery is loaded with it. The place was originally the house of the Plymouth Cordage Company, a 19th-century rope manufacturer that generated rigging used on the USS Constitution and also operated with the mid-20th century. Now the brick walls, rustic timber floorings, as well as beamed ceiling provide a magnificent backdrop for wedding events of up to 200 visitors, with an ordinary expense of the venue, food, and alcohol can be found in at $25,000.55 Rope Park Circle, Plymouth, 508-746-3532, 1620winery. comYou might have listened to of James Beard Award semifinalist Will Gilson, the chef-owner of Puritan & Firm in Cambridge.

Gilson's family members developed the ranch's house and carriage home in the late 1800s, as well as the group behind his restaurant runs all weddings at the ranch. Host an intimate, 30-person wedding celebration in the carriage house or a 150-person party in the greenhouse. "There truly is no area else that I can think of in the area where you 'd have the ability to drop in such well manicured and also storied gardens that somebody driving by wouldn't even have the ability to tell [are] there," Gilson says.

[thisdaynews]

Beto’s Long History of Failing Upward

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/betos-long-history-of-failing-upward/

Beto’s Long History of Failing Upward

AMES, Iowa—The presidential run of Beto O’Rourke is a profoundly personality-driven exercise, his charisma and Kennedy-esque demeanor the topic of one profile after another, so it’s surprising to listen to his speeches on the stump in which he doesn’t talk a whole lot about himself. In Iowa recently, over several days in a rainy, foggy, uncertain stretch of spring, O’Rourke delivered a series of speeches and held question-and-answer sessions in which he spoke at length about unity, civility and inclusivity, and only rarely touched on his personal story. There was one notable exception: When he did offer up bits of his biography, he leaned most heavily on his run last year against Ted Cruz for a spot in the United States Senate.

He recounted for the crowds tales of the places he went and the people he met during his barnstorming, freewheeling, attention-getting campaign, coming back to two numbers: 254, the number of counties in gargantuan Texas, all of which he visited … and the percentage-point margin by which he was defeated.

Story Continued Below

“We lost by 2.6 percent,” he said in a basement music venue here at Iowa State University.

“We lost that Senate race in Texas by 2.6 percent,” he said in a downtown greasy spoon in Storm Lake.

“We came within 2.6 percentage points of defeating Ted Cruz,” he said in a community college cafeteria in Fort Dodge.

“So close,” the local party leader said in introducing O’Rourke one morning at a brewpub in Carroll. “So close.”

The part of his past that he talked about the most, by far, was a race that he lost.

O’Rourke, 46, campaigns with the wanderlust of the wannabe punk rocker he once was and the vigor of the regular runner, hiker and cyclist he still is. His hair is somehow simultaneously boyish and salt-and-pepper-streaked. He drives himself around in rented Dodge minivans, dressed almost always in plain brown shoes, Banana Republic chinos and blue oxford shirts with no tie and the sleeves rolled up just so. He often dons locally appropriate dad hats, from a maroon Iowa State cap at Iowa State to an orange Clemson cap at Clemson and so on. He holds microphones with his right hand kind of like a singer, and he extends his left arm into the air kind of like a preacher, and he punctuates his points with grins that flash perfectly imperfect teeth.

After Iowa, I dropped in on O’Rourke on the trail in South Carolina and Virginia, listening to him rat-a-tat-tat through his airy, often alliterative talking points about “common cause” and “common ground” and “common good” and “conscientious capitalism” and “our aspirations” and “our ambitions” instead of the “pettiness” and the “partisanship” of politics today, along with planks of a nascent platform like a new voting rights act, citizenship for Dreamers, “world-class public education” and “guaranteed, high-quality, universal health care.” And almost always, when he did talk about himself, it would be back to the time he fell just short. “We lost by 2.6 percent,” he said to a small, low-key gathering in rural Denmark, South Carolina.

Celebrating defeat is unusual for a politician, and doing so makes O’Rourke notably different from the rest of the unwieldy field of Democrats running for president. In contrast to the 20 or so other 2020 candidates—all of them in various ways overachievers who tout the litanies of their successes—O’Rourke instead presents his loss to Cruz as a prominent selling point. More than his ownership of a small business. More than his six years on the city council in his native El Paso. More than his next six years as a back-bench House member in Congress. His near-miss against a prominent Republican in a red state was such a high-quality failure, so epically heroic, he seems to suggest, that it should be considered something of a victory.And he’s not wrong to do it. His failed Senate bid, after all, is singularly what made him famous, what got him an interview with Oprah, what put him on the cover ofVanity Fair—and what’s put him in the top handful of aspirants angling for a shot to topple President Donald Trump.

But while it might be his most spotlit miss, it’s not an aberration.

There’s a reason his biography doesn’t feature much in the campaign. For O’Rourke, the phenomenon on display in that race—failure without negative effects, and with perhaps even some kind of personal boost—is a feature of his life and career. That biography is marked as much by meandering, missteps and moments of melancholic searching as by résumé-boosting victories and honors. A graduate of an eastern prep school and an Ivy League rower and English major, the only son of a gregarious attorney and glad-handing pol and the proprietor of an upscale furniture store, the beneficiary of his family’s expansive social, business and political contacts, O’Rourke has ambled past a pair of arrests, designed websites for El Paso’s who’s who, launched short-lived publishing projects, self-term-limited his largely unremarkable tenure on Capitol Hill, shunned the advice of pollsters and consultants and penned overwrought, solipsistic Medium missives, enjoying the latitude afforded by the cushion of an upper-middle-class upbringing that is only amplified by his marriage to the daughter of one of the region’s richest men.

“With a charmed life like his, you can never really lose,” an ad commissioned by the conservative Club for Growth sneered last month. “That’s why Beto’s running for president—because he can.”

“A life of privilege,” David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, told me.

It’s not just Republicans who think this. “He’s a rich, straight, white dude who, you know, married into what should politely be called ‘fuck you money,’” Sonia Van Meter, an Austin-based Democratic consultant and self-described “raging feminist,” told me. “His biggest success is by definition a failure,” she added. “He’s absolutely failed up.”

Even by the experience-light standards of the most recent occupants of the White House—a first-term senator followed by a real estate scion and reality TV star—the notion of O’Rourke’s uneven résumé blazing a path to the presidency is new and remarkable. For the moment, he is trailing and slipping in the polls, but it’s early, and he is still attracting besotted fans. The support O’Rourke built that even allowed this run in the first place did not depend on traditional concepts of meritocracy and diligent preparation. To look deeper into his past, to talk to his friends from his teens and his 20s, to read distant clips from money-losing media ventures, and to talk to voters, too, is to see a different kind of claim to excellence. In the end, O’Rourke’s best recommendation that he can win might be that he knows how to fail big—and then aim even higher.

O’Rourke’s ascent in some sensestarted more than 20 years back. In the summer of 1998, he made the choice to quit New York. He had graduated in 1995 from Columbia University, then spent most of the next three years playing, listening to and talking about music, reading theEconomistand theNew Yorker, drinking Budweiser, riding in cramped subway cars. He had worked for short periods as a nanny, a copy editor, a hired-hand mover of art and antiques, and in a series of odd jobs around the city that let him split cheap rent in a sparsely furnished Brooklyn loft where he liked to jump on a rooftop trampoline. Now, though, he wanted out, and so he bought a used pickup and drove home, steering toward more open road. He was, he has said, “young” and “happy” and “carefree.”

This decision to leave New York, his longtime friend Lisa Degliantoni told me recently, was and remains O’Rourke’s biggest, most consequential accomplishment—not just a learning experience or a tail-between-his-legs withdrawal, she believes, but an accomplishment. In her mind, it unleashed O’Rourke, allowing him to be “transformational”—first for his city, then for his state, and now potentially for his country.

Trading the bright lights and the bustle for the relative ease and isolation of the desert by the Mexican border, Degliantoni said, was risky, “because as soon as you’re there, you’re off all the radars.” That risk was mitigated significantly, however, by what he was heading home to, according to interviews with nearly two dozen people who have known him or worked with O’Rourke. Riding shotgun in the cab of that pickup was Mike Stevens, another one of his best friends, and when they logged the last of those 2,200 or so miles, Stevens told me, waiting for O’Rourke in El Paso was far from certain success but also “a pretty large safety net.”

He used it. Upon his return, he worked at first in the warehouse of his mother’s store. That fall, he was arrested after driving drunk in his Volvo at 3 a.m. and sideswiping a truck at “a high rate of speed” on Interstate 10. He went to “DWI school,” finishing the next spring.

It was his second arrest. Three years before, he had been apprehended by the police at the University of Texas El Paso after tripping an alarm trying to sneak under a fence at the campus physical plant while “horsing around” with friends. Prosecutors didn’t pursue the charge. (“No consequences,” said McIntosh from the Club for Growth.)

The next year, in 1999, O’Rourke started the Stanton Street Technology Group, an offshoot of which was StantonStreet.com. The website covered the arts and food and local politics and endeavored to be “the most comprehensive, interactive, and entertaining home page in the Southwest.” In the summer of 2000, it was registering 32,000 monthly “impressions,” according to O’Rourke at the time, a figure whose impact is hard to gauge given the early era of the internet and the size of El Paso—but the site also was bleeding money, taking from the coffers of the web design business. Even so, in January 2002, he launched a weekly print version. Bob Moore, the former editor of theEl Paso Times, told me he used to rib O’Rourke that one of his few advertisers was his mother—“his only advertiser,” he said, “for the longest time.” It lasted 15 issues.

The newspaper was, said Degliantoni, who worked on it with him, O’Rourke’s “love letter to his hometown” but also “probably in hindsight not the best move.” Even O’Rourke joked about it recently in his remarks in Storm Lake. “In a brilliant stroke of genius, just as print newspapers were in decline,” he told the standing room only, shoulder to shoulder, coffee shop throng, “I started a print newspaper.”

The result? “We bankrupted the operation,” O’Rourke said to what sounded like good-natured, forgiving titters.

No matter.

He had run the website and started the paper “to be as engaged as I possibly could,” he later explained. “The logical conclusion,” he continued, “was to run for office.”

He ran for City Council in 2005 and won, and won again in 2007, backed by El Paso’s business elite, and then he ran for Congress in 2012, challenging in the primary Silvestre “Silver” Reyes, an eight-term incumbent who would have the endorsements of a pair of presidents (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) and never before had had even a close call in a reelection. It was, political analysts in the area agreed at the time, a bid that smacked of audacity and risk. “It’s close to impossible to get a sitting member of Congress out of office because of the privilege and power,” O’Rourke said early on in his campaign.

But O’Rourke, of course, had a share of both as well, hailing from “an old El Paso political family,” as a local columnist pointed out, calling O’Rourke “just as ‘household’ around here as the stately congressman himself.” A company owned by his father-in-law, the real estate tycoon Bill Sanders—he’s worth at least an estimated half a billion dollars—gave $18,750 to a PAC that supported O’Rourke’s campaign. Reyes threw around the words “family wealth” and charged that O’Rourke was “a show pony” and “part of the 1 percent.”

In the end, though, painting Reyes as an aging Washington insider, and employing block-by-block door knocking, O’Rourke won with 50.5 percent of the vote.

Friends and admirers say O’Rourke is nothing if not a hard worker, wearing out shoes and racking up miles. “I think he’s the hardest-working man in U.S. politics,” said Steve Kling, a Democrat who lost last year running for the Texas state Senate. They describe him as an exceptional listener.

In his three terms in Washington, O’Rourke compiled a moderate to centrist voting record, which in this left-leaning primary could become problematic. He was known in D.C. as sufficiently affable but also something of a loner, say Capitol Hill staffers, a floating, unthreatening member who had undercut his clout by pledging to stay no more than four terms.

When he began his race against Cruz, it’s easy to forget, O’Rourke was close to unknown—even in Texas. Cruz, on the other hand, was one of the most prominent Republicans in the nation, and no Democrat had won a statewide campaign since 1994. Texas Senator and Majority Whip John Cornyn dubbed it “a suicide mission.”

But what, strategists and operatives say now, did O’Rourke really have to lose? He had engineered his own congressional exit, anyway, 2018 was shaping up to be a favorable year for Democrats, and Cruz was a legendarily unpopular foil against whom he could rally support. And the worst-case scenario? Something O’Rourke had done before. Just go home. Go back to El Paso. Failure, in fact, was an option.

“Beto,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson toldTexas Monthlyin March 2017, “lives life with a cushy net beneath him.”

“It wasn’t that big of a risk,” Texas-based GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser told me.

The biggest risk he took in the Senate bid, in the estimation of politicos in Texas and beyond, was to listen to people who lived in all 254 of the counties in Texas more than he did to people who could have armed with him with more targeted data. He tended to rely on feelings more than numbers. It was a root of his populist allure—and also perhaps the reason he didn’t win.

In his concession speech, he positioned himself at the center of a stage decked out with floodlights and speakers and drums, a scene evocative of a rock concert more than a convening of the dejected supporters of a failed candidate and campaign.

“I’m so fucking proud of you guys!” he hollered, eliciting squeals from his fans.

They chanted his name.

“Beto! Beto! Beto!”

After O’Rourke’s recent event in Sioux City, Iowa, I talked to two people who had traveled from different states to see him specifically because of that night. Because they had been inspired by how he spoke about losing. Chris Untiet, 35, had come from California. He works for Habitat for Humanity, and he told me he had watched the speech on the screen of his phone while on a trip to build houses in Vietnam. “I was really moved to tears,” he told me. The other was Claire Campbell. She’s 17. She saw the speech sitting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and will vote for the first time in next year’s presidential election. And she hopes she can pick O’Rourke. “I literally love him,” she told me. In the question-and-answer session, she raised her hand and asked him to her prom.

“So, he had to lose the Senate,”Kim Olson, a Democrat and staunch O’Rourke ally who last year lost her bid to be Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, was telling me as I hurtled ahead on a ribbon of road slicing through flat fields, from one Iowa campaign stop to the next. “He had to get the nationwide name recognition. He had to do the hard work. And let me tell you: It’s fricking hard work running as a statewide candidate—as it’s going to be countrywide … grind, every day, all day—and here he is, after losing in a hard-fought race, he said, ‘I’m still going to serve, I’m still going to go, and I’m going to run for president.’ So, yeah, you could say his greatest accomplishment was to lose by, you know, 300,000 votes to a guy who almost won a primary for the president. But that wasn’t his greatest accomplishment. It wasn’t the loss—it’showhe did it—that was his greatest accomplishment. It was going to everywhere, all the time, speaking to people, getting out there, not being afraid of anybody or anything and doing that hard grind that it takes. That’s why it makes him an incredible candidate for president, I think.”

Olson, affable and voluble, in essence attempted to redefine the idea of failure. O’Rourke hadn’t failed. Because he had tried and worked so hard. Because the experience had opened other doors.

At many of the dozen or so O’Rourke events I attended of late, most of the people I talked to knew not a whole lot about him—hardly anything, really, about what he had done, or not done, before the race against Cruz. Maybe they had seen what he said about the kneeling National Football League players in a clip that lit up the internet. Maybe they had seen the Oprah interview. Maybe they had seen the Annie Leibovitz shot on the cover ofVanity Fair. The conversations were a reminder that most people not in Washington or even Texas have basically just met him.

“Is he a lawyer?” 70-year-old Ruth Lux from little Lidderdale, Iowa, asked me after O’Rourke’s pit stop in nearby Carroll.

“No,” I said.

“What did he do before he got into politics?” she asked.

I provided a speedy rundown to the Cruz race.

“I think the fact that he came so close to unseating Cruz, that’s pretty important,” Lux said. “A lot of people are relating to what he’s saying, you know.”

I asked her if she was bothered by O’Rourke’s lack of experience compared with other candidates in the Democratic field. She wasn’t. “I don’t know that Obama had much more,” she said. “Did he really have much more experience than this guy? Really probably not.”

The man who introduced O’Rourke at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge responded similarly. “I heard the same thing in 2008 when I was supporting Obama,” David Drissel, a professor of social sciences, told me. O’Rourke, he pointed out, has not only more congressional experience than Obama but “more congressional experience than the past four presidents combined.” I did the quick math. Trump. Obama. The second Bush. Clinton. True enough.

Obviously, the bar for the requisite experience for the Oval Office has been recalibrated over the past decade or more of presidential campaigns, and doesn’t necessarily run through Congress at all. But voters haven’t entirely abandoned their desire for a candidate to win—and then actuallydo something. For all the shrugging over his résumé, people at O’Rourke’s town halls clearly, too, were pressing for specifics. I listened to multiple people ask him explicitly to put meat on the bones of his ideas.

Their questions to him often boiled down to one word: How?

Then, when I asked them if they had heard from him what they had wanted to hear, their answers often boiled down to one word as well: No.

Jason Levick, 27, who had driven from Omaha to see O’Rourke, wanted to know how he would cut down on wealth and income inequality.

“A little bit rambling and not really to the point or concrete,” Levick told me.

Brendan Grady, 26, asked O’Rourke in Denison how he would address the “lack of social cohesion.”

“Didn’t really address it,” Grady told me.

Mike Poe, 64, asked O’Rourke in Marshalltown how he would manage to enact meaningful gun control.

“Vague,” Poe told me.

I heard the same thing in South Carolina. In Denmark, at O’Rourke’s town hall in a threadbare auditorium on the campus of tiny Voorhees College, Sailesh S. Radha from Columbia stood up and expressed his frustration that so many presidents can’t seem to make good on their promises after they get elected. How would O’Rourke, Radha wondered, turn his words into actions? Into accomplishments?

After the event, when I asked him what he thought of the answer, Radha shook his head and made a face. “I need to hear more from him,” he said.

And yet, and in spite of a stageof the campaign that’s started to feel more like an ebb than a flow, if I had to divide every crowd into two groups—the squinty, not-quite-satisfied versus those inspired by O’Rourke’s table-hopping battle cries and open to the viability of his candidacy—there was no shortage of dewy-eyed believers.

Many people were struck by his energy and his charisma and his gauzy optimism. They heard echoes of iconic Democrats from the past and saw, they said, a possible path forward—a potential winner—somebody who might be the one to take on Trump. “I’m thinking back to the first encounter with President Obama here at Morningside College,” retiree Mike Goodwin told me after the event in Sioux City.

Lux, meanwhile, the woman in Carroll who thought maybe O’Rourke was a lawyer, waited in line after the event and shook his hand and told Robert Francis O’Rourke he reminded her of … Robert Francis Kennedy. O’Rourke told her thank you. He told her RFK is one of his heroes.

“The charisma,” Lux said when I asked her about the comparison. “The compassion for people at the bottom. Actually, even the physical appearance—the hair, the rolled-up shirt sleeves.”

She told me she had entered 2007 enthused to vote for Hillary Clinton in the caucuses and then for president. But she ended up going for Obama.

“You know, always, it comes down to: How do you present yourself? How charismatic are you?” Lux said. And she said something I heard from many others as well. She was less interested in policy proposals than she was in the possibility of victory. Especially now. “I am more interested,” she said, “in who can unseat Trump.”

It’s one of the few things, it seems, all Democratic voters seem to agree on. “I think that what caucus-goers are looking for is to defeat Donald Trump,” said Norm Sturzenbach, O’Rourke’s state director in Iowa. “That’s ultimately what’s driving it.”

Steinhauser, the GOP strategist from Texas, agreed. “I wouldn’t want to run a campaign against O’Rourke,” he said. He pointed to what he was able to do in … almost beating Cruz. “Look back at what just happened here. It’s pretty incredible. Who else out there on the list really excited people in that way and is the young-looking guy? He reminds a lot of people of Obama or John F. Kennedy or those kinds of candidates.”

Even with his thin résumé? His hazy policies? Steinhauser cut me off.

“Nobody cares,” he said.

“Donald Trump’s policy positions did not matter,” he added, although it should be noted that his visceral pitches in areas like immigration mattered a lot. “I think Democrats want to beat Donald Trump. I think that they’re smart enough to know they need somebody who can win, whatever that means.”

Whether the failed-upward O’Rourke can be that “somebody,” of course, very much remains to be seen. The Iowa caucuses are nearly nine months away, and there’s a long year and a half to go between now and November 2020.

But one recent morning at a seafood restaurant in Ladson, South Carolina, all the booths jammed full, people standing in the back and all the way toward the door, an O’Rourke aide handed the microphone to 69-year-old Stephen Johnson from Mount Pleasant for the last question of the event.

“Congressman O’Rourke,” Johnson said. “I really like you a lot. But there’s one thing I want to know. If you get the Democratic nomination, will you beat Trump?”

O’Rourke answered the question almost before Johnson could finish getting it out of his mouth.

“Yes,” he said.

The people roared.

Read More

[touringtoyota]

Want an unforgettable New Year vacation for 2019 ?

No one wants a mundane new year (unless you are a raging bore!). We know you are not. And you certainly don’t want to head out for those cliché venues as well. Got a plan? NO? Well, we assure you are not that late in planning.

You just need to breathe, sit back and let us do the hard work. If you ask us, we would prefer going holiday on the Moon or Venus. But that’s not feasible you know. Not yet!

Looking for the best places to travel in 2019 is not that hard, and we have got you covered.

Get your senses to Zen and travel to these spots-

For first time travelers:

1.Beaches: Vagator- Anjuna- Calangute- Morjim- Baga (Goa), Pondicherry beach, Banagram Island beach (Lakshadweep), Marari (Allepey) [Kerala], Om beach (Gokarna)[Karnataka].

Beaches are innately beautiful, no point in describing its splendid beauty. Still, for formality sake- Banagram beach is a famed destination for rejuvenating and relaxing. Morjim hosts cheery nightlife with Olive Ridley Turtles being its hallmark. Om beach is a party destination famous for its temples and parties (strange combination, we know). Marari is a lesser known gem in the backwaters of Allepey.

2.Desert:

Rann of Kutch(in Gujarat) hosts the longest festival (3 months) Rann Utsav being ideal for newlyweds and friends group. The ethereal starlit sky in Kutch with white salt marsh (as far as the eye can see) and desert lanterns is a spectacle to watch.

Jodhpur with backdrops of Mehrangarh Fort, Ghanta Ghar, and Umaid Bhawan Palace are among the best places to visit for experiencing Indian reality. You can explore Khimsar (for migratory birds), Nagaur (for the fort and Jal Mahal), Pokhran (for architecture), and Kuchman (for the fort with unique water harvesting) in your Toyota Fortuner within the radius of 200 km of the main city.

3. Hills and Mountains:

Manali is mystery and splendor at its best. The mesmerizing road to Rohtang Pass will leave you spellbound. Snow and ice await you at Rohtang (though the roads might not take you far). Visit Naggar (~20 km apart) if you desire to witness a wooden architecture palace marvel.

Kasol– ‘The mini Israel’ with its quaint and surreal beauty is one heck of a top-notch vacation spot. Indulge in world-class parties and get to know the Hippie scene in India. Visit Parvati valley and let beauty unfold onto yourself organically.

Shimla– The Queen of Hills invites you every year with its colonial charm and haunted aura. Enjoying a vacation here will actually teach you what it means to be in permanent travel destinations.

For Seasonal holiday goers:

1. Festivals:

Mount Abu Winter Festival was a joint initiative between Rajasthan Tourism and Tamil Nadu Municipal board. Fireworks, Poetry recitations, traditional dances, and stage performances await you here in the lap of Aravalli. Head off to this festival in grandeur and let the fun immerse you in New Year. Culture, wildlife, museums, Dilwara Temples are too good to be missed.

Sunburn (29-31 Dec, a hallmark music festival of Goa) is being hosted in Pune this year. Just one word for this festival – AWESOME! Electronic music, dance, concerts and partying at its best, Sunburn has to be felt instead of being described.

2. Special Mention: Camel Fair, Bikaner (12-13 Jan 2019): Not just camels but forts and fun intertwined. The second week of the New Year is the best time to witness Fire dances and camel dances. Camel rides and camel races make your new year’s filled with newfound holiday place in the desert. A visit to the nearby Junagarh Fort, Bhandsar Jain temple and Deshnok Karni Mata Temple in your Toyota Yaris is the ride you will never forget.

3. Offbeat Destinations:

Shillong the capital city of Meghalaya (one of the seven sisters) is awe inspiring. One of the lesser known holiday mecca, Shillong with its gorgeous waterfalls, luring mountain peaks, and greenery is a class apart from the cliches. Krang Suri Falls (blue water), Dawki Lake (crystal clear water) are something you need to see with your own eyes.

Pakyong in Sikkim is a quite town counting for the 100th airport in India. Pakyong is the abode of monasteries and charming gardens. Head out to Jhandidhara Sunrise point or the Banjhakri Falls and Park. This place offers the feel of home in the lap of nature.

Tarkarli beach in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra is in close proximity to Goa (~60km). It is a perfect getaway to enjoy in solitude with home-made Malvani food and stunning beach views to relax. One of the best cheap places to travel in New Year away from the crowd, Tarkarli is a must visit. Water sport is also an option to choose from to add a fun quotient.

4.  Recommendations:

Silent Valley National Park (Kerala): Think of rainbow-colored stones in a beautiful lake. Add shallow waters and picturesque mountains. Welcome to the Silent Valley National Park. This place is best felt in winters. Karuvara falls with its elegant beauty reminds the waterfall scenes from Baahubali. The Keerippara Trek is another verdant boon full of treasuring experiences to get lost into.

Gangtok: Not just the brother of the seven sisters (of the Northeast), Gangtok is all decked up in winters (especially on New Year). Get to witness some amazing views of the Kanchenjunga and spend New Year vacation in Sikkim style.

Recommended: What offbeat December destinations you should head out for?

For adventure lovers

1. Water Sports: Kolad in Maharashtra is an ideal spot for water fun in winter. River Rafting is the main attraction here. Optimum temperature (~30 degree celsius) with white waters of the Kundalika River is a treat to the eyes. Give your New Year a bang on with Kolad!

2. Winter Sports: Phuni Valley in Sikkim is a place which many people do not know about. Skiing is the major winter sport of the region. The snow at 11000 meter high makes the perfect place to slide down the slopes smoothly.

3. Offbeat Tracks: The Bhandardara in Ahmed nagar district Maharashtra in the Western Ghats is best visited in winters. The cozy temperature lures visitors from nearby Pune or Mumbaikars here. The trek to Kalsubai peak (highest in Maharashtra) is a tricky one. Lush vale green on either side with the morning mist and little sunlight makes it all the more enticing. Randha Falls and Umbrella Falls are other top places to look for in Bhandardara. You can also choose going to the Ratangad Fort (~23 km apart) to add laurels to your adventure list.

Best holiday destinations are what you want them to be. It is okay to go for the clichés but knowing when to change matters. To be an ardent traveler means you will explore new things.  Also, you would be adding newer versions of yourself.

Go have a blast in the New Year. And don’t forget to tell us where you spent your vacation.

[cheapartybusdc]

Celebrate the Bride or Groom in DC with a Prom Limo or Party Bus DC

The bride and groom deserve extraordinary pre-wedding celebrations, even better with multiple venues and an option for transport. Even as you plan the transportation arrangements in DC prom limo or Party Bus DC allows for luxurious fun and assured good times. No matter where you plan to party or how many riders tag along, our company can versatilely answer the problems of the occasion.

Elevating Significant Moments

The reasons for reserving wedding or prom limo service DC for the bachelor or bachelorette celebration that you are planning aren’t limited to getting from one place to another. Wanting to make the occasion as appropriate as possible is our goal for service, so we’re flexible and diverse. All rides provided are flawlessly kept, newer, and comprehensively insured. Every size requirement and style preference can be resolved from a model within our fleet. In addition, all party bus options include space for dancing that includes a pole, plush passenger seating, a bar with alcohol-free beverages, and a superior audio/visual system for party perfection.

Staff Who Prioritize Riders

Even as our vehicles are top notch, our staff is as well. We prioritize simplicity and ease by designing travel arrangements intended to satisfy suitably. We provide beverages and welcome modification and inclusion requests to make the bachelor or bachelorette event easy to implement. Our agents will be there for you 24/7 to customize, without an end to business hours. We take the time to quickly respond while also suitably dealing with problems. With our streamlined service, agents are as close as your smartphone to personalize the party in Salt Lake City party bus.

Improving Celebrations by Chauffeurs

The chauffeur included with your transportation needs will clearly have an impact. A party bus Salt Lake City should be driven by one who has been instructed, verified of background, and investigated for drug abuse. Make sure that you book with a company like ours; we prioritize the chauffeur standards. All of our driving pool consists of professionals who have been instructed, tested, and evaluated thoroughly.

As you cement bookings for bachelor or bachelorette celebrations, book with a company that offers venue and travel. Our fleet will impress; our staff will protect and serve; and our customer support satisfies. No matter where the party falls on the spectrum of crazy, look to us for a flexible, easy, and appropriate travel source.

Cheap party bus for Christmas light tours

Ride in style with our Luxury and Cheap Party Buses in Washington, DC. Whether you are going to a Christmas Party, a local venue, concert or for your outdoor special events, we can accommodate your needs. Celebrate this holiday season with Our Cheap Party Bus. Get Instant Free Quotes for Christmas Light Tours at (Call Now: (888) 748-4929 or email us at info@cheappartybusdc.com

SOURCE: http://cheappartybusdc.blogspot.in/2017/12/celebrate-bride-or-groom-in-dc-with.html

[rbeatz]

The Floozies Are Better 4 U: An Interview with The Kings of Electro-Funk

The Floozies are Kings of Electro-Funk. I had the opportunity to catch their set on the Mysteryland last year, and I was blown away. The amount of groove inducing electro-funk has me vibing and dancing uncontrollably. They were one of the funkiest groups I’ve seen live, comparing them to the likes of GRiZ, Big Gigantic, Pretty Lights and other all time greats in the Electro-Funk space. Their sound had a bit more natural POP than the aforementioned greats. Electro-Funk is one of my favorite genres, and The Floozies are at the top of my list – their use of eclectic samples while still maintaining a funk rhythm is both impressive and mesmerizing.

The Floozies are made up two brothers – producer/guitarist Matt Hill and drummer Mark Hill. They’ve played the biggest stages, calling their music party rocking funk – energizing dace floors around the world.  All of The Floozies music can be downloaded for free from www.flooziesduo.com. The two are gearing up for their upcoming album, FUNK JESUS, coming this fall.

They recently released their new single, Better 4 U, and it’s FIRE.

Better 4 U is about the moment when you realize you’ve let someone down, bringing yourself to admit to the mistake made. Doing it more than for self-improvement, but also for the sake of the the people that surround you. When you’re down, it’s important to realize that the people around you are then affected. Yourself and the ones around you deserve the best from you, and this will ultimately lead towards a path of happiness.Positivity and love should be your driving force.

I had the pleasure of interviewing these kings of funk below. You know the drill, click the play button on the soundcloud embed and read the interview below to get the FULL The Floozies experience. The first song on the embed below is their new single, Better 4 U. If you’re into as much electro-funk as I am, The Floozies is a MUST LISTEN.

  INTERVIEW:

Where are you guys from and how has that shaped the musicians you are today?

Kansas. We have both been able to learn from teachers and musicians around us throughout our lives. Learning from them has definitely led us to where we are musically.

What instruments did you play when you were younger?

I played trombone, piano, guitar, bass, a bit of banjo, and of course drums. Matt did all the same except he didn’t play trombone or banjo. He can figure his way through any instrument pretty easily though.

Are there an instruments that you currently wish you COULD play?

I really want to learn flugelhorn! It sounds so dark and lovely and the finger method of trumpet/flugel are really intriguing to me, so I bought a flugelhorn. I haven’t had a chance to dive in yet. I think Russ Liquid is going to give me a lesson next time we are together though.

Tell us the story of how you started creating music on your computer?

We played and traveled as a live looping duo at first. For a long time. We just used a guitar and pedal for Matt and I accompanied with drums. It was incredibly difficult, but it had really great moments. The computer came way late as a means to make the live set better, so live computer creation happened basically once we figured out how it worked and saved up enough money.

Producing on the computer has been happening for a long time! I remember Matt making beats on an old casio keyboard with this way ahead of its time loop record function! We were little kids and he was making world class beats on our sisters cheap keyboard haha! i think thats when it started. Then years later, Matt made an album on a computer a long time before we ever tried to recreate it live. He made some really great albums that we never really even shared as the floozies. He is the type of guy that just keeps trying to figure everything out, so naturally, we have continued producing and also using the computer live.

What was your favorite studio moment when producing your new single, Better 4 U?

For me it was the moment Matt sent me the original vocal idea. Just in a voice message to my phone. I was on my way to the gym and I remember listening to it (10 second clip) of its bare form just over and over and over the whole way. I had goosebumps the entire drive.

What do you like to do when you’re simply hanging out – aside from music 

We’ve been best friends since we were babies. Never fought or had problems. So anything really. We like to have our business meetings on the basketball court. We both love playing basketball, exploring cities, seeing cool things. A lot of us hanging out is just sharing ideas and laughing a lot. It’s a dream to tour with each other really.

Who are your musical influences?

Grew up listening to funk bands and some soul (thanks Mom!) such as: kool and the gang, p funk, earth wind and fire, michael jackson, temptations, all the good stuff.

After that, we’ve just pretty much listened to everything we can get! you can find inspiration in so much different music.

I love bluegrass stemming from going to see “The String Cheese Incident” back in the day. Too many to list in that category! We’ve both been influenced by Robert Glasper, Chris Cornell, Lettuce, Rick James, James Brown, D’ Angelo, Tower of Power just to name a few.

Who has been one of your favorite artists to collab with?

Ryan Zoidis from Lettuce. Not only an incredible sax player, but an awesome guy all around. His playing and presence always leave me with a smile.

What are some of your favorite venues to play and why?

All of them have character and beauty individually. We have memories in each one.

What are some of your favorite cities to play-in and why?

All of them have character and beauty individually. Exploring each city has been an incredible experience. I will say we just came back from Portland, Maine, and that whole area is just beautiful and lush and spacious.

Do you have a favorite festival you played this summer?

They were all great, I don’t like to compare moments much if you can’t tell ha. One festival that was different than the others greatly was Electric Forest. We brought out a live band performance for the 1st weekend performance. It was an incredibly challenging and beautiful show for us. The group killed it together and the crowd was really special on that day with us.

What DAW do you use and why?

Logic. It’s what we started with and I think it’s pretty.

You’re a two man group, do each of you have different strengths and weaknesses that play well off each other? 

Yeah. Business wise especially! It seems that everything I lack ability for Matt can handle pretty easily and vice versa. I am really good with logistics and handling that side of it, Matt has a really creative big picture side for artwork, direction, merch, etc. Although there are definitely crossovers. Sometimes an artwork or merch idea will be mine. We have a good ability to share ideas and work them out together most especially. Together we make our best ideas in the end.

Live we are both strongest when together. We feed on each other and have so much fun when we play. We always know when to help each other with cues and stuff when things get musically challenging.

What is your favorite MIDI Controller or instrument to produce with right now?

We just got an Harpejii string instrument and its incredibly cool.

Do you have a key production tip for our young producers out there?

Make your own sounds and have fun with it.

What is your favorite color?

Green

What food do you eat the most?

salad at the moment

Do you have a favorite in-studio snack?

tea or coffee ha

What is your favorite social media platform and why?

I like Instagram because its well run and clean and pictures are neat.

What is next for The Floozies?

Funk Jesus Tour (biggest raddest tour we’ve done) is in a couple weeks and goes all through the fall! Then we have a couple shows in December leading to some rad unannounced NYE week stuff. Right after that is our 2nd Powder Rangers tour which is two weeks every night in ski towns throughout Colorado! Every show sold out last year so that was fun.

Funk Jesus Tour Dates Below

Sept. 28 – Omaha, NE – Sokol Auditorium Sept. 29 – Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theatre Sept. 30 – Minneapolis, MN- First Avenue Oct. 1 – Iowa City, IA – Blue Moose Oct. 4 – Raleigh, NC -Lincoln Theatre Oct. 6 – Richmond, VA – The National (Click here to get tickets) Oct. 7 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre Of The Living Arts Oct. 12 – Hartford, CT – Infinity Music Hall Oct. 13 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club Oct. 14 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom Oct. 15 – Ithaca, NY – The Haunt Oct. 20 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Intersection Oct. 21 – Detroit, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre (Click here to get tickets) Oct. 28 – Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom Oct. 31 – Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall Nov. 2 – Missoula, MT – Top Hat Nov. 3 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom Nov. 4 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox (Click here to get tickets) Nov. 5 – Arcata, CA – Arcata Theatre Nov. 7 – Sacramento, CA – Harlow’s Nov. 8 – Santa Barbara, CA – Soho Music Club Nov. 9 – San Diego, CA – Music Box Nov. 10 – Los Angeles, CA – El Rey Theatre (Click here to get tickets) Nov. 11 – San Francisco, CA – 1015 Folsom Nov. 16 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall Nov. 17 – Austin, TX – Emo’s Nov. 18 – Dallas, TX – House Of Blues Nov. 19 – Baton Rouge, LA – Varsity Theatre Dec. 7 – Fajardo, PR – Island Of Light Dec. 8 – Fajardo, PR – Island Of Light Dec. 9 – Fajardo, PR – Island Of Light Dec. 10 – Fajardo, PR – Island Of Light

from rBeatz Radio http://ift.tt/2wsCrUX

[siempreweddings]

The Benefits of Hiring a Wedding Planner for Your Outdoor Utah Wedding

Planning a wedding is a monumental task, one that requires attention to detail, creativity, and the ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. Due to Utah's distinctive and breathtaking scenery, planning an outdoor wedding becomes more complicated. An outdoor Utah wedding can be breathtakingly gorgeous but also difficult to plan, from the red rock formations of Moab to the alpine meadows of Park City. If you want to hire a wedding planner for your outdoor wedding in Draper, then you can go through SIEMPRE. Visit us: https://topbizworld.com/wedding/the-benefits-of-hiring-a-wedding-planner-for-your-outdoor-utah-wedding/

[rickhorrow]

Stadiums Are Big Business: new Book Looks At How And Why…And Then Some…

by Tanner SImkins @TannerSimkins

The stadium business has never been bigger, and the debate over who should pay for such things has never been hotter.  With the NGL now in Las Vegas, the Chargers moving to L.A., the Raiders in flux, the Falcons getting a new home, new York trying to figure out what to do with NYCFC and the Islanders the debate has raged on from sea to sea.  This week author Rafi Kohan has a new book out which talks about all these issues as well as the quirks and fin of fandom and so much more. The book is called “The Arena, Inside the Tailgating, Ticket-Scalping, Mascot-Racing, Dubiously Funded, and Possibly Haunted Monuments of American Sport  ” and we caught up with Rafi to talk the stadium game, and some of the other many lessons learned along his journey.  https://www.amazon.com/Arena-tailgating-ticket-scalping-mascot-racing-dubiously-ebook/dp/B01M6XDXK7

With all the stadia you visited, what was the biggest surprise?

One thing I found fascinating was the way in which ticket scalpers in Cleveland were able to create one-time marketplaces surrounding Cavaliers playoff games, seemingly independent of any other factors. I’ll explain what I mean: For game one of the 2015 playoffs—the first postseason game since LeBron James returned to the city, with the promise of a championship—there was decent activity on the online secondary market and a ton of people milling around the arena. The team was even throwing an official pregame party. And yet, the scalpers couldn’t move very many tickets at all. It was brutal. Some started lowering their demands, while others decided to price enforce. Eventually, they were able to move a few tickets, but nothing close to what they had been anticipating.

Game two was a couple days later. There was no pregame party and secondary market activity was shaky, at best. Naturally, the scalpers feared the action would be even worse. But they were wrong. Game two proved to be a bonanza for the sellers on the street, as they unloaded tickets well above what they were moving for online. There are some guys who like to monitor the online market and try to swoop in and vulture cheap tickets from scalpers, and these guys watched in disbelief as upper-level seats sold for hundreds of dollars. Some scalpers ran out of inventory well before tip-off. Why was one game better than the other? These are the mysteries of the street. As one scalper who works around Fenway Park in Boston put it to me, as to why a ticket is worth one thing and not another: “Ice cream has no bones. So what?”

Atlanta is now about to get a new football stadium, how has that changed the public vs private money situation for these new urban centers?

I don’t think it has changed the situation at all, as far as public vs. private funding goes for football stadiums. The Falcons are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, thanks to a hotel-motel tax, and that’s pretty par for the course (with rare exception in the largest media markets). Some cities and teams are trying to get more creative in terms of how they funnel that money to team owners—in this case, because the money is coming from a hotel-motel tax, the argument can be made that it is tourists who are helping to pay for the stadium (but that of course neglects any sort of counterfactual situation, in which the city uses those tax dollars for other purposes). At the end of the day, a subsidy is a subsidy.

What’s interesting about the new Atlanta football stadium, in my opinion, is the extent to which the Falcons team owner Arthur Blank will make genuine investments in the surrounding community. More so than perhaps any other owner, Blank has been making noise about true community development—job training, lowering crime, youth leadership programs, and so on—and has reportedly provided dollars to back it up. We’ll see what happens, but one of my takeaways from spending so much time in and around stadiums in general is that sports teams ought to be better citizens and better neighbors, instead of cynical stadium tenants—especially given how much public money sports owners accept (which is to say nothing of the benefits of tax-free borrowing)—and this is a good place to start.

You talk about everything from urinals to scalping in the book, who are two of your favorite stories?

Since you brought up urinals, one of my favorite stories has to do with the urinal troughs at Wrigley Field. Apparently, male fans view peeing in the troughs as one of the rituals of Wrigley Field, and a kind of rite of passage. My dad took me to pee in a trough, and by God, I’m going to take my son to pee in a trough! And so when Wrigley began its recent renovations, this was one of the areas on which fans were not willing to compromise. They wanted to keep the troughs. In fact, at one game, my seatmate discovered that I had never peed in a trough and he demanded that I accompany him to the restroom immediately. It was a one-of-a-kind bonding experience.

Another favorite story, which is really more of an interaction, came at Fenway Park. I was sitting in the field-side box of former Red Sox president Larry Lucchino the day after a female fan was badly injured when a shattered bat helicoptered into the stands. I believe she was still in the hospital. Before the game, I started chatting with one of the security guards standing on the field. Because fan injuries were a growing concern in baseball, I asked him if he had ever seen anything like that injury before. He responded,  “Yeah, in my other job.” And what was his other job, I wondered? “I work in the ER,” he said.

Los Angeles just got the Olympics, and with it come new stadia already in the mix. Any thoughts on how LA has re-invented itself as a hub of big sports events?

L.A. is one of the few cities that has ever done the Olympics right, at least in terms of not allowing the games to financially ruin the city. (Which is why so many other cities are hesitant to even bid on the games now.) And with L.A.’s existing sports infrastructure and the new venues coming online, it is possible that the city will not have to build any new permanent facilities, which is great in terms of avoiding white elephants. I spent a good amount of time in Salt Lake City, which has probably done the best job, as far as post-Olympics legacy goes. And the lesson there is that legacy planning can’t begin after the games leave, but has to start well before they ever arrive. Beyond initial and even long-term subsidization costs, when necessary, you need to have a plan for every facility. For example, will a venue revert back to what it was before, as was the case in Salt Lake with Rice-Eccles Stadium, home of the University of Utah football program and host of the opening and closing ceremonies? Will it transform into something new, like Maverik Center, which hosted hockey events and is now a multipurpose sports and entertainment venue? Will the public be able to use it and benefit from it, as they are Utah Olympic Park? I hope L.A. is taking all these things into consideration. They certainly have enough time to plan for it.

One potential downside to L.A. as a sports hub, however, is this question: At what point do we reach oversaturation for stadiums? After all, touring bands and other road shows can only play so many venues in the same city. And if the venues start underbidding one another because they become desperate to fill dates—not saying that’s the case; this is a hypothetical—then we’ve reached a lose-lose situation for all the stadium operators.

You also look at lots of colleges.  From a business and event perspective, what are some towns that have done it right with regard to college facilities?

You know, college football stadiums were actually some of the first permanent steel-and-concrete stadiums in the U.S., with Harvard Stadium being the first in 1903. (The stadium was a gift from alumni.) From the beginning, they held a unique place in the American stadiumscape, almost serving as marketing billboards to the country at large for those individual institutions. They represented something. They were stakes in the ground, and they said: this is a place worth attending.

I spent most of my time at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Beaver Stadium, in State College, Pennsylvania. Both are interesting for many different reasons, and one common reason: identity. To this day, these venues stand as metaphors for those universities and their wider communities. They say: this is who we are, and this is what we stand for. (For obvious reasons, some folks in Penn State have been suffering a bit of a crisis of identity in recent years.)

Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that I think the question we should be asking about college towns is this: Which of these places are able to respect that initial purpose of standing for something, without trampling academic ideals or compromising core values? It’s increasingly difficult to argue anyone is really getting this exactly right, especially with big money running rampant through college football.

If there was a city looking for a boom in development and innovation with regard to fans and the places their teams play, who should we be looking to?

First off, cities should understand that stadiums are not good economic drivers, for a region as a whole. There is broad economic consensus on this point. So any fantasies of building a stadium and having development naturally bloom around it—forget that. Stadiums are not good financial investments. That being said, this question reminds me of something Roger Noll, who is a preeminent stadium economist, said to me, and that is: stadiums can be useful political instruments when included in larger development plans, especially in cities that could use a boost. As he put it, “Having the government commit successfully to a 20-year redevelopment project is a considerable political accomplishment, and including sports will get you 20 to 25 percent of the electorate. It adds to the coalition.”

In other words, stadiums can help a city with targeted redevelopment, if there is a specific area of the city that they are trying to revitalize, for example. This ended up being what Cleveland did with the Gateway District, when they built new homes for both the Cavs and the Indians in the mid-1990s, and part of what made that successful was that the facilities were imagined as participating in a 365-day-a-year district, with interaction with the wider district—the bars and restaurants and what have you. The stadiums were not walled off or encircled by parking lots but corkscrewed into the district. Of course there is more to Cleveland’s downtown revitalization than just sports facilities, but they played a part.

[realestate63141]

Millennial Magnets: The Top 10 Cities Where Young People Want to Be

Orlando, FL (lightkey/iStock)

What do millennials want, anyway? Marketing execs all over the country have been tripping over themselves for years to find the answer. After all, as America’s largest and youngest adult generation, millennials have an insane amount of collective purchasing power, the power to move markets according to their whims—and the ability to do so for decades to come.

As a group, they’re also somewhat elusive. Are they aimless or driven? Apathetic or activist? IPhone or Android? Taco Bell or Chipotle?

Well, here’s something we do know: In ever-increasing numbers, they’re home buyers. In fact, they’re the biggest group of ’em in the nation. Sure, they’re devotees of the borrowers’ economy—eagerly sharing bikes, music, rides, vacation places, you name it—but like most generations before them, they’re hungry for home ownership. Buyers under 36 now make up the biggest chunk of Americans signing on the line that is dotted: 34% of all home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And they make up 64% of first-time home buyers (even though they only account for 13% of the population).

So if millennials are checking out your hometown, you’d best pay attention.

“There are some very specific things you see millennials looking for in a community right now,” says Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer for the Center for Generational Kinetics, a marketing firm in Austin, TX. On the list of must-haves: supershort commutes, and amenities like parks, cultural centers, and restaurants. And yeah, maybe even some really fun stuff to do on a Thursday night. That’s because many of these 25- to 34-year-olds are delaying marriage and even a serious career, and want to enjoy the single life, he says.

As Dorsey points out, they also face an UberXL load of unique financial challenges: “College debt, thinner credit history, less savings—and all at a time when home prices have gone up. For many millennials, it’s much harder to buy houses.” On their path to ownership, they’re very much on the prowl for a bargain.

So what are the places that pique millennials’ interest? The realtor.com economic data team analyzed the 60 largest U.S. cities and how much millennials were checking out listings in those areas, compared with the national average, from August 2016 to February 2017.

Ready? Let’s take a closer look at these millennial magnets.

1. Salt Lake City, UT

Median home price: $360,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home*: 30%

Unemployment rate: 2.9%

Salt Lake City

AndreyKrav/iStock

Salt Lake City has a lot more going for it than Mormons, the first KFC franchise (1952), and a big, briny body of water (the Great Salt Lake). There’s also a burgeoning tech scene that lures young people to companies like Adobe and Electronic Arts. In fact, the city has come to be known as “Silicon Slopes,” with homes at one-third of Silicon Valley prices and plenty of sweet skiing and boarding a short ride away.

Even those outside the tech biz have a good chance of snagging a nice gig—Salt Lake has the lowest unemployment rate of all the markets on our list, at 2.9%, well below the national unemployment rate of 4.7%.

And if your dream job hasn’t yet kicked in, there are plenty of cheap, fun things to do.

“This is an extremely livable, affordable city, especially for those that are just starting out,” says Brook Bernier, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate.

Adventure awaits in SLC’s many bike lanes and mountain bike trails. There’s even a Bike Prom (a costumed bike rally party) and Tour de Brewtah, which combines two of the (clichéd, but true) great loves of millennials: bikes and micro-brewed beers. The weekly farmers market even offers valet bike parking.

Millennial lure:  SLC may be known as a conservative place, but it was named the “Gayest City in the USA” in 2012 by the LGBT magazine the Advocate. It was ranked eighth last year.

2. Miami, FL

Median home price: $370,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 49%

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

It’s not just sun birds or aging boomers who flock to Florida in droves, fleeing cold weather. So do millennials! The sunshine is nice, but young folk are attracted to a hopping scene with relatively affordable homes and decent job opportunities. Many find employment in tourism, international trading, and construction—the entire region is enjoying a building boom.

It’s not all work and no play, though. While the South Beach is known for its club scene, events like Calle Ocho Festival, Carnaval Miami, and Art Basel Miami  turn the entire city into a party. In addition to numerous art galleries and music venues, the Adrienne Arsht Center was opened in 2006 as the country’s second-largest performing arts center (after NYC’s Metropolitan Opera House).

Up-and-coming neighborhoods like Little Haiti and North Miami are getting fresh interest from young buyers, says Realtor Giovanna Calimano, of Yes Real Estate.

“A lot of these areas are developing little by little,” she says. “They’re hot because the houses there right now aren’t overpriced. People can live there while the communities are still developing and improving.”

Millennial lure: Beach culture—fun, sexy, and cheap (or, actually, free). What’s not to love?

3. Orlando, FL

Median home price: $279,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 34%

Unemployment rate: 4.4%

Bike to Work Day in Orlando

CindyMurray/iStock

There’s much more to Orlando than theme parks, oversized mice, and sleepy time-shares overlooking golf courses. In fact, this fast-growing metro is getting a lot of serious attention from young people.

“You’ve got the best of both worlds,” says Realtor Lorisa Motko of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You’ve got the beaches 45 minutes in any direction, and you have plenty of entertainment and nightlife for millennials.”

New mixed-use developments designed to appeal to both city-loving millennials and baby boomers (hey, what happened to Gen Xers, anyway?), many of which are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. Thornton Park, just east of downtown, has also become popular among younger homeowners seeking a unique historic neighborhood with cobbled streets and lined with bungalows.

The Orlando metro area leads Florida in job creation, and added 54,600 jobs in January, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Millennial lure:  Orlando was the birthplace of the megastar boy bands, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys, which dominated the airwaves back in the ’90s. And, in case you hadn’t heard, the ’90s are cool again … with millennials. Go figure.

4. Seattle, WA

Median home price: $455,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Seattle checks off quite a few items on the millennial home buyer’s list: well-paid jobs (at Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco) quality coffeehouses around almost every corner, more than 50 bike trails, and some of the country’s best tree-lined streets.

It’s also a welcoming place for nonconforming young people. The city had one of the nation’s biggest turnouts for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hometown titan Starbucks announced a plan to hire refugees, and it’s the first major U.S. metro to approve a $15 minimum wage.

“Seattle is hip, it’s current, it’s progressive,” says Chris Bajuk, a broker at HomeSmart. “We’re at the leading edge of social and technology trends.”

Millennial lure:  The upscale marijuana shop Vela (it’s legal here!), with gleaming counters and an on-site processing lab, was labeled “the Louis Vuitton of weed stores” by none other than Snoop Dogg.

5. Houston, TX

Median home price: $310,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 5.4%

Houston, TX

CrackerClips/iStock

Good news for broke millennials: A paycheck in Houston stretches further than in other metros. Houston has the second-highest pay on our list, at $62,300, after adjusting for the cost of living, trailing only San Jose, according to Forbes. Plus, Texas is one of the only seven states with no income tax.

Granted, you may well find yourself fighting through Houston traffic, but several master-planned communities in the suburbs mix residential homes with businesses, so you may not even need to head downtown.

“Restaurants, bars, shops—it almost feels like an urban setting. It’s a very neat trend that’s going to take off,” says Cheri Fama, president of John Daugherty Realtors.

Millennial lure:  One of Houston’s more eccentric tourist attractions is the Beer Can House—the odd brainchild of retired upholsterer John Milkovisch, who covered his home with more than 50,000 flattened cans, bottles, and caps.

6. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $672,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 64%

Unemployment rate: 4.7%

Los Angeles rooftop

Superb Images/Getty Images

Los Angeles is still “La La Land” for young people dreaming of a Hollywood career, waiting for that life-changing phone call while writing in a café, waiting tables, or driving for Lyft.

“Yes, a lot of people who want to break into the business still come here,” says Gwen Lane, a 33-year-old millennial who runs the blog The LA Girl. “For creatives, it’s such a good place to be.”

But a more recent arrival, the tech industry, is also making itself known—especially the stretch of ocean-adjacent Westside known as “Silicon Beach.” Here you’ll find the parent company of Snapchat; virtual reality hardware/software producer Oculus; and a major outpost of Google.

And despite a median home price of $672,000, there are still pockets of L.A. that are affordable. Northeast neighborhoods like Highland Park and Atwater Village, once dismissed as the boonies, are now among the trendiest choices for laying down roots. Downtown L.A. is vibrant again, and the newly expanded metro system offers options for getting around without a car. For even lower price tags, South Los Angeles is worth considering—the area is going through major changes, with new outdoor plazas, a farmers market, public gardens, and more than 1,000 apartments and condos.

Millennial lure: The Whiskey a Go Go, once the hometown club of the Doors, is still one of the country’s best joints to see up-and-coming bands.

7. Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $158,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 23%

Unemployment rate: 5.6%

Buffalo’s inexpensive housing—the median home price is only $158,000—is particularly attractive to young people carrying mounds of college debt. Jobs are flowing in, too. Elon Musk’s SolarCity factory alone, a solar energy equipment supplier, promises 3,000 jobs.

“It’s a city where young people can make their presence felt, whereas in large cities like New York, it’s hard to make an impact,” says E. Frits Abell, chief operating officer of Green Machines, an eco-friendly machine manufacturer in Buffalo.

“Buffalo has a very conducive environment for entrepreneurs … people are also involved in charities, spend time fixing neighbors’ homes, or volunteer with refugee communities to make a positive social impact here.”

Among cities of similar size, Buffalo has a remarkable selection of cultural attractions. And after extensive renovation over the last decade or so, Buffalo has turned its waterfront into a recreation zone for skating and curling.

Millennial lure:  Buffalo’s Turkey Trot is the oldest annual public footrace in the nation. The 8K run was first held all the way back in 1896.

8. Albany, NY

Median home price: $250,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 27%

Unemployment rate: 4.5%

New York State Museum in Albany, NY

DebraMillet/iStock

Albany, one of America’s first cities, is embracing a shining new future. Faded industrial districts in North Albany have become thriving enclaves, with colorful street life. The historic downtown of the state capital has witnessed a resurgence, with enough bars, hotels, and restaurants to justify a hipster’s guide to downtown.

“Albany is kicking it with the micro-brewery and cider business,” says Bill Pettit, a landscape painter who has lived in Albany since 1988. Pettit works with local art galleries and aspiring young artists for 1st Friday, a monthly event disseminating arts and culture throughout the city.

Albany has six colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany. Until recently, graduates vamoosed for better jobs, but now that the city has rebranded itself as a budding tech hub, many choose to stay. Companies like IBM and GlobalFoundries have set up research centers here, and the city is expected to fill 1,180 new software jobs by 2020, according to the New York Department of Labor.

Millennial lure:  There’s a surprisingly vibrant local indie band scene here. Really.

9. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $849,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 56%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

The old adage goes, “San Francisco is a place where young people come to retire.” It’s less true today, given that the cost of living is freakishly high—median rent for a one-bedroom is $3,270, and the median price of a home is $849,000. Now the city is filling up with ambitious young tech folks who aren’t retiring anytime soon.

The young vibe is found in hoodies, ping-pong tables, and beer-stocked fridges in the offices of Airbnb, Pinterest, and lesser-known startups. It’s also present at company IPO parties or 20-something meetups in warehouse-turned-event spaces like the Folsom Street Foundry.

The whole city is basically a giant adult playground. Visit the Academy of Sciences with a drink in your hand during NightLife Thursdays, lie in Dolores Park on a sunny summer day and consider buying a marijuana-laced lollipop, or join a citywide scavenger hunt with your friends.

“It’s the best city ever for young designers,” says Lisa Zhang, 26, who studies interactive design at Academy of Art University. “I see inspiration everywhere, on streets, at bus stations. … I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.”

Millennial lure: Everything.

10. San Jose, CA

Median home price: $950,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 53%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

Yes, housing prices in Silicon Valley are insane. With a median price of $950,000, a down payment in the San Jose metro market could buy you an entire house in much of the United States.

Perhaps the generous paychecks of Valley tech companies provide some justification. Year after year, ambitious young engineers come to work for companies like Apple, Cisco, and Netflix, and..

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2n9ilLy

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Millennial Magnets: The Top 10 Cities Where Young People Want to Be

Orlando, FL (lightkey/iStock)

What do millennials want, anyway? Marketing execs all over the country have been tripping over themselves for years to find the answer. After all, as America’s largest and youngest adult generation, millennials have an insane amount of collective purchasing power, the power to move markets according to their whims—and the ability to do so for decades to come.

As a group, they’re also somewhat elusive. Are they aimless or driven? Apathetic or activist? IPhone or Android? Taco Bell or Chipotle?

Well, here’s something we do know: In ever-increasing numbers, they’re home buyers. In fact, they’re the biggest group of ’em in the nation. Sure, they’re devotees of the borrowers’ economy—eagerly sharing bikes, music, rides, vacation places, you name it—but like most generations before them, they’re hungry for home ownership. Buyers under 36 now make up the biggest chunk of Americans signing on the line that is dotted: 34% of all home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And they make up 64% of first-time home buyers (even though they only account for 13% of the population).

So if millennials are checking out your hometown, you’d best pay attention.

“There are some very specific things you see millennials looking for in a community right now,” says Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer for the Center for Generational Kinetics, a marketing firm in Austin, TX. On the list of must-haves: supershort commutes, and amenities like parks, cultural centers, and restaurants. And yeah, maybe even some really fun stuff to do on a Thursday night. That’s because many of these 25- to 34-year-olds are delaying marriage and even a serious career, and want to enjoy the single life, he says.

As Dorsey points out, they also face an UberXL load of unique financial challenges: “College debt, thinner credit history, less savings—and all at a time when home prices have gone up. For many millennials, it’s much harder to buy houses.” On their path to ownership, they’re very much on the prowl for a bargain.

So what are the places that pique millennials’ interest? The realtor.com economic data team analyzed the 60 largest U.S. cities and how much millennials were checking out listings in those areas, compared with the national average, from August 2016 to February 2017.

Ready? Let’s take a closer look at these millennial magnets.

1. Salt Lake City, UT

Median home price: $360,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home*: 30%

Unemployment rate: 2.9%

Salt Lake City

AndreyKrav/iStock

Salt Lake City has a lot more going for it than Mormons, the first KFC franchise (1952), and a big, briny body of water (the Great Salt Lake). There’s also a burgeoning tech scene that lures young people to companies like Adobe and Electronic Arts. In fact, the city has come to be known as “Silicon Slopes,” with homes at one-third of Silicon Valley prices and plenty of sweet skiing and boarding a short ride away.

Even those outside the tech biz have a good chance of snagging a nice gig—Salt Lake has the lowest unemployment rate of all the markets on our list, at 2.9%, well below the national unemployment rate of 4.7%.

And if your dream job hasn’t yet kicked in, there are plenty of cheap, fun things to do.

“This is an extremely livable, affordable city, especially for those that are just starting out,” says Brook Bernier, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate.

Adventure awaits in SLC’s many bike lanes and mountain bike trails. There’s even a Bike Prom (a costumed bike rally party) and Tour de Brewtah, which combines two of the (clichéd, but true) great loves of millennials: bikes and micro-brewed beers. The weekly farmers market even offers valet bike parking.

Millennial lure:  SLC may be known as a conservative place, but it was named the “Gayest City in the USA” in 2012 by the LGBT magazine the Advocate. It was ranked eighth last year.

2. Miami, FL

Median home price: $370,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 49%

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

It’s not just sun birds or aging boomers who flock to Florida in droves, fleeing cold weather. So do millennials! The sunshine is nice, but young folk are attracted to a hopping scene with relatively affordable homes and decent job opportunities. Many find employment in tourism, international trading, and construction—the entire region is enjoying a building boom.

It’s not all work and no play, though. While the South Beach is known for its club scene, events like Calle Ocho Festival, Carnaval Miami, and Art Basel Miami  turn the entire city into a party. In addition to numerous art galleries and music venues, the Adrienne Arsht Center was opened in 2006 as the country’s second-largest performing arts center (after NYC’s Metropolitan Opera House).

Up-and-coming neighborhoods like Little Haiti and North Miami are getting fresh interest from young buyers, says Realtor Giovanna Calimano, of Yes Real Estate.

“A lot of these areas are developing little by little,” she says. “They’re hot because the houses there right now aren’t overpriced. People can live there while the communities are still developing and improving.”

Millennial lure: Beach culture—fun, sexy, and cheap (or, actually, free). What’s not to love?

3. Orlando, FL

Median home price: $279,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 34%

Unemployment rate: 4.4%

Bike to Work Day in Orlando

CindyMurray/iStock

There’s much more to Orlando than theme parks, oversized mice, and sleepy time-shares overlooking golf courses. In fact, this fast-growing metro is getting a lot of serious attention from young people.

“You’ve got the best of both worlds,” says Realtor Lorisa Motko of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You’ve got the beaches 45 minutes in any direction, and you have plenty of entertainment and nightlife for millennials.”

New mixed-use developments designed to appeal to both city-loving millennials and baby boomers (hey, what happened to Gen Xers, anyway?), many of which are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. Thornton Park, just east of downtown, has also become popular among younger homeowners seeking a unique historic neighborhood with cobbled streets and lined with bungalows.

The Orlando metro area leads Florida in job creation, and added 54,600 jobs in January, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Millennial lure:  Orlando was the birthplace of the megastar boy bands, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys, which dominated the airwaves back in the ’90s. And, in case you hadn’t heard, the ’90s are cool again … with millennials. Go figure.

4. Seattle, WA

Median home price: $455,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Seattle checks off quite a few items on the millennial home buyer’s list: well-paid jobs (at Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco) quality coffeehouses around almost every corner, more than 50 bike trails, and some of the country’s best tree-lined streets.

It’s also a welcoming place for nonconforming young people. The city had one of the nation’s biggest turnouts for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hometown titan Starbucks announced a plan to hire refugees, and it’s the first major U.S. metro to approve a $15 minimum wage.

“Seattle is hip, it’s current, it’s progressive,” says Chris Bajuk, a broker at HomeSmart. “We’re at the leading edge of social and technology trends.”

Millennial lure:  The upscale marijuana shop Vela (it’s legal here!), with gleaming counters and an on-site processing lab, was labeled “the Louis Vuitton of weed stores” by none other than Snoop Dogg.

5. Houston, TX

Median home price: $310,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 5.4%

Houston, TX

CrackerClips/iStock

Good news for broke millennials: A paycheck in Houston stretches further than in other metros. Houston has the second-highest pay on our list, at $62,300, after adjusting for the cost of living, trailing only San Jose, according to Forbes. Plus, Texas is one of the only seven states with no income tax.

Granted, you may well find yourself fighting through Houston traffic, but several master-planned communities in the suburbs mix residential homes with businesses, so you may not even need to head downtown.

“Restaurants, bars, shops—it almost feels like an urban setting. It’s a very neat trend that’s going to take off,” says Cheri Fama, president of John Daugherty Realtors.

Millennial lure:  One of Houston’s more eccentric tourist attractions is the Beer Can House—the odd brainchild of retired upholsterer John Milkovisch, who covered his home with more than 50,000 flattened cans, bottles, and caps.

6. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $672,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 64%

Unemployment rate: 4.7%

Los Angeles rooftop

Superb Images/Getty Images

Los Angeles is still “La La Land” for young people dreaming of a Hollywood career, waiting for that life-changing phone call while writing in a café, waiting tables, or driving for Lyft.

“Yes, a lot of people who want to break into the business still come here,” says Gwen Lane, a 33-year-old millennial who runs the blog The LA Girl. “For creatives, it’s such a good place to be.”

But a more recent arrival, the tech industry, is also making itself known—especially the stretch of ocean-adjacent Westside known as “Silicon Beach.” Here you’ll find the parent company of Snapchat; virtual reality hardware/software producer Oculus; and a major outpost of Google.

And despite a median home price of $672,000, there are still pockets of L.A. that are affordable. Northeast neighborhoods like Highland Park and Atwater Village, once dismissed as the boonies, are now among the trendiest choices for laying down roots. Downtown L.A. is vibrant again, and the newly expanded metro system offers options for getting around without a car. For even lower price tags, South Los Angeles is worth considering—the area is going through major changes, with new outdoor plazas, a farmers market, public gardens, and more than 1,000 apartments and condos.

Millennial lure: The Whiskey a Go Go, once the hometown club of the Doors, is still one of the country’s best joints to see up-and-coming bands.

7. Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $158,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 23%

Unemployment rate: 5.6%

Buffalo’s inexpensive housing—the median home price is only $158,000—is particularly attractive to young people carrying mounds of college debt. Jobs are flowing in, too. Elon Musk’s SolarCity factory alone, a solar energy equipment supplier, promises 3,000 jobs.

“It’s a city where young people can make their presence felt, whereas in large cities like New York, it’s hard to make an impact,” says E. Frits Abell, chief operating officer of Green Machines, an eco-friendly machine manufacturer in Buffalo.

“Buffalo has a very conducive environment for entrepreneurs … people are also involved in charities, spend time fixing neighbors’ homes, or volunteer with refugee communities to make a positive social impact here.”

Among cities of similar size, Buffalo has a remarkable selection of cultural attractions. And after extensive renovation over the last decade or so, Buffalo has turned its waterfront into a recreation zone for skating and curling.

Millennial lure:  Buffalo’s Turkey Trot is the oldest annual public footrace in the nation. The 8K run was first held all the way back in 1896.

8. Albany, NY

Median home price: $250,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 27%

Unemployment rate: 4.5%

New York State Museum in Albany, NY

DebraMillet/iStock

Albany, one of America’s first cities, is embracing a shining new future. Faded industrial districts in North Albany have become thriving enclaves, with colorful street life. The historic downtown of the state capital has witnessed a resurgence, with enough bars, hotels, and restaurants to justify a hipster’s guide to downtown.

“Albany is kicking it with the micro-brewery and cider business,” says Bill Pettit, a landscape painter who has lived in Albany since 1988. Pettit works with local art galleries and aspiring young artists for 1st Friday, a monthly event disseminating arts and culture throughout the city.

Albany has six colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany. Until recently, graduates vamoosed for better jobs, but now that the city has rebranded itself as a budding tech hub, many choose to stay. Companies like IBM and GlobalFoundries have set up research centers here, and the city is expected to fill 1,180 new software jobs by 2020, according to the New York Department of Labor.

Millennial lure:  There’s a surprisingly vibrant local indie band scene here. Really.

9. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $849,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 56%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

The old adage goes, “San Francisco is a place where young people come to retire.” It’s less true today, given that the cost of living is freakishly high—median rent for a one-bedroom is $3,270, and the median price of a home is $849,000. Now the city is filling up with ambitious young tech folks who aren’t retiring anytime soon.

The young vibe is found in hoodies, ping-pong tables, and beer-stocked fridges in the offices of Airbnb, Pinterest, and lesser-known startups. It’s also present at company IPO parties or 20-something meetups in warehouse-turned-event spaces like the Folsom Street Foundry.

The whole city is basically a giant adult playground. Visit the Academy of Sciences with a drink in your hand during NightLife Thursdays, lie in Dolores Park on a sunny summer day and consider buying a marijuana-laced lollipop, or join a citywide scavenger hunt with your friends.

“It’s the best city ever for young designers,” says Lisa Zhang, 26, who studies interactive design at Academy of Art University. “I see inspiration everywhere, on streets, at bus stations. … I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.”

Millennial lure: Everything.

10. San Jose, CA

Median home price: $950,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 53%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

Yes, housing prices in Silicon Valley are insane. With a median price of $950,000, a down payment in the San Jose metro market could buy you an entire house in much of the United States.

Perhaps the generous paychecks of Valley tech companies provide some justification. Year after year, ambitious young engineers come to work for companies like Apple, Cisco, and Netflix, and..

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2n9ilLy

[rtscrndr53704]

Millennial Magnets: The Top 10 Cities Where Young People Want to Be

Orlando, FL (lightkey/iStock)

What do millennials want, anyway? Marketing execs all over the country have been tripping over themselves for years to find the answer. After all, as America’s largest and youngest adult generation, millennials have an insane amount of collective purchasing power, the power to move markets according to their whims—and the ability to do so for decades to come.

As a group, they’re also somewhat elusive. Are they aimless or driven? Apathetic or activist? IPhone or Android? Taco Bell or Chipotle?

Well, here’s something we do know: In ever-increasing numbers, they’re home buyers. In fact, they’re the biggest group of ’em in the nation. Sure, they’re devotees of the borrowers’ economy—eagerly sharing bikes, music, rides, vacation places, you name it—but like most generations before them, they’re hungry for home ownership. Buyers under 36 now make up the biggest chunk of Americans signing on the line that is dotted: 34% of all home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And they make up 64% of first-time home buyers (even though they only account for 13% of the population).

So if millennials are checking out your hometown, you’d best pay attention.

“There are some very specific things you see millennials looking for in a community right now,” says Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer for the Center for Generational Kinetics, a marketing firm in Austin, TX. On the list of must-haves: supershort commutes, and amenities like parks, cultural centers, and restaurants. And yeah, maybe even some really fun stuff to do on a Thursday night. That’s because many of these 25- to 34-year-olds are delaying marriage and even a serious career, and want to enjoy the single life, he says.

As Dorsey points out, they also face an UberXL load of unique financial challenges: “College debt, thinner credit history, less savings—and all at a time when home prices have gone up. For many millennials, it’s much harder to buy houses.” On their path to ownership, they’re very much on the prowl for a bargain.

So what are the places that pique millennials’ interest? The realtor.com economic data team analyzed the 60 largest U.S. cities and how much millennials were checking out listings in those areas, compared with the national average, from August 2016 to February 2017.

Ready? Let’s take a closer look at these millennial magnets.

1. Salt Lake City, UT

Median home price: $360,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home*: 30%

Unemployment rate: 2.9%

Salt Lake City

AndreyKrav/iStock

Salt Lake City has a lot more going for it than Mormons, the first KFC franchise (1952), and a big, briny body of water (the Great Salt Lake). There’s also a burgeoning tech scene that lures young people to companies like Adobe and Electronic Arts. In fact, the city has come to be known as “Silicon Slopes,” with homes at one-third of Silicon Valley prices and plenty of sweet skiing and boarding a short ride away.

Even those outside the tech biz have a good chance of snagging a nice gig—Salt Lake has the lowest unemployment rate of all the markets on our list, at 2.9%, well below the national unemployment rate of 4.7%.

And if your dream job hasn’t yet kicked in, there are plenty of cheap, fun things to do.

“This is an extremely livable, affordable city, especially for those that are just starting out,” says Brook Bernier, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate.

Adventure awaits in SLC’s many bike lanes and mountain bike trails. There’s even a Bike Prom (a costumed bike rally party) and Tour de Brewtah, which combines two of the (clichéd, but true) great loves of millennials: bikes and micro-brewed beers. The weekly farmers market even offers valet bike parking.

Millennial lure:  SLC may be known as a conservative place, but it was named the “Gayest City in the USA” in 2012 by the LGBT magazine the Advocate. It was ranked eighth last year.

2. Miami, FL

Median home price: $370,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 49%

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

It’s not just sun birds or aging boomers who flock to Florida in droves, fleeing cold weather. So do millennials! The sunshine is nice, but young folk are attracted to a hopping scene with relatively affordable homes and decent job opportunities. Many find employment in tourism, international trading, and construction—the entire region is enjoying a building boom.

It’s not all work and no play, though. While the South Beach is known for its club scene, events like Calle Ocho Festival, Carnaval Miami, and Art Basel Miami  turn the entire city into a party. In addition to numerous art galleries and music venues, the Adrienne Arsht Center was opened in 2006 as the country’s second-largest performing arts center (after NYC’s Metropolitan Opera House).

Up-and-coming neighborhoods like Little Haiti and North Miami are getting fresh interest from young buyers, says Realtor Giovanna Calimano, of Yes Real Estate.

“A lot of these areas are developing little by little,” she says. “They’re hot because the houses there right now aren’t overpriced. People can live there while the communities are still developing and improving.”

Millennial lure: Beach culture—fun, sexy, and cheap (or, actually, free). What’s not to love?

3. Orlando, FL

Median home price: $279,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 34%

Unemployment rate: 4.4%

Bike to Work Day in Orlando

CindyMurray/iStock

There’s much more to Orlando than theme parks, oversized mice, and sleepy time-shares overlooking golf courses. In fact, this fast-growing metro is getting a lot of serious attention from young people.

“You’ve got the best of both worlds,” says Realtor Lorisa Motko of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You’ve got the beaches 45 minutes in any direction, and you have plenty of entertainment and nightlife for millennials.”

New mixed-use developments designed to appeal to both city-loving millennials and baby boomers (hey, what happened to Gen Xers, anyway?), many of which are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. Thornton Park, just east of downtown, has also become popular among younger homeowners seeking a unique historic neighborhood with cobbled streets and lined with bungalows.

The Orlando metro area leads Florida in job creation, and added 54,600 jobs in January, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Millennial lure:  Orlando was the birthplace of the megastar boy bands, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys, which dominated the airwaves back in the ’90s. And, in case you hadn’t heard, the ’90s are cool again … with millennials. Go figure.

4. Seattle, WA

Median home price: $455,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Seattle checks off quite a few items on the millennial home buyer’s list: well-paid jobs (at Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco) quality coffeehouses around almost every corner, more than 50 bike trails, and some of the country’s best tree-lined streets.

It’s also a welcoming place for nonconforming young people. The city had one of the nation’s biggest turnouts for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hometown titan Starbucks announced a plan to hire refugees, and it’s the first major U.S. metro to approve a $15 minimum wage.

“Seattle is hip, it’s current, it’s progressive,” says Chris Bajuk, a broker at HomeSmart. “We’re at the leading edge of social and technology trends.”

Millennial lure:  The upscale marijuana shop Vela (it’s legal here!), with gleaming counters and an on-site processing lab, was labeled “the Louis Vuitton of weed stores” by none other than Snoop Dogg.

5. Houston, TX

Median home price: $310,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 5.4%

Houston, TX

CrackerClips/iStock

Good news for broke millennials: A paycheck in Houston stretches further than in other metros. Houston has the second-highest pay on our list, at $62,300, after adjusting for the cost of living, trailing only San Jose, according to Forbes. Plus, Texas is one of the only seven states with no income tax.

Granted, you may well find yourself fighting through Houston traffic, but several master-planned communities in the suburbs mix residential homes with businesses, so you may not even need to head downtown.

“Restaurants, bars, shops—it almost feels like an urban setting. It’s a very neat trend that’s going to take off,” says Cheri Fama, president of John Daugherty Realtors.

Millennial lure:  One of Houston’s more eccentric tourist attractions is the Beer Can House—the odd brainchild of retired upholsterer John Milkovisch, who covered his home with more than 50,000 flattened cans, bottles, and caps.

6. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $672,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 64%

Unemployment rate: 4.7%

Los Angeles rooftop

Superb Images/Getty Images

Los Angeles is still “La La Land” for young people dreaming of a Hollywood career, waiting for that life-changing phone call while writing in a café, waiting tables, or driving for Lyft.

“Yes, a lot of people who want to break into the business still come here,” says Gwen Lane, a 33-year-old millennial who runs the blog The LA Girl. “For creatives, it’s such a good place to be.”

But a more recent arrival, the tech industry, is also making itself known—especially the stretch of ocean-adjacent Westside known as “Silicon Beach.” Here you’ll find the parent company of Snapchat; virtual reality hardware/software producer Oculus; and a major outpost of Google.

And despite a median home price of $672,000, there are still pockets of L.A. that are affordable. Northeast neighborhoods like Highland Park and Atwater Village, once dismissed as the boonies, are now among the trendiest choices for laying down roots. Downtown L.A. is vibrant again, and the newly expanded metro system offers options for getting around without a car. For even lower price tags, South Los Angeles is worth considering—the area is going through major changes, with new outdoor plazas, a farmers market, public gardens, and more than 1,000 apartments and condos.

Millennial lure: The Whiskey a Go Go, once the hometown club of the Doors, is still one of the country’s best joints to see up-and-coming bands.

7. Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $158,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 23%

Unemployment rate: 5.6%

Buffalo’s inexpensive housing—the median home price is only $158,000—is particularly attractive to young people carrying mounds of college debt. Jobs are flowing in, too. Elon Musk’s SolarCity factory alone, a solar energy equipment supplier, promises 3,000 jobs.

“It’s a city where young people can make their presence felt, whereas in large cities like New York, it’s hard to make an impact,” says E. Frits Abell, chief operating officer of Green Machines, an eco-friendly machine manufacturer in Buffalo.

“Buffalo has a very conducive environment for entrepreneurs … people are also involved in charities, spend time fixing neighbors’ homes, or volunteer with refugee communities to make a positive social impact here.”

Among cities of similar size, Buffalo has a remarkable selection of cultural attractions. And after extensive renovation over the last decade or so, Buffalo has turned its waterfront into a recreation zone for skating and curling.

Millennial lure:  Buffalo’s Turkey Trot is the oldest annual public footrace in the nation. The 8K run was first held all the way back in 1896.

8. Albany, NY

Median home price: $250,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 27%

Unemployment rate: 4.5%

New York State Museum in Albany, NY

DebraMillet/iStock

Albany, one of America’s first cities, is embracing a shining new future. Faded industrial districts in North Albany have become thriving enclaves, with colorful street life. The historic downtown of the state capital has witnessed a resurgence, with enough bars, hotels, and restaurants to justify a hipster’s guide to downtown.

“Albany is kicking it with the micro-brewery and cider business,” says Bill Pettit, a landscape painter who has lived in Albany since 1988. Pettit works with local art galleries and aspiring young artists for 1st Friday, a monthly event disseminating arts and culture throughout the city.

Albany has six colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany. Until recently, graduates vamoosed for better jobs, but now that the city has rebranded itself as a budding tech hub, many choose to stay. Companies like IBM and GlobalFoundries have set up research centers here, and the city is expected to fill 1,180 new software jobs by 2020, according to the New York Department of Labor.

Millennial lure:  There’s a surprisingly vibrant local indie band scene here. Really.

9. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $849,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 56%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

The old adage goes, “San Francisco is a place where young people come to retire.” It’s less true today, given that the cost of living is freakishly high—median rent for a one-bedroom is $3,270, and the median price of a home is $849,000. Now the city is filling up with ambitious young tech folks who aren’t retiring anytime soon.

The young vibe is found in hoodies, ping-pong tables, and beer-stocked fridges in the offices of Airbnb, Pinterest, and lesser-known startups. It’s also present at company IPO parties or 20-something meetups in warehouse-turned-event spaces like the Folsom Street Foundry.

The whole city is basically a giant adult playground. Visit the Academy of Sciences with a drink in your hand during NightLife Thursdays, lie in Dolores Park on a sunny summer day and consider buying a marijuana-laced lollipop, or join a citywide scavenger hunt with your friends.

“It’s the best city ever for young designers,” says Lisa Zhang, 26, who studies interactive design at Academy of Art University. “I see inspiration everywhere, on streets, at bus stations. … I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.”

Millennial lure: Everything.

10. San Jose, CA

Median home price: $950,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 53%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

Yes, housing prices in Silicon Valley are insane. With a median price of $950,000, a down payment in the San Jose metro market could buy you an entire house in much of the United States.

Perhaps the generous paychecks of Valley tech companies provide some justification. Year after year, ambitious young engineers come to work for companies like Apple, Cisco, and Netflix, and..

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2n9ilLy

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Millennial Magnets: The Top 10 Cities Where Young People Want to Be

Orlando, FL (lightkey/iStock)

What do millennials want, anyway? Marketing execs all over the country have been tripping over themselves for years to find the answer. After all, as America’s largest and youngest adult generation, millennials have an insane amount of collective purchasing power, the power to move markets according to their whims—and the ability to do so for decades to come.

As a group, they’re also somewhat elusive. Are they aimless or driven? Apathetic or activist? IPhone or Android? Taco Bell or Chipotle?

Well, here’s something we do know: In ever-increasing numbers, they’re home buyers. In fact, they’re the biggest group of ’em in the nation. Sure, they’re devotees of the borrowers’ economy—eagerly sharing bikes, music, rides, vacation places, you name it—but like most generations before them, they’re hungry for home ownership. Buyers under 36 now make up the biggest chunk of Americans signing on the line that is dotted: 34% of all home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And they make up 64% of first-time home buyers (even though they only account for 13% of the population).

So if millennials are checking out your hometown, you’d best pay attention.

“There are some very specific things you see millennials looking for in a community right now,” says Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer for the Center for Generational Kinetics, a marketing firm in Austin, TX. On the list of must-haves: supershort commutes, and amenities like parks, cultural centers, and restaurants. And yeah, maybe even some really fun stuff to do on a Thursday night. That’s because many of these 25- to 34-year-olds are delaying marriage and even a serious career, and want to enjoy the single life, he says.

As Dorsey points out, they also face an UberXL load of unique financial challenges: “College debt, thinner credit history, less savings—and all at a time when home prices have gone up. For many millennials, it’s much harder to buy houses.” On their path to ownership, they’re very much on the prowl for a bargain.

So what are the places that pique millennials’ interest? The realtor.com economic data team analyzed the 60 largest U.S. cities and how much millennials were checking out listings in those areas, compared with the national average, from August 2016 to February 2017.

Ready? Let’s take a closer look at these millennial magnets.

1. Salt Lake City, UT

Median home price: $360,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home*: 30%

Unemployment rate: 2.9%

Salt Lake City

AndreyKrav/iStock

Salt Lake City has a lot more going for it than Mormons, the first KFC franchise (1952), and a big, briny body of water (the Great Salt Lake). There’s also a burgeoning tech scene that lures young people to companies like Adobe and Electronic Arts. In fact, the city has come to be known as “Silicon Slopes,” with homes at one-third of Silicon Valley prices and plenty of sweet skiing and boarding a short ride away.

Even those outside the tech biz have a good chance of snagging a nice gig—Salt Lake has the lowest unemployment rate of all the markets on our list, at 2.9%, well below the national unemployment rate of 4.7%.

And if your dream job hasn’t yet kicked in, there are plenty of cheap, fun things to do.

“This is an extremely livable, affordable city, especially for those that are just starting out,” says Brook Bernier, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate.

Adventure awaits in SLC’s many bike lanes and mountain bike trails. There’s even a Bike Prom (a costumed bike rally party) and Tour de Brewtah, which combines two of the (clichéd, but true) great loves of millennials: bikes and micro-brewed beers. The weekly farmers market even offers valet bike parking.

Millennial lure:  SLC may be known as a conservative place, but it was named the “Gayest City in the USA” in 2012 by the LGBT magazine the Advocate. It was ranked eighth last year.

2. Miami, FL

Median home price: $370,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 49%

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

It’s not just sun birds or aging boomers who flock to Florida in droves, fleeing cold weather. So do millennials! The sunshine is nice, but young folk are attracted to a hopping scene with relatively affordable homes and decent job opportunities. Many find employment in tourism, international trading, and construction—the entire region is enjoying a building boom.

It’s not all work and no play, though. While the South Beach is known for its club scene, events like Calle Ocho Festival, Carnaval Miami, and Art Basel Miami  turn the entire city into a party. In addition to numerous art galleries and music venues, the Adrienne Arsht Center was opened in 2006 as the country’s second-largest performing arts center (after NYC’s Metropolitan Opera House).

Up-and-coming neighborhoods like Little Haiti and North Miami are getting fresh interest from young buyers, says Realtor Giovanna Calimano, of Yes Real Estate.

“A lot of these areas are developing little by little,” she says. “They’re hot because the houses there right now aren’t overpriced. People can live there while the communities are still developing and improving.”

Millennial lure: Beach culture—fun, sexy, and cheap (or, actually, free). What’s not to love?

3. Orlando, FL

Median home price: $279,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 34%

Unemployment rate: 4.4%

Bike to Work Day in Orlando

CindyMurray/iStock

There’s much more to Orlando than theme parks, oversized mice, and sleepy time-shares overlooking golf courses. In fact, this fast-growing metro is getting a lot of serious attention from young people.

“You’ve got the best of both worlds,” says Realtor Lorisa Motko of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You’ve got the beaches 45 minutes in any direction, and you have plenty of entertainment and nightlife for millennials.”

New mixed-use developments designed to appeal to both city-loving millennials and baby boomers (hey, what happened to Gen Xers, anyway?), many of which are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. Thornton Park, just east of downtown, has also become popular among younger homeowners seeking a unique historic neighborhood with cobbled streets and lined with bungalows.

The Orlando metro area leads Florida in job creation, and added 54,600 jobs in January, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Millennial lure:  Orlando was the birthplace of the megastar boy bands, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys, which dominated the airwaves back in the ’90s. And, in case you hadn’t heard, the ’90s are cool again … with millennials. Go figure.

4. Seattle, WA

Median home price: $455,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Seattle checks off quite a few items on the millennial home buyer’s list: well-paid jobs (at Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco) quality coffeehouses around almost every corner, more than 50 bike trails, and some of the country’s best tree-lined streets.

It’s also a welcoming place for nonconforming young people. The city had one of the nation’s biggest turnouts for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hometown titan Starbucks announced a plan to hire refugees, and it’s the first major U.S. metro to approve a $15 minimum wage.

“Seattle is hip, it’s current, it’s progressive,” says Chris Bajuk, a broker at HomeSmart. “We’re at the leading edge of social and technology trends.”

Millennial lure:  The upscale marijuana shop Vela (it’s legal here!), with gleaming counters and an on-site processing lab, was labeled “the Louis Vuitton of weed stores” by none other than Snoop Dogg.

5. Houston, TX

Median home price: $310,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 5.4%

Houston, TX

CrackerClips/iStock

Good news for broke millennials: A paycheck in Houston stretches further than in other metros. Houston has the second-highest pay on our list, at $62,300, after adjusting for the cost of living, trailing only San Jose, according to Forbes. Plus, Texas is one of the only seven states with no income tax.

Granted, you may well find yourself fighting through Houston traffic, but several master-planned communities in the suburbs mix residential homes with businesses, so you may not even need to head downtown.

“Restaurants, bars, shops—it almost feels like an urban setting. It’s a very neat trend that’s going to take off,” says Cheri Fama, president of John Daugherty Realtors.

Millennial lure:  One of Houston’s more eccentric tourist attractions is the Beer Can House—the odd brainchild of retired upholsterer John Milkovisch, who covered his home with more than 50,000 flattened cans, bottles, and caps.

6. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $672,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 64%

Unemployment rate: 4.7%

Los Angeles rooftop

Superb Images/Getty Images

Los Angeles is still “La La Land” for young people dreaming of a Hollywood career, waiting for that life-changing phone call while writing in a café, waiting tables, or driving for Lyft.

“Yes, a lot of people who want to break into the business still come here,” says Gwen Lane, a 33-year-old millennial who runs the blog The LA Girl. “For creatives, it’s such a good place to be.”

But a more recent arrival, the tech industry, is also making itself known—especially the stretch of ocean-adjacent Westside known as “Silicon Beach.” Here you’ll find the parent company of Snapchat; virtual reality hardware/software producer Oculus; and a major outpost of Google.

And despite a median home price of $672,000, there are still pockets of L.A. that are affordable. Northeast neighborhoods like Highland Park and Atwater Village, once dismissed as the boonies, are now among the trendiest choices for laying down roots. Downtown L.A. is vibrant again, and the newly expanded metro system offers options for getting around without a car. For even lower price tags, South Los Angeles is worth considering—the area is going through major changes, with new outdoor plazas, a farmers market, public gardens, and more than 1,000 apartments and condos.

Millennial lure: The Whiskey a Go Go, once the hometown club of the Doors, is still one of the country’s best joints to see up-and-coming bands.

7. Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $158,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 23%

Unemployment rate: 5.6%

Buffalo’s inexpensive housing—the median home price is only $158,000—is particularly attractive to young people carrying mounds of college debt. Jobs are flowing in, too. Elon Musk’s SolarCity factory alone, a solar energy equipment supplier, promises 3,000 jobs.

“It’s a city where young people can make their presence felt, whereas in large cities like New York, it’s hard to make an impact,” says E. Frits Abell, chief operating officer of Green Machines, an eco-friendly machine manufacturer in Buffalo.

“Buffalo has a very conducive environment for entrepreneurs … people are also involved in charities, spend time fixing neighbors’ homes, or volunteer with refugee communities to make a positive social impact here.”

Among cities of similar size, Buffalo has a remarkable selection of cultural attractions. And after extensive renovation over the last decade or so, Buffalo has turned its waterfront into a recreation zone for skating and curling.

Millennial lure:  Buffalo’s Turkey Trot is the oldest annual public footrace in the nation. The 8K run was first held all the way back in 1896.

8. Albany, NY

Median home price: $250,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 27%

Unemployment rate: 4.5%

New York State Museum in Albany, NY

DebraMillet/iStock

Albany, one of America’s first cities, is embracing a shining new future. Faded industrial districts in North Albany have become thriving enclaves, with colorful street life. The historic downtown of the state capital has witnessed a resurgence, with enough bars, hotels, and restaurants to justify a hipster’s guide to downtown.

“Albany is kicking it with the micro-brewery and cider business,” says Bill Pettit, a landscape painter who has lived in Albany since 1988. Pettit works with local art galleries and aspiring young artists for 1st Friday, a monthly event disseminating arts and culture throughout the city.

Albany has six colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany. Until recently, graduates vamoosed for better jobs, but now that the city has rebranded itself as a budding tech hub, many choose to stay. Companies like IBM and GlobalFoundries have set up research centers here, and the city is expected to fill 1,180 new software jobs by 2020, according to the New York Department of Labor.

Millennial lure:  There’s a surprisingly vibrant local indie band scene here. Really.

9. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $849,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 56%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

The old adage goes, “San Francisco is a place where young people come to retire.” It’s less true today, given that the cost of living is freakishly high—median rent for a one-bedroom is $3,270, and the median price of a home is $849,000. Now the city is filling up with ambitious young tech folks who aren’t retiring anytime soon.

The young vibe is found in hoodies, ping-pong tables, and beer-stocked fridges in the offices of Airbnb, Pinterest, and lesser-known startups. It’s also present at company IPO parties or 20-something meetups in warehouse-turned-event spaces like the Folsom Street Foundry.

The whole city is basically a giant adult playground. Visit the Academy of Sciences with a drink in your hand during NightLife Thursdays, lie in Dolores Park on a sunny summer day and consider buying a marijuana-laced lollipop, or join a citywide scavenger hunt with your friends.

“It’s the best city ever for young designers,” says Lisa Zhang, 26, who studies interactive design at Academy of Art University. “I see inspiration everywhere, on streets, at bus stations. … I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.”

Millennial lure: Everything.

10. San Jose, CA

Median home price: $950,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 53%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

Yes, housing prices in Silicon Valley are insane. With a median price of $950,000, a down payment in the San Jose metro market could buy you an entire house in much of the United States.

Perhaps the generous paychecks of Valley tech companies provide some justification. Year after year, ambitious young engineers come to work for companies like Apple, Cisco, and Netflix, and..

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2n9ilLy

[repwinpril9y0a1]

Millennial Magnets: The Top 10 Cities Where Young People Want to Be

Orlando, FL (lightkey/iStock)

What do millennials want, anyway? Marketing execs all over the country have been tripping over themselves for years to find the answer. After all, as America’s largest and youngest adult generation, millennials have an insane amount of collective purchasing power, the power to move markets according to their whims—and the ability to do so for decades to come.

As a group, they’re also somewhat elusive. Are they aimless or driven? Apathetic or activist? IPhone or Android? Taco Bell or Chipotle?

Well, here’s something we do know: In ever-increasing numbers, they’re home buyers. In fact, they’re the biggest group of ’em in the nation. Sure, they’re devotees of the borrowers’ economy—eagerly sharing bikes, music, rides, vacation places, you name it—but like most generations before them, they’re hungry for home ownership. Buyers under 36 now make up the biggest chunk of Americans signing on the line that is dotted: 34% of all home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And they make up 64% of first-time home buyers (even though they only account for 13% of the population).

So if millennials are checking out your hometown, you’d best pay attention.

“There are some very specific things you see millennials looking for in a community right now,” says Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer for the Center for Generational Kinetics, a marketing firm in Austin, TX. On the list of must-haves: supershort commutes, and amenities like parks, cultural centers, and restaurants. And yeah, maybe even some really fun stuff to do on a Thursday night. That’s because many of these 25- to 34-year-olds are delaying marriage and even a serious career, and want to enjoy the single life, he says.

As Dorsey points out, they also face an UberXL load of unique financial challenges: “College debt, thinner credit history, less savings—and all at a time when home prices have gone up. For many millennials, it’s much harder to buy houses.” On their path to ownership, they’re very much on the prowl for a bargain.

So what are the places that pique millennials’ interest? The realtor.com economic data team analyzed the 60 largest U.S. cities and how much millennials were checking out listings in those areas, compared with the national average, from August 2016 to February 2017.

Ready? Let’s take a closer look at these millennial magnets.

1. Salt Lake City, UT

Median home price: $360,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home*: 30%

Unemployment rate: 2.9%

Salt Lake City

AndreyKrav/iStock

Salt Lake City has a lot more going for it than Mormons, the first KFC franchise (1952), and a big, briny body of water (the Great Salt Lake). There’s also a burgeoning tech scene that lures young people to companies like Adobe and Electronic Arts. In fact, the city has come to be known as “Silicon Slopes,” with homes at one-third of Silicon Valley prices and plenty of sweet skiing and boarding a short ride away.

Even those outside the tech biz have a good chance of snagging a nice gig—Salt Lake has the lowest unemployment rate of all the markets on our list, at 2.9%, well below the national unemployment rate of 4.7%.

And if your dream job hasn’t yet kicked in, there are plenty of cheap, fun things to do.

“This is an extremely livable, affordable city, especially for those that are just starting out,” says Brook Bernier, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate.

Adventure awaits in SLC’s many bike lanes and mountain bike trails. There’s even a Bike Prom (a costumed bike rally party) and Tour de Brewtah, which combines two of the (clichéd, but true) great loves of millennials: bikes and micro-brewed beers. The weekly farmers market even offers valet bike parking.

Millennial lure:  SLC may be known as a conservative place, but it was named the “Gayest City in the USA” in 2012 by the LGBT magazine the Advocate. It was ranked eighth last year.

2. Miami, FL

Median home price: $370,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 49%

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

It’s not just sun birds or aging boomers who flock to Florida in droves, fleeing cold weather. So do millennials! The sunshine is nice, but young folk are attracted to a hopping scene with relatively affordable homes and decent job opportunities. Many find employment in tourism, international trading, and construction—the entire region is enjoying a building boom.

It’s not all work and no play, though. While the South Beach is known for its club scene, events like Calle Ocho Festival, Carnaval Miami, and Art Basel Miami  turn the entire city into a party. In addition to numerous art galleries and music venues, the Adrienne Arsht Center was opened in 2006 as the country’s second-largest performing arts center (after NYC’s Metropolitan Opera House).

Up-and-coming neighborhoods like Little Haiti and North Miami are getting fresh interest from young buyers, says Realtor Giovanna Calimano, of Yes Real Estate.

“A lot of these areas are developing little by little,” she says. “They’re hot because the houses there right now aren’t overpriced. People can live there while the communities are still developing and improving.”

Millennial lure: Beach culture—fun, sexy, and cheap (or, actually, free). What’s not to love?

3. Orlando, FL

Median home price: $279,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 34%

Unemployment rate: 4.4%

Bike to Work Day in Orlando

CindyMurray/iStock

There’s much more to Orlando than theme parks, oversized mice, and sleepy time-shares overlooking golf courses. In fact, this fast-growing metro is getting a lot of serious attention from young people.

“You’ve got the best of both worlds,” says Realtor Lorisa Motko of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You’ve got the beaches 45 minutes in any direction, and you have plenty of entertainment and nightlife for millennials.”

New mixed-use developments designed to appeal to both city-loving millennials and baby boomers (hey, what happened to Gen Xers, anyway?), many of which are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. Thornton Park, just east of downtown, has also become popular among younger homeowners seeking a unique historic neighborhood with cobbled streets and lined with bungalows.

The Orlando metro area leads Florida in job creation, and added 54,600 jobs in January, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Millennial lure:  Orlando was the birthplace of the megastar boy bands, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys, which dominated the airwaves back in the ’90s. And, in case you hadn’t heard, the ’90s are cool again … with millennials. Go figure.

4. Seattle, WA

Median home price: $455,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Seattle checks off quite a few items on the millennial home buyer’s list: well-paid jobs (at Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco) quality coffeehouses around almost every corner, more than 50 bike trails, and some of the country’s best tree-lined streets.

It’s also a welcoming place for nonconforming young people. The city had one of the nation’s biggest turnouts for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hometown titan Starbucks announced a plan to hire refugees, and it’s the first major U.S. metro to approve a $15 minimum wage.

“Seattle is hip, it’s current, it’s progressive,” says Chris Bajuk, a broker at HomeSmart. “We’re at the leading edge of social and technology trends.”

Millennial lure:  The upscale marijuana shop Vela (it’s legal here!), with gleaming counters and an on-site processing lab, was labeled “the Louis Vuitton of weed stores” by none other than Snoop Dogg.

5. Houston, TX

Median home price: $310,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 5.4%

Houston, TX

CrackerClips/iStock

Good news for broke millennials: A paycheck in Houston stretches further than in other metros. Houston has the second-highest pay on our list, at $62,300, after adjusting for the cost of living, trailing only San Jose, according to Forbes. Plus, Texas is one of the only seven states with no income tax.

Granted, you may well find yourself fighting through Houston traffic, but several master-planned communities in the suburbs mix residential homes with businesses, so you may not even need to head downtown.

“Restaurants, bars, shops—it almost feels like an urban setting. It’s a very neat trend that’s going to take off,” says Cheri Fama, president of John Daugherty Realtors.

Millennial lure:  One of Houston’s more eccentric tourist attractions is the Beer Can House—the odd brainchild of retired upholsterer John Milkovisch, who covered his home with more than 50,000 flattened cans, bottles, and caps.

6. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $672,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 64%

Unemployment rate: 4.7%

Los Angeles rooftop

Superb Images/Getty Images

Los Angeles is still “La La Land” for young people dreaming of a Hollywood career, waiting for that life-changing phone call while writing in a café, waiting tables, or driving for Lyft.

“Yes, a lot of people who want to break into the business still come here,” says Gwen Lane, a 33-year-old millennial who runs the blog The LA Girl. “For creatives, it’s such a good place to be.”

But a more recent arrival, the tech industry, is also making itself known—especially the stretch of ocean-adjacent Westside known as “Silicon Beach.” Here you’ll find the parent company of Snapchat; virtual reality hardware/software producer Oculus; and a major outpost of Google.

And despite a median home price of $672,000, there are still pockets of L.A. that are affordable. Northeast neighborhoods like Highland Park and Atwater Village, once dismissed as the boonies, are now among the trendiest choices for laying down roots. Downtown L.A. is vibrant again, and the newly expanded metro system offers options for getting around without a car. For even lower price tags, South Los Angeles is worth considering—the area is going through major changes, with new outdoor plazas, a farmers market, public gardens, and more than 1,000 apartments and condos.

Millennial lure: The Whiskey a Go Go, once the hometown club of the Doors, is still one of the country’s best joints to see up-and-coming bands.

7. Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $158,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 23%

Unemployment rate: 5.6%

Buffalo’s inexpensive housing—the median home price is only $158,000—is particularly attractive to young people carrying mounds of college debt. Jobs are flowing in, too. Elon Musk’s SolarCity factory alone, a solar energy equipment supplier, promises 3,000 jobs.

“It’s a city where young people can make their presence felt, whereas in large cities like New York, it’s hard to make an impact,” says E. Frits Abell, chief operating officer of Green Machines, an eco-friendly machine manufacturer in Buffalo.

“Buffalo has a very conducive environment for entrepreneurs … people are also involved in charities, spend time fixing neighbors’ homes, or volunteer with refugee communities to make a positive social impact here.”

Among cities of similar size, Buffalo has a remarkable selection of cultural attractions. And after extensive renovation over the last decade or so, Buffalo has turned its waterfront into a recreation zone for skating and curling.

Millennial lure:  Buffalo’s Turkey Trot is the oldest annual public footrace in the nation. The 8K run was first held all the way back in 1896.

8. Albany, NY

Median home price: $250,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 27%

Unemployment rate: 4.5%

New York State Museum in Albany, NY

DebraMillet/iStock

Albany, one of America’s first cities, is embracing a shining new future. Faded industrial districts in North Albany have become thriving enclaves, with colorful street life. The historic downtown of the state capital has witnessed a resurgence, with enough bars, hotels, and restaurants to justify a hipster’s guide to downtown.

“Albany is kicking it with the micro-brewery and cider business,” says Bill Pettit, a landscape painter who has lived in Albany since 1988. Pettit works with local art galleries and aspiring young artists for 1st Friday, a monthly event disseminating arts and culture throughout the city.

Albany has six colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany. Until recently, graduates vamoosed for better jobs, but now that the city has rebranded itself as a budding tech hub, many choose to stay. Companies like IBM and GlobalFoundries have set up research centers here, and the city is expected to fill 1,180 new software jobs by 2020, according to the New York Department of Labor.

Millennial lure:  There’s a surprisingly vibrant local indie band scene here. Really.

9. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $849,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 56%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

The old adage goes, “San Francisco is a place where young people come to retire.” It’s less true today, given that the cost of living is freakishly high—median rent for a one-bedroom is $3,270, and the median price of a home is $849,000. Now the city is filling up with ambitious young tech folks who aren’t retiring anytime soon.

The young vibe is found in hoodies, ping-pong tables, and beer-stocked fridges in the offices of Airbnb, Pinterest, and lesser-known startups. It’s also present at company IPO parties or 20-something meetups in warehouse-turned-event spaces like the Folsom Street Foundry.

The whole city is basically a giant adult playground. Visit the Academy of Sciences with a drink in your hand during NightLife Thursdays, lie in Dolores Park on a sunny summer day and consider buying a marijuana-laced lollipop, or join a citywide scavenger hunt with your friends.

“It’s the best city ever for young designers,” says Lisa Zhang, 26, who studies interactive design at Academy of Art University. “I see inspiration everywhere, on streets, at bus stations. … I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.”

Millennial lure: Everything.

10. San Jose, CA

Median home price: $950,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 53%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

Yes, housing prices in Silicon Valley are insane. With a median price of $950,000, a down payment in the San Jose metro market could buy you an entire house in much of the United States.

Perhaps the generous paychecks of Valley tech companies provide some justification. Year after year, ambitious young engineers come to work for companies like Apple, Cisco, and Netflix, and..

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2n9ilLy

[stormdoors78476]

Millennial Magnets: The Top 10 Cities Where Young People Want to Be

Orlando, FL (lightkey/iStock)

What do millennials want, anyway? Marketing execs all over the country have been tripping over themselves for years to find the answer. After all, as America’s largest and youngest adult generation, millennials have an insane amount of collective purchasing power, the power to move markets according to their whims—and the ability to do so for decades to come.

As a group, they’re also somewhat elusive. Are they aimless or driven? Apathetic or activist? IPhone or Android? Taco Bell or Chipotle?

Well, here’s something we do know: In ever-increasing numbers, they’re home buyers. In fact, they’re the biggest group of ’em in the nation. Sure, they’re devotees of the borrowers’ economy—eagerly sharing bikes, music, rides, vacation places, you name it—but like most generations before them, they’re hungry for home ownership. Buyers under 36 now make up the biggest chunk of Americans signing on the line that is dotted: 34% of all home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And they make up 64% of first-time home buyers (even though they only account for 13% of the population).

So if millennials are checking out your hometown, you’d best pay attention.

“There are some very specific things you see millennials looking for in a community right now,” says Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer for the Center for Generational Kinetics, a marketing firm in Austin, TX. On the list of must-haves: supershort commutes, and amenities like parks, cultural centers, and restaurants. And yeah, maybe even some really fun stuff to do on a Thursday night. That’s because many of these 25- to 34-year-olds are delaying marriage and even a serious career, and want to enjoy the single life, he says.

As Dorsey points out, they also face an UberXL load of unique financial challenges: “College debt, thinner credit history, less savings—and all at a time when home prices have gone up. For many millennials, it’s much harder to buy houses.” On their path to ownership, they’re very much on the prowl for a bargain.

So what are the places that pique millennials’ interest? The realtor.com economic data team analyzed the 60 largest U.S. cities and how much millennials were checking out listings in those areas, compared with the national average, from August 2016 to February 2017.

Ready? Let’s take a closer look at these millennial magnets.

1. Salt Lake City, UT

Median home price: $360,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home*: 30%

Unemployment rate: 2.9%

Salt Lake City

AndreyKrav/iStock

Salt Lake City has a lot more going for it than Mormons, the first KFC franchise (1952), and a big, briny body of water (the Great Salt Lake). There’s also a burgeoning tech scene that lures young people to companies like Adobe and Electronic Arts. In fact, the city has come to be known as “Silicon Slopes,” with homes at one-third of Silicon Valley prices and plenty of sweet skiing and boarding a short ride away.

Even those outside the tech biz have a good chance of snagging a nice gig—Salt Lake has the lowest unemployment rate of all the markets on our list, at 2.9%, well below the national unemployment rate of 4.7%.

And if your dream job hasn’t yet kicked in, there are plenty of cheap, fun things to do.

“This is an extremely livable, affordable city, especially for those that are just starting out,” says Brook Bernier, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate.

Adventure awaits in SLC’s many bike lanes and mountain bike trails. There’s even a Bike Prom (a costumed bike rally party) and Tour de Brewtah, which combines two of the (clichéd, but true) great loves of millennials: bikes and micro-brewed beers. The weekly farmers market even offers valet bike parking.

Millennial lure:  SLC may be known as a conservative place, but it was named the “Gayest City in the USA” in 2012 by the LGBT magazine the Advocate. It was ranked eighth last year.

2. Miami, FL

Median home price: $370,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 49%

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

It’s not just sun birds or aging boomers who flock to Florida in droves, fleeing cold weather. So do millennials! The sunshine is nice, but young folk are attracted to a hopping scene with relatively affordable homes and decent job opportunities. Many find employment in tourism, international trading, and construction—the entire region is enjoying a building boom.

It’s not all work and no play, though. While the South Beach is known for its club scene, events like Calle Ocho Festival, Carnaval Miami, and Art Basel Miami  turn the entire city into a party. In addition to numerous art galleries and music venues, the Adrienne Arsht Center was opened in 2006 as the country’s second-largest performing arts center (after NYC’s Metropolitan Opera House).

Up-and-coming neighborhoods like Little Haiti and North Miami are getting fresh interest from young buyers, says Realtor Giovanna Calimano, of Yes Real Estate.

“A lot of these areas are developing little by little,” she says. “They’re hot because the houses there right now aren’t overpriced. People can live there while the communities are still developing and improving.”

Millennial lure: Beach culture—fun, sexy, and cheap (or, actually, free). What’s not to love?

3. Orlando, FL

Median home price: $279,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 34%

Unemployment rate: 4.4%

Bike to Work Day in Orlando

CindyMurray/iStock

There’s much more to Orlando than theme parks, oversized mice, and sleepy time-shares overlooking golf courses. In fact, this fast-growing metro is getting a lot of serious attention from young people.

“You’ve got the best of both worlds,” says Realtor Lorisa Motko of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You’ve got the beaches 45 minutes in any direction, and you have plenty of entertainment and nightlife for millennials.”

New mixed-use developments designed to appeal to both city-loving millennials and baby boomers (hey, what happened to Gen Xers, anyway?), many of which are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. Thornton Park, just east of downtown, has also become popular among younger homeowners seeking a unique historic neighborhood with cobbled streets and lined with bungalows.

The Orlando metro area leads Florida in job creation, and added 54,600 jobs in January, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Millennial lure:  Orlando was the birthplace of the megastar boy bands, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys, which dominated the airwaves back in the ’90s. And, in case you hadn’t heard, the ’90s are cool again … with millennials. Go figure.

4. Seattle, WA

Median home price: $455,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Seattle checks off quite a few items on the millennial home buyer’s list: well-paid jobs (at Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco) quality coffeehouses around almost every corner, more than 50 bike trails, and some of the country’s best tree-lined streets.

It’s also a welcoming place for nonconforming young people. The city had one of the nation’s biggest turnouts for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hometown titan Starbucks announced a plan to hire refugees, and it’s the first major U.S. metro to approve a $15 minimum wage.

“Seattle is hip, it’s current, it’s progressive,” says Chris Bajuk, a broker at HomeSmart. “We’re at the leading edge of social and technology trends.”

Millennial lure:  The upscale marijuana shop Vela (it’s legal here!), with gleaming counters and an on-site processing lab, was labeled “the Louis Vuitton of weed stores” by none other than Snoop Dogg.

5. Houston, TX

Median home price: $310,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 36%

Unemployment rate: 5.4%

Houston, TX

CrackerClips/iStock

Good news for broke millennials: A paycheck in Houston stretches further than in other metros. Houston has the second-highest pay on our list, at $62,300, after adjusting for the cost of living, trailing only San Jose, according to Forbes. Plus, Texas is one of the only seven states with no income tax.

Granted, you may well find yourself fighting through Houston traffic, but several master-planned communities in the suburbs mix residential homes with businesses, so you may not even need to head downtown.

“Restaurants, bars, shops—it almost feels like an urban setting. It’s a very neat trend that’s going to take off,” says Cheri Fama, president of John Daugherty Realtors.

Millennial lure:  One of Houston’s more eccentric tourist attractions is the Beer Can House—the odd brainchild of retired upholsterer John Milkovisch, who covered his home with more than 50,000 flattened cans, bottles, and caps.

6. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $672,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 64%

Unemployment rate: 4.7%

Los Angeles rooftop

Superb Images/Getty Images

Los Angeles is still “La La Land” for young people dreaming of a Hollywood career, waiting for that life-changing phone call while writing in a café, waiting tables, or driving for Lyft.

“Yes, a lot of people who want to break into the business still come here,” says Gwen Lane, a 33-year-old millennial who runs the blog The LA Girl. “For creatives, it’s such a good place to be.”

But a more recent arrival, the tech industry, is also making itself known—especially the stretch of ocean-adjacent Westside known as “Silicon Beach.” Here you’ll find the parent company of Snapchat; virtual reality hardware/software producer Oculus; and a major outpost of Google.

And despite a median home price of $672,000, there are still pockets of L.A. that are affordable. Northeast neighborhoods like Highland Park and Atwater Village, once dismissed as the boonies, are now among the trendiest choices for laying down roots. Downtown L.A. is vibrant again, and the newly expanded metro system offers options for getting around without a car. For even lower price tags, South Los Angeles is worth considering—the area is going through major changes, with new outdoor plazas, a farmers market, public gardens, and more than 1,000 apartments and condos.

Millennial lure: The Whiskey a Go Go, once the hometown club of the Doors, is still one of the country’s best joints to see up-and-coming bands.

7. Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $158,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 23%

Unemployment rate: 5.6%

Buffalo’s inexpensive housing—the median home price is only $158,000—is particularly attractive to young people carrying mounds of college debt. Jobs are flowing in, too. Elon Musk’s SolarCity factory alone, a solar energy equipment supplier, promises 3,000 jobs.

“It’s a city where young people can make their presence felt, whereas in large cities like New York, it’s hard to make an impact,” says E. Frits Abell, chief operating officer of Green Machines, an eco-friendly machine manufacturer in Buffalo.

“Buffalo has a very conducive environment for entrepreneurs … people are also involved in charities, spend time fixing neighbors’ homes, or volunteer with refugee communities to make a positive social impact here.”

Among cities of similar size, Buffalo has a remarkable selection of cultural attractions. And after extensive renovation over the last decade or so, Buffalo has turned its waterfront into a recreation zone for skating and curling.

Millennial lure:  Buffalo’s Turkey Trot is the oldest annual public footrace in the nation. The 8K run was first held all the way back in 1896.

8. Albany, NY

Median home price: $250,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 27%

Unemployment rate: 4.5%

New York State Museum in Albany, NY

DebraMillet/iStock

Albany, one of America’s first cities, is embracing a shining new future. Faded industrial districts in North Albany have become thriving enclaves, with colorful street life. The historic downtown of the state capital has witnessed a resurgence, with enough bars, hotels, and restaurants to justify a hipster’s guide to downtown.

“Albany is kicking it with the micro-brewery and cider business,” says Bill Pettit, a landscape painter who has lived in Albany since 1988. Pettit works with local art galleries and aspiring young artists for 1st Friday, a monthly event disseminating arts and culture throughout the city.

Albany has six colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany. Until recently, graduates vamoosed for better jobs, but now that the city has rebranded itself as a budding tech hub, many choose to stay. Companies like IBM and GlobalFoundries have set up research centers here, and the city is expected to fill 1,180 new software jobs by 2020, according to the New York Department of Labor.

Millennial lure:  There’s a surprisingly vibrant local indie band scene here. Really.

9. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $849,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 56%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

The old adage goes, “San Francisco is a place where young people come to retire.” It’s less true today, given that the cost of living is freakishly high—median rent for a one-bedroom is $3,270, and the median price of a home is $849,000. Now the city is filling up with ambitious young tech folks who aren’t retiring anytime soon.

The young vibe is found in hoodies, ping-pong tables, and beer-stocked fridges in the offices of Airbnb, Pinterest, and lesser-known startups. It’s also present at company IPO parties or 20-something meetups in warehouse-turned-event spaces like the Folsom Street Foundry.

The whole city is basically a giant adult playground. Visit the Academy of Sciences with a drink in your hand during NightLife Thursdays, lie in Dolores Park on a sunny summer day and consider buying a marijuana-laced lollipop, or join a citywide scavenger hunt with your friends.

“It’s the best city ever for young designers,” says Lisa Zhang, 26, who studies interactive design at Academy of Art University. “I see inspiration everywhere, on streets, at bus stations. … I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.”

Millennial lure: Everything.

10. San Jose, CA

Median home price: $950,000

Percentage of income needed to buy a home: 53%

Unemployment rate: 3.7%

Yes, housing prices in Silicon Valley are insane. With a median price of $950,000, a down payment in the San Jose metro market could buy you an entire house in much of the United States.

Perhaps the generous paychecks of Valley tech companies provide some justification. Year after year, ambitious young engineers come to work for companies like Apple, Cisco, and Netflix, and..

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2n9ilLy