1. California
2. Florida
3. Hawaii
4. Texas
5. Colorado
T6. North Carolina
T6. Arizona
T6. Washington
9. Tennessee
10. Oregon
11. New York
T12. South Carolina
T13. Massachusetts
14. Georgia
15. Montana
1. New York City
2. Denver
3. San Francisco
4. San Diego
5. Seattle
6. Chicago
7. Boston
8. Las Vegas
9. Washington, D.C.
10. Dallas
11. Nashville
12. Atlanta
13. Orlando
14. Los Angeles
That's from the Triangle Business Journal. I was not able to find the exact poll results from a web search, but I did find this page from 2007 which shows the top 15 most desirable states and cities since 1997.
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I have often wondered whether my love for Durham is simply bias resulting from the endowment effect. It might be, but even dropping family ties and such, I cannot think of a single place on the east coast that I would rather live than Durham, North Carolina. The only city that I might be willing to pay more to live in is San Francisco, but that is based only on what I imagine the city to be, not on any hard evidence.
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