Detroit has a fabulous warm community with good chinuch. Housing is very cheap. One big chasoron – the economy there is really bad so jobs are difficult to find.
Cleveland is also a very nice community, as is Baltimore. Both also have afordable houseing and good chinuch.
I hear Passaic, NJ is wonderful – young growing frum community.
Chicago has a nice community – housing more expensive.
There is politics everywhere. My personal feeling is the smaller the community the worse the politics.
I think people who live in New York think that if you go through the Holland Tunnel you fall off the end of the earth. Not so, there’s a whole big world out there with many nice frum communities that are heimish and offer good chinuch. In many ways I think raising a family out of town is easier. People are not so annonymous so it’s easy to get lost and there is a community that’s there for you. I grew up out of town and raised my children out of town and believe it or not I find tzinus to be better out of town. Again I think it’s because you’re not annonymous there. There are many pros to living out of town.