Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA:

Quick orientation for those not familiar: Cambridge is a city of about 100,000 people just across the Charles River from Boston. It's best known as the seat of Harvard and MIT. It's also the birthplace of the US Army, which is pretty funny if you are familiar with modern Cambridge.

Pros:

* Lots of smart and/or well-educated people everywhere, and they're not all software nerds. They're nerds of all fields and all esoteric subspecialties.

* To use the technical term, Greater Boston is polynucleated. In contrast to some other American cities, where all the "stuff" is concentrated in a small downtown and density drops off quickly from there to suburbia and then cows, there are tiny quasi-"downtown" areas all throughout the various cities and towns, each with its own attractions and amenities and its own distinct character. Related:

* You can do most of what you need to do by walking. I've read that the Boston area in general and Cambridge in particular have (or at least pre-COVID had) the USA's highest percentage of people who commute to work on foot, and I can believe that.

* Lots of good venues for live music, mostly with pretty reasonable ticket prices.

* NYC is a quick and easy train ride away, and Europe is a (relatively) short flight. I haven't ever been to Montreal but people tell me it's also easy to get to from here and worth a visit. South Station and Logan Airport both work reasonably well.

* If you have health problems, you have your pick of some of the world's best hospitals. If they can't cure it in Boston they probably can't cure it, period.

* I'm told if you like outdoor activities or professional sports there are plenty of good options.

* Weed's legal. And cheap. Could be a little better quality, but, again, legal. And cheap.

* It's a pretty progressive place (first legal same-sex marriage in the USA was done at Cambridge City Hall), though not as much as they like to give themselves credit for.

* A lot of the area is a very pleasant urban landscape in a homey, lived-in kind of way. This is some of the most densely populated land in the USA but it doesn't feel like it. People still find space for gardens, you see rabbits and wild turkeys all the time and sometimes coyotes, and the streets are well sheltered with trees.

* Strong fitness culture, which I consider a positive influence because it gets people to take better care of their health.

Cons:

* It's expensive overall, housing in particular is ridiculous.

* Speaking of housing, a lot of it is old and beat-up. If you move here it pays to acquire some basic tools and learn how to use them.

* Bad weather most of the year. If you come from a warm place, the winters will take some getting used to.

* Even though distances between points of interest are small compared to western states, both traffic and public transit are notoriously bad, so it's hard to get around. There's significant hope for transit to improve but that's going to take several years in the best case and it is far from certain to happen.

* Something like 1/3 of the population are students, who all move here in the same two or three weekends in September. It's actually a pretty entertaining spectacle as long as you personally don't have to go anywhere or do anything. Also students means a certain level of drunken jackassery especially right before their holidays.

* Harvard and MIT have an immense amount of influence here and their interests are not always in line with the general public's.

I've been here a long time now and I like it, at least, I wouldn't move away without a strong reason. It's not for everyone, but then, that's true of all the places you'll read about in this thread.