Not OP but we are from CA and planning to move to CT in the next 2 years. COL is the main thing and having more space is the other.

I grew up in rural NorCal and loved having space but there are no jobs for my wife or I up there and my little town has a huge meth problem now and is a little bit rundown and sad.

The schools in our area are all 2-3s unless they are private schools that cost 15-30k a year. We make quite a bit combined but our COL is so high that we aren't saving as much as we used to before COVID. It has been rough.

We also have summers of up to 120 here so that sucks, starts in April and goes through Sept/Oct being in the high 80s. It is 76 here today and will be hitting 80s next week.

Edit: Housing is crazy now, when we first moved to this place I was renting a 2 bed apt for 1350 now that same exact one was listed for 3200 last week.

We are also LGBTQ so need a state that is safe for our family.