I know it ignores some of your criteria, but Atlanta is not too bad. I moved here to go to school from Chattanooga Tennessee (which I'm sure is reasonably similar to where you live currently), and I'm never going back.

It's a fairly cheap city to live in (as far as major urban areas are concerned). Its not scathingly urban, other than the traffic which is bad, unless you specifically try to live very close to where you commute.


I think the main plus to Atlanta is that its the local bastion of reasonably evolved people in the Southeast U.S. Everyone here has thumbs, its really neat.