Salt Lake City, Utah. There's more than a million people in the metro area, so it's not that "less crowded". And it sits in a valley, and as it continues to grow, it's going to run out of land.<p>That's the bad part. The good part: You're 45 minutes away from world-class skiing. (There's a reason they call it "the greatest snow on earth".) Want a trout stream? Also 45 minutes away. Mountain biking? Same. Want the red-rock desert? Four or five hours away.<p>Want to get away from people? Leave town, in any direction. The next big city is Denver, over 400 miles away.<p>Las Vegas is 450 miles, Interstate the whole way. Call it 6 hours drive time, maybe 6 1/2. Too far? Wendover, Nevada is 90 minutes away (but that's a pretty dinky, depressing town, so it's only for someone with a serious urge to gamble).<p>There's a lot of tech here, and in the Orem/Provo area. Housing costs are reasonable (maybe $350K for 3800 square feet in a decent part of town). Drive times are reasonable - half an hour will get you pretty much anywhere, unless you do something like live at the very south end of the valley and work downtown.<p>It's a university town, with an educated population. There's a very good children's hospital. (The zoo's kind of dinky, though.)<p>Despite its reputation, yes, you can get a drink here. There are some pretty good (even award-winning) brewpubs.<p>The religious aspects sometimes drive me nuts. The air pollution can be moderately bad at times (not bad by LA standards, and not even as bad as it was in the 70s, but still worse than I like). And it's not really uncrowded, at least by my standards. (A million people is a million people, no way around it. But it's like 2 million for the whole state, and it's a pretty big state.) There's some crime downtown, and the homeless can be problematic, but it's nothing like SF or LA. All in all, it's a pretty nice place to live.