Depends on what size city you're looking for.
As ThePupil may say, I want all the niceties of big cities, lots of restaurants, amenities etc. As a man of color, I think not having to deal with racism is helpful. I can usually stare down confrontations before they start. But you can't help stupid sometimes.
How has DC fared so far?
I was in Rome a couple of years ago. Obviously, people go for the history and the heritage. The area we were staying at had graffiti all over. It was not pleasant. I think they do a better job at the more touristy locations keeping things nice and clean.
I think you're going about an impossible question. I'll ramble on for a bit and then get to a point.
You complain about graffiti in Rome. Well Rome is a pretty safe place, but it has graffiti. In fact graffiti is a problem all across Europe but the cities are quite safe. It's just a thing. Police there are not gonna do a Portland because someone used some spray paint. Fact of life.
I know you're asking this thing from a real estate perspective. In that space I've done very well in Raleigh and Pittsburgh. They're pretty techy places they've had money rolling in and it's been good for property (plus I bought at distressed pricing). Do any of these places resemble anything you're looking for? Not at all. On a weekday in Raleigh after 10 PM you can shoot a cannon on a main street down town and not hit anything. You'll come out of a restaurant and not find a cab. Totally dead. No vibrancy at all.
Where I think you go astray is that you would prefer an a-la-carte situation. I'll take the diversity and all the benefits associated with that like vibrancy and skill availability but I'll skip the associated downside like social unrest and graffiti. You can't do that because things don't happen in a vacuum, things are correlated. So if you're looking for an environment similar to NYC you're gonna get upsides and downsides that are similar.
I also think you're getting a little too panicky about the whole thing. Cities happen because there's a real reason that draws people together from an economic and social standpoint together. Some spray paint isn't gonna change that. Rome is a good example. There has been a majour city there for about 3000 years. It's been sacked by nomads, siege by hostile armies, set on fire etc. It's still and always was a majour city. Do you actually think something like spray paint disrupts those underlying bonds?
