"Ann, I wonder if you and Meade believe it's worth it to stay in Madison now that you are retired."

"One of many reasons we left Seattle after my husband retired was for lower property taxes," writes mockturtle in the comments to my post about the GOP tax bill, where I mention that Meade and I pay more than $17,000 in property taxes on our house in Madison.

We're still here, so that means that so far with think it's worth it, but the high property tax does bother us, and when we think about where else we might want to live, taxation is a factor. But I care a lot about living somewhere that is interesting to me, and I want a house where I can walk out the door and, right from that point, have many interesting walks.

One of the places I'd consider is the one mockturtle says she left: Seattle. Washington State has the benefit of no income tax, but obviously the revenue must be found in some other way.

Sure, there are lots of places with low taxes, but name one where I'd enjoy living. We have many things here that we love, and I would not move to a worse place. $17,000 is a lot, but only the last $X thousand is spent on things I'd carve off the budget if I were given the power to structure the whole thing. And if they tried to hand that power over to me, I wouldn't even take it. That's not my line of work and not my expertise or my joy in life.

A community is a package deal. Some things you like and some things you don't. If it gets too off balance, you might leave, but only if somewhere else is better. You have to live somewhere. We've had a lot great times here. It's a beautiful neighborhood, and I can walk to 3 lakes from here. There are trees and nice architecture and shops and restaurants. I can walk to downtown. There are bike paths all over. Meade loves the mountain bike trails. We could look at the shortcomings, like the fact that the city is taking maybe an extra $500 a month from us to do things we would not do, but when we look at the good, it's close to paradise.

Maybe somewhere else is close to paradise too. Tell us about a place and maybe we will rent an apartment there and spend some time living there and give it a chance (and ultimately uproot ourselves and relocate). But we're not going to go somewhere just to improve our household budget by $500 a month (or even $2,000 a month). It's got to offer great walks, beginning at our doorstep, beautiful scenery, and a real sense of place.