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I love Durham, NC dearly. It’s affordable, friendly, liberal, racially diverse, ethically diverse, religiously diverse, educationally diverse, kid-friendly, and activist. We’ve even got a science museum up the street, we walk our son to a humanities-enriched public school across a park with a bike trail, and that’s in a neighborhood with housing prices in the low $100Ks, something that Manhattanites would kill for.

Unfortunately, the life of the relatively young is a rambling one. Tracy is finishing medical school this year and she’ll be “matched” on March 16 to an medical residency program somewhere in the country where she’ll learn the innards and outs of doctorhood. The short of it is that she’ll get an envelope that tells her where she — and therefore we — are going to be living and working the next three years. The medium of it is that residency programs will be ranking her, she’ll be ranking medical schools, and a computer will run through an algorithm designed to make both schools and residents as happy as possible.

It boils down to Tracy and I being subject to a semirandom process over which we have only limited control. Tracy’s finished interviewing and has identified really good medical residency programs in Syracuse, New York and Columbus, Ohio. But Tracy wouldn’t just have a medical residency there. We’d also have to live in these places, and we’re somewhat unfamiliar with them.

And so, I’d like to ask a favor. Do you have any experience or insight into Columbus and Syracuse, in terms of people, culture, education, politics, affordability, fun things to do, hellaciousness, or anything else you think is important? I’d appreciate any word you might have; thanks.