I live here because I grew up here. It is where I am comfortable, it where I can find everything, get to anywhere, and know what weekend in the summertime will be ArtWalk, where the fireworks displays will be held, where the best houses are to go Trick-or-Treating, and what lot sells the best Xmas trees. I know all the teachers at the high schools, when the marching band will play at the football game, and what weekend the monster truck show is every summer.
I live here because DH's family lives here and all of our friends live here.
I live here because I was too dumb to make a break for it and get the Flock out of Dodge before all of my kids got settled in school. Now that my oldest is in high school I can't imagine pulling her out of school and away from all of her friends and her activities to move, so we are stuck here till she graduates, and then by that time middle DD will be in middle school and then a few years later she will be in high school and youngest DD will be in middle school and there will just never be a good time till all three of them have graduated!!
I live here because I was silly and bought a house before the real estate market took a nose dive. Now I have equity built up in it, and I really don't want to piddle it all away, so I would like to not sell my house until the market rebounds a bit. And who knows how long THAT may take.
I live here because, between the months of June and October, there is no place on Earth I would rather be. I love the mountains, the lakes, the rivers, and smells and sounds of Northwest Montana. I love Glacier National Park, and Flathead Lake. It soothes the soul and refreshes the spirit.
The other 7 months of the year, however, I need professional counselling and thereputic drugs. It is endlessly cold (currently 15° at 7 PM), windy (wind chills usually put our temperatures in the below zero range), dark (we don't see the sun for days on end - always cloudy - and the sun sets by 4:30 in the afternoon) and snowy (it started snowing before Thanksgiving and hasn't stopped, we have more than a foot of snow on the level - that isn't counting the drifts and piles). The roads are slippery and dangerous, the house is impossible to keep warm (I sleep under 3(!) comforters), and Seasonal Affective Disorder is just a fact of life.
So, why do I live here? This is probably the wrong time of year to ask that question... get back to me in July.
I would make a really good Snowbird.
You don't have to say, but it sounds like Rochester!
I loved having lunch /shopping in Rochester when I lived up there.
Now, if we could only get out of this small town and into a larger one I would be super excited. 
That's worth a lot to me, to have her at home with us for two more years. 
. We are getting bombed with snow, winds, the whole 9 yards. Yep, after 41 years, I am used to it, but I still HATE IT!
...A different perspective from where I sit
Have two kids in college and one that works as a police officer in Manhattan. Our roots are here, as our families are here. I often have said outloud.."how exactly did our families land on Long Island?" If anything we feel trapped, as we make a living here. Yet the cost of living is astronomical. It's getting tougher and tougher to stay. TAXES in Nassau County are one the highest in the nation. 
$17,000 in real estate taxes. THAT's NUTS. 
Now, that's before the mortgage payment. 
