To the original poster. I think that based on your criteria you probably should narrow your search to a college town in Virginia or North Carolina. The two cream of the crop college towns are Chapel Hill, NC and Charlottesville, VA. I lived in Chapel Hill for 7 years and it is the real deal. The people are extremely well educated and interesting. The schools and services in Chapel Hill are off the charts and there is now a Trader Joes and Whole Foods in the area. Home prices can be steep however but you can get a lot of bang for the buck if you are willing to fix up an older home. The other downside is that the property taxes are pretty high (I think around 1.7-1.8%) and they are based on market values with no prop. 13 like protection. While living there my property taxes almost doubled. The climate is awesome in the spring in summer, tolerable in the winter, and pretty bad in the summer especially around July and August. Lots of mosquitoes. Chapel Hill is also very well located and close to the mid size city of Durham and large city of Raleigh. I was very happy with the RDU airport and it was a 20 minute drive away. For tech type jobs you have the research triangle park around 20 miles away as well. Lots of opportunities in the medical field. Chapel Hill is also a great place to take in elite college sports events which are great for family outings. I could go on and on but you definitely should at least visit Chapel Hill.
Charlottesville is fairly close to D.C. but I think it is quite a bit more expensive than Chapel Hill. It is ridiculously beautiful. If you want to consider some areas that are lower cost but a little more isolated than I would seriously consider Blacksburg, VA and Wilmington, NC depending on whether you are into the mountains or the coast.
The east coast is a great place. I personally think staying toward the middle of the coast is your best bet due to the somewhat more moderate weather and great college town options. If your family is on the West Coast however, keep in mind that you will be making a tremendous family life sacrifice living on the other side of the country.
