Colorado

Boulder is a dog-friendly town. There are trails all over Boulder & east Boulder county as well as a couple of dog parks, so your pooch will be happy. During the summer, there is a wonderful farmer's market in downtown Boulder, as well as the small towns in east Boulder county, Erie, Lafayette, Louisville. Most of them start up in May & some run as late as November.

Air pollution - well, there are days in the winter where you can see the brown cloud as you look out east. However, Boulder sits in a little valley that gets a lot of wind & often on the worst days, we don't have much pollution. Finally, the wind is good for something. Speaking of wind - we get some doozy wind storms - January is the worst month for those. Many, many years ago, the giant plate glass window of my neighbors house shattered due to wind.

Water - This will be a hot issue in this area & the southwestern US very soon. But the way the corporations are sucking up all water rights, it's may be an issue everywhere.

Fire risk - always high in the summer due to arid conditions, although most fire risk is in the mountains, not on the plains.

Public transportation - we have a great bus system in Boulder & Denver.

Housing - Whether rent or mortgage, in Boulder you are going to pay more. But since you're used to SF prices, if your income remains the same, it may not be such sticker shock for you. Prices for housing in eastern Boulder county & Longmont are somewhat more reasonable.

Politics - Boulder county is a liberal pocket of what used to be a red state & while CO is more blue than in the past, we have areas that are not. Remember that awful Musgrave woman & that Tancredo asshole? Both from CO.

Mark Udall(D) is up for re-election in 2014. Michael Bennet(D) is up in 2016. If you're in Congressional District 2, Jared Polis(D) will be your congressman & his seat is usually safe. While acceptable dems, I would not call them stellar. Bennett, particularly, is weak. Also, the religious wackos are very successful at getting those horrid fetus rights bills on the ballot every few years.

Some local political orgs:
http://www.bocodems.org/

http://dw-bc.org/

I hope you like CO. It may not be as fantastic as CA, but there are worse places you could land.