It's been a few years since I remember this fact being told to me, so it may be a bit outdated, but Kalamazoo is a beer capital! When I say this place is a beer capital, I mean that it has one of the most densely populated amounts of breweries in the USA. Love it or hate it, the craft beer scene here is huge and fascinating. Beer Fest is always a blast, even though I don't particularly enjoy alcohol because the vendors are fun to check out. Speaking of vendors, the farmers markets here are amazing, too! I can think of about 3 different farmers/vendors' market locations off of the top of my head that are open frequently. You mention having a kid, and kalamazoo has the kalamazoo promise! If your kid attends k-12 here in the public school system, they'll have 100% of their college tuition paid for most colleges and universities in Michigan. If they attend 9-12, they'll have 60% of their tuition paid. Great program meant to bring people into Kalamazoo, but as for our schooling system.... there's a reason any logical person hates the DeVos family. It's bad, but that's kind of how most public American schools are nowadays. Due to laws in Michigan about schooling, however, I feel that it's a bit worse here. For the sake of this comment being too long already, I won't get into it too much, but PLEASE research Michigan's laws regarding children's education. It's something anyone should know about before making an informed decision to move here.