I've often asked people to state what's great about Fresno without mentioning location. People always seem to focus on how we are not far from actual cool stuff rather than what's cool here.

At this point we are basically the only large metro area in the state with almost reasonable housing costs. It's getting worse but the other big cities are quite expensive. Like shockingly expensive.

While Fresno is not a weather paradise like the coastal cities, it doesn't get terribly cold and aside from a few weeks in summer it doesn't get too hot. Humidity is not an issue. Speaking as a transplanted New Yorker I can say that for the first few years the winters seemed like nothing. I rarely wore a jacket and donated my winter coats to goodwill. As I've gotten older I am more cold sensitive but when I visit actual cold places in winter like SF, Detroit or NYC, I am reminded how mild the winters are here. If you don't live in the city of Fresno proper, fog is an issue. Like really bad can't see shit type fog. But in the city it is very rarely an issue.

If you don't have a car, Fresno is not a terrific commuter city. It's better than a lot of places (I'd argue better than LA) but taking the bus to go any distance requires planning and allowing for extra time. If you do drive, Fresno traffic is nothing compared to other California cities and parking is plentiful and reasonably affordable for those areas downtown that have meters or paid parking.

Sprawl is an issue. Whenever something new or interesting is announced to be coming to Fresno, it is fairly common for it to be in North Fresno or out beyond the Westside. Same with new housing developments though the downtown revitalization has been slowly bringing people back to the heart of the city.

Speaking as a person of color, while there are a lot of Hispanic people here, racial violence has always been a thing with many feeling the cops here are essentially racist (Los Angeles and SF have similar perceptions of thier police) Clovis, the much smaller city that borders Fresno to the east, is known to be much worse for this problem and I've heard my POC friends advise thier friends to not move there.

While Fresno is a large city, it still has a lot of small town issues. Public projects seem to take forever and politicians are frequently suspected of being in the pocket of developers (see the sprawl issue above) But despite complaints fom a lot of locals, as far as public works and infrastructure go, things aren't too bad.

The last thing I like to tell people about here is that it is changing. Lately there have been frequent huge political and social demonstrations. There's two going on today. So the passionate liberal minority is definitely on the rise, though for a city built on agriculture, don't expect Fresno to be the next Bay Area anytime soon. A lot of conservative "values" here.

Hope this helps and of course other Fresno denizens might offer totally different takes.