1) Check the weather forecast. We have a much better climate.
2) Check the apartment ads. Our rents are much, much, much cheaper.
3) The people here are amazingly friendly, and everybody seems to get along with everybody else. In fact, the last time I was in Jerusalem, one of my “friends” told me I should start davening at a different shul than the one I usually daven in. She didn’t think I should be friends with this particular group. I don’t hear that kind of thing in Haifa. The people here accept me for who I am.
4) In Jerusalem I hear mostly English spoken. I always feel as if I’m in America.
5) There is no neighborhood in Haifa that I won’t walk through during the day. (Okay, night is a different story, but that has more to do with my paranoia than any basis in reality.)
Haifa isn’t perfect. No place is. But I lived in Jerusalem. I’ll take Haifa.