Every once in a while I take a trip up to Boston and I enjoy it up there.
It's got your classic old-school town side and you can also find new-age, crowded city stuff there too. And then there are plenty of schools you could attend, too. Great food, too. Just be prepared to be swamped by American history.
I don't know how good it is job-wise, though.
(And since I go to school in the DC Area, I suppose I could vouch for that too. No mountains, but you have open access to a lot of stuff. There are lots of places to work out here, in border DC-Virginia.)