We lived in Tübingen (Germany) for five years. But the city was just a tad too small for my taste. There are only few stores (outside tourism-focused stores) and it there is fairly little to do in terms of concerts, etc. It is part of the Stuttgart metropolitan area, so there are a lot of work opportunities. I loved the scenery of Southern Germany, but Germany is too hierarchical, conservative, and old-fashioned for my taste (of course, there are exceptions, such as Berlin). It's really a drag that you can't do groceries on a Sunday, people expect you to pay with cash everywhere, internet connections are somewhat mediocre, etc. Oh, and there is almost no biking infrastructure in cities (outside cities it's quite ok). That said, a lot our our friends/colleagues there like Tübingen/Stuttgart area.
We moved back to Groningen, The Netherlands (where I studied + did my PhD and my wife did her PhD). It may be somewhat remote for some people. But I love it, there are multiple concert venues (including the legendary Vera), there are plenty of tech-related activities. We have fiber to home. We can shop on Sundays (handy when you work throughout the week). Bicycles are the primary form of transportation. Our 5yo daughter clearly enjoys school here more (used to be in Kindergarten in Germany). The largest downside of Groningen is that there is not a lot of challenging local work (outside the university).
If my wasn't offered a job in Groningen, we would have considered Nijmegen, perhaps Utrecht (+ nearby towns) or Leiden. I have worked several months in Amsterdam, but it is too busy for me ;).
In America I can buy groceries any day of the week, but as someone who often works odd hours, I find it a drag that almost none are open past 10 or 11pm. The buses don't run after midnight~1am, either, so if I need a dozen eggs at 3am, I have to get in my car and drive.
I feel that's not the sort of behavior that a city with aspirations should be encouraging. If you want interesting things happening in your city, you need people working at all hours to make it happen, and many will be on wages that don't support living downtown. You don't want every worker driving a car. It's simply not scalable.
> people expect you to pay with cash everywhere
I'm the opposite. I only pay by card or check for regular pre-planned purchases (like rent, or insurance). It's well established that people buy less when they pay with cash! I'm disappointed by all the trendy new shops that are card-only.
I used to live in Atlanta and there was a 24-hour Kroger right across the street from my townhome. One night at 2am, I bought a gas grill at that Kroger on a whim. Good times.
Now I live in Silicon Valley and there are quite a few 24-hour grocery stores according to google map.
Choosing a small city with a train station, however, can dramatically improve your access to most of these things as the trains typically imply population, which typically begets services such as internet, pharmacies, etc.
So honestly my first recommendation is filtering small cities by that.
0: https://www.thelocal.de/20181221/germans-turn-to-medibus-as-...
1: https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/politics/divided-nation-g...
Well, Nentershausen is very small ;). We had weekends with friends in Nentershausen for a couple of years. It's a village, not a city.
I was more thinking along the lines of (random Dutch/German university cities): Heidelberg, Tübingen, Ulm, Erlangen, Nürnberg, Nijmegen, Groningen, Leiden, etc.
It's a big city but it's so spread out that living in one of the outlying districts can be like living in a small town near a big city (in many ways Berlin feels more like an agglomeration of many smaller cities than e.g. Vienna).
It's also (still) a relatively affordable city, especially outside the central districts.