I live in the northern Colorado front range.
1. More rain, more green.
They pretty much go hand-in-hand. 300 days of sunshine, but the countryside is mostly brown and dusty.
2. More "neighborhood" flavor.
Almost everything and everyone here is new. There's no coherence, no flavor, no great sense of history. The local population has doubled in less than 30 years. Everyone is running the rat race trying to buy a bigger house (or any house at all, given the skyrocketing prices). I'd give my little finger just to find something half-way resembling a neighborhood bar.