See I think people aren’t answering the question correctly, it’s not what do you think the best unit for elk is…
It’s, work, so you have to be able to have your career path there; live so have a home raise your kids etc, and recreate.
I think you probably have to toss most of the west out the window, because of unit configuration, eg live in Bozeman and only hunt 309

You can’t hunt Denver, and all the western slope towns have half the town in one unit have the other.
Let’s pick on
@Dsnow9, your unit, north of the highway there is no school, few houses and it’s sage so your not working… if you pick south there isn’t a grocery store and good luck getting a deer tag. Also… not a ton of tree work.
WY also cut up by unit boundaries, do you pick hunting or Safeway lol?
Then, think about do you really want to live and be confined to a draw unit?
So that being said, and believe me I thought about a bunch of states you have 2 correct choices in no particular order.
1. Anchorage 14 C, decent city, school, work could be tough, cool hunting ops, but a lot of draw so some years you might not hunt that much or hunt in a limited way, great skiing.
2. Massachusetts Unit 10, great schools/work/city stuff… Turkey, deer, waterfowl, and fishing all in the unit boundary… no snow skiing but some water skiing.