We would be incurring the tenants in one half and would live in the other half ourselves.

On your own, you simply can not buy in the place where you want to live. 

My preferred options are:1. house-hack with a duplex under ARV; live in one unit => renovate => rent the other unit2. buy a SFH under ARV that could be converted into a duplex (preferably adjacent units vs top/bottom) - I'm assuming the biggest challenge with this strategy would be separating the infrastructure for utilities; and costly.

I make around 180k living on the west coast.

So far, we have shortlisted Columbus, Orlando, Indiana, Vegas and Rochester.we live in Toronto and we really would like to connect with people like us who already started their journey to know about their experiences and insights of investing in the US! 

They knew a dog lived there when they rented it and they rented anyway, knowing they had allergies and chronic asthma they rented a home with carpet. 

Very generally speaking the areas of Hartford and New Haven where you can hope to attract qualified tenants (assuming that is your goal) are very expensive because most of the people with something to lose that live in these cities generally live in 2 or 3 areas.

Quote from @Damon Silver: Can you clarify "you can't have another separate tenant live there?" 

Or if your'e living in it would you feel comfortable in that area. 

Consult eviction attorney regarding commercial; I'm specifically a residential PM and commercial usually has different rules because of the nature of the investment and occupancy (tenant doesn't [usually] live there)