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To find a new home city
Jasconius
sword criminalmad onlineRegistered User regular
sword criminalmad onlineRegistered User regular
So my wife and I have agreed we need to leave the hellscape that is central Florida, through my job I have the ability to work virtually anywhere in the world remotely, and have the financial means to (willingly) deal with all but the most extreme markets (NYC, downtown Chicago, SF, etc)
So this is our chance to pretty much pick where we want to settle down and start a family. This is a thing that's happening, barring some sort of tragedy. Already notified my employer and they signed off.
Our plan is to, over the next 6 months, do weekend trips to the top candidate locations and scope the areas out and then move
Making this thread to collect local knowledge about places we might want to consider within cities that are mostly unknown to us, so we can have a nice weekend out of it and see what we gotta see
Our basic criteria are pretty much (in order of importance):
Right now the places we have targeted are:
If you live in a place that you feel qualifies but isn't listed, chime in.
So this is our chance to pretty much pick where we want to settle down and start a family. This is a thing that's happening, barring some sort of tragedy. Already notified my employer and they signed off.
Our plan is to, over the next 6 months, do weekend trips to the top candidate locations and scope the areas out and then move
Making this thread to collect local knowledge about places we might want to consider within cities that are mostly unknown to us, so we can have a nice weekend out of it and see what we gotta see
Our basic criteria are pretty much (in order of importance):
- No extreme summers (regular, extended periods of 90F+ heat)
- Some sort of an accessible city center/cultural center
- Good, reasonably priced single-family housing within 20 minutes of those centers (ballpark $150-200 per square foot)
- Some hint of an information economy (I work in software)
- An above average school system (my wife is a teacher, and also future babies)
- West of the Mississippi
- not filled exclusively with old people
Right now the places we have targeted are:
- Seattle, Washington
- Portland, Oregon
- Chicago, IL (northern reaches of the city)
- Outer rims of SF Bay area
- Maybe Canada who knows??
If you live in a place that you feel qualifies but isn't listed, chime in.
this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
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I don't know what Austin summers are like, but it's farther south than Dallas and Dallas summers can be brutal.
Kansas City maybe? KS/MO isn't the most glamorous, but there's Google Fiber and some tech companies.
And real estate would be much more reasonable than SF.
Though the government would have to stop trying to destroy itself first...
If you reconsider the summer thing, Dallas would hit all your bullet points.
I know the Dallas area well and it checks enough boxes for me to consider it except for the god forsaken heat, we may talk about it some more but we really want to move northward in addition to westward
*edit* I also know KC well, before we ended up deciding to stay in Florida a few years ago we basically did the same process and travelled to KC and did a real estate tour. Very nice, almost pulled the trigger, but we were less financially secure back then and chose not to. It's deeper down the list of choices.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Also give me a buzz if you make it out this way
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
I've lived in Boston and can recommend it, as it seems to check off a lot of the items on your list. Tons of IT (especially medical IT) stuff based there, and being on the water gives it a decent climate. Violates your west of the Mississippi contingency though.
Never been but I hear that Minneapolis is pretty rad?
I feel like most of the better school districts in San Diego are going to be farther than 20 minutes away from our city/cultural centers (I think Coronado is good, though), and an upper bound of $200/sqft is going to be difficult -- he could get close to the city center, but probably not near a good school district.
Chicago primarily because we have family there so its really easy for us to visit anyway. I don't have a specific neighborhood in mind yet though. Every time we go we stay downtown.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
It's fairly easy to get downtown from most of the surrounding areas, as you're either close enough to the metro to be around a CTA station that takes you around downtown, or around a Metra line that can drop you at one of the major stations. I'm about 25 miles due West of the city, and the milk-run trains on the weekend that make every intermediate stop only takes an hour to get there.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
In addition to the brutal winters, Minneapolis also violates the "no extreme summers" point, oddly enough.
Land Of 10,000 Lakes - And 10,000,000 Mosquitos.
Any of the suburbs are only about 20 minutes from downtown maybe 40 in the worst of rush hour.
And you can get a 4 bed 2 bath 2250 sq ft house for around 250k. Like say this one. http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Greenfield-WI/83844640_zpid/38794_rid/4-_beds/any_days/globalrelevanceex_sort/42.980351,-87.990275,42.952936,-88.036409_rect/14_zm/0_mmm/
There are also some nice neighborhoods in the city that are fun to live in but they are generally smaller homes, and MPS is horrendous so private school or the burbs.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
That will factor into what cities to pick. For example: Skiing - Salt Lake City. Huge internet presence, some of the best skiing in the world, relatively affordable
You're best bet is looking at what sort of rail system exists in the area for convenience. You've basically named every criteria that everyone everyone has for an ideal city... and those reasons are why those cities are out of the price range of mere mortals if you're looking to buy a house.
Edit: I'll say that the housing market out west of Portland and near the light rail system is rapidly increasing in price as folks who can't afford California move up here and have cash offers. The train is also very slow and crappy if you want to get to the city proper.
La mesa and the outskirts of Bonita would be good.
I moved to Seattle from San Diego a bit over a year ago. Seattle is stupid expensive, but shoreline and father north get better. If you want to buy a house on the cheap you might need to look an hour north like Stanwood.
Minneapolis is a great place to raise a family. Good schools, good government, good people etc. Only problem is the winter
Just moved here in October, but I'll second this.
A lot of the surrounding "burbs" of MSP are really nice. Personally I'd avoid living in either of the cities proper, but that's just me. I prefer just jump from suburb to suburb to do things and would never go into them if I had a choice. Not because they're bad, but that there's not really anything short of going to a Twins game that I can do in them that I can't do in one of the surrounding burbs. Plus the rail line is pretty solid when you do need to go to downtown Minneapolis or a Twins game.
I meant the Twin Cities in general, but there are a ton of great communities in the suburbs as well as the cities themselves.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
But Salt Lake.
Tech sector's popping, houses are still pretty cheap, mild 4 season weather, there's a surprising amount to do...I've been pleasantly surprised how much I've liked it here.
I host a podcast about movies.
If you are considering raising a family, might not be a bad idea to think of your school system now (I guess this is in the OP, but low on your list). I'm not actually sure how our public schools fair, but I think north Dallas rates better. If I had kids I'd probably hightail it back to a blue state out of principal.
Also give yourself at least 3 days in Denver or any other higher altitude city, as there's a good chance you'll be knocked for a loop the first day or two by altitude if you don't adapt very well.
after talking about it more last night we're going to begin with the midwest, since we have a lot of family and friends up and down
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Omaha
Iowa City
I've heard great things about Milwaukee
They're all crappy to get to from major airlines though.
If you want to travel, this is massive. Low volume airports are EXPENSIVE to fly from.
yea pittsburgh is a great place to live. cost of living is reasonable, but culturally it isn't that huge a hotspot.
but coming from florida it might be. winters can be brutal though.
right this is one of the things we're trying to balance between us. if it were up to her we would live out in the middle of nowhere, but I need access to a Good Airport for work, which means we need to be around a city
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
If you're accepting of the midwest, Wichita is pretty decent as far as places that are in Kansas go. Don't have a whole lot of tech companies other than NetApp that I know of.
Not just a city. If you're travelling for work regularly, you need to be within reasonable driving distance to a hub airport. Which, I am sorry to say, is going to heavily constrain your options.
Huh. I'm in Naperville, are you nearby?
Jasconius, sounds like you'd be well-informed for the Chicago area with family here, but if you ever have any questions about the western suburbs I'd be happy to help. I lived just outside Chicago in Oak Park for most of my life, and moved further out west to Naperville about 2 years ago. The Oak Park/Forest Park area would be one of my top choices near Chicago - you have multiple L lines that run from there to downtown, and a Metra line available, good housing, a nice variety of restaurants and grocery stores, good schools, and while they are suburbs they feel more like some of the nicer Chicago neighborhoods thanks to their denseness and high walkability in most areas.
I rarely fly, so I don't know how feasible it is to regularly fly out of Milwaukee's General Mitchell; but Coach USA runs an hourly express bus to Chicago's O'Hare.
I always vote my hometown but housing prices here are absolutely not reasonable unless you live like an hour East near kansas. Colorado housing is insanely white hot right now.
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