debra_lea

Message: I live in Ventura California with my husband and 11 month old son. I grew up in the Poconos of PA and met my husband while living in Toronto for 4 years. I LOVE so many things about California (progressive people, unbelievable weather, outdoor lifestyle). But, it is very expensive and the schools are terrible. I want to have more children and be a stay at home mom. My parents are retiring to Southport (south of Wilmington) and my brother lives in Charlotte. My husband and I are tossing around the idea of selling our house (cashing out) and moving closer to my family.

We are in our mid 30's, and would like to move someplace safe, with excellent schools. My husband is an artist/graphic designer. We would like to live in a neighborhood with accessibility, rather than a "cookie cuttter" development. We are not into watching sports, but we love a year round active lifestyle, good restaurants, and obviously the arts. We are trying to do our research and narrow the list before making a trip. Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Thank you so very much for your time!

Sincerely,
Debra

girlonthego

Debra: It is a big move east. The weather will be a change for you. NC has sticky and humid summers. We did a similar move to central VA from a crowded NJ. I became a stay at home Mom too.
We love central Va. We are located in the suburbs of Richmond and I do think that most of the people I know here are from somewhere else! I think you may want to look into Charlottesville VA. It is a nice college town. It seems more liberal than my area. It is rolling hills. We have the most beautiful falls in Va and in Charlottesville, you will get winter snow.(not too much). It is located near the Blue Ridge Mtns which gives you lots of outdoor recreation. I don't know anything about Raleigh so hopefully more people will read this post! Good luck in your search!

Andrew

Debra, there was just a long thread about moving to Raleigh here - search for "raleigh" to read it all so we don't have to rehash it!

Andrew

LHG

Debra,
I agree with girlonthego. I would look at Virginia, within a couple hours of DC. You still wouldn't be that far from your family. I made the move from CA to PA nine years ago. Really think it through--weather, schools, culture,shopping...good luck!

ncgrrl

Does your brother have kids? I ask because you might want to move there and have your kid(s) and their cousins close.

For the Triangle area, you sound more Carrboro or Chapel Hill.

Come for a visit in late July to see if you like the weather then.

Subway_Scoundrel

Come on people. She said she was going to move to Raleigh and all these VA people jump in. Yea, move to Charlottesville and it is a college town but you would probably be bored out of you mind after a year due to its size. Come to the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) and you have a better town of Chapel Hill than Charlottesville plus everything else, including a airport. Look at Chapel Hill or closer to downtown Durham and Raleigh. The closer you are into towns/cities, the farther away from the cookie cutter neighborhoods. We don't have the red-neck factor like other southern cities/areas that are bigger (or smaller). Come visit and grab an Independent, the local weekly news and entertainment mag and see what is happening that week. Plenty of progressive people due to the educational factor and yet, we do have several "non-progressives" to keep the debate healthy. People who visit or don't live here (or live here and never leave their living room or local strip center) say this is a college area. Yea, we have numerous colleges, but there is so much life outside of the universities. Yea, you have to look for it sometimes but if you are progressive enough to look for it, you will find more than you can do. And yes, August is hot and humid, but even better, we have four seasons and the nicest "Falls" and "Springs" you can find. Write more I can tell you what neighborhoods to look into.

Cassandra

Did you go away debra-lea?

You might, indeed, want to check out Chapel Hill or parts of Durham.

Check back in and tell us where you're at, what you'd like to know.

rcs

Hi, I've been interested in what people have to say about Raleigh vs. Charlotte. I am also about to move to one of these areas, and don't know which is better. My husband is Japanese, and he'd like not to be the only one in town. We also have a toddler son. Any thoughts on this?

soccr

RCS, you want Chapel Hill or maybe Cary, but I doubt if your husband would be the "only one in town" in Raleigh or Charlotte, either.

debra_lea

I'm still around I have been posting and researching all over the place. Yes, Chapell Hill seems like it would be a good place for us to check out. Any information that can be shared about Chapell Hill would be wondeful. I'm imagining it as a town within a city kind of feel?? My husband is a graphic designer, 10+ years. Do you think he will easily be able to find work in the area?

Thanks in advance,
Debra

travdis

The Raleigh area has a very percentage of people working professional level jobs and have a college degree. Charlotte is more blue collar.

Cassandra

Well, welcome if you do head this way!

First, one "L" in "Chapel" -- not related to Dave or ....

"Town within a city"? Nope. Don't think you'll find anything like that out this way. First, no cities. Sorry, but Raleigh and Charlotte are the closest we come, and they won't remind you of Toronto or NY or ...

Chapel Hill is very much a college town, but real estate is so expensive -- relatively speaking -- that many of the year-round residents are professional or more. (Only SOME of the faculty and none of the support staff at UNC-CH can usually afford the town.) It's more like a suburb-without-a-city. It's also pretty kooky for some Carolinian tastes -- our share of Birkenstocks and coffee shoppes, with some rousing antagonisms in Town Council over very very local issues.

We do have our own "suburb" -- sort of -- in Carrboro, which used to be the depot/po'-people's other-side-of-the-tracks area. Now it still has po' people but also some artists and more genuinely counter-culture types. Think of Chapel Hill as the NC, poorer version of Palo Alto and Carrboro as a teeny tiny Berkeley (without the Univ., which is in Chapel Hill). I don't know, maybe that comparison won't stand up -- you still have to think of a town with a downtown of one street about a mile long, at most.

There are little malls and a couple of behemoth (by our standards) malls, but again, not like Calif.

Charlotte has, per se, more money and a few more resources, but it always strikes me as that much more deeply Southern in taste, with less of certain kinds of diversity and more guns'n'backy. Again: a huge generalization, as I haven't LIVED in Charlotte, only visited a handful of times.

Given my choice, I'd still prefer to live in Chapel Hill, or maybe some parts of Durham, or even Wilmington or Asheville over Charlotte or Raleigh. But it's a matter of taste, priorities, convenience, and sometimes family.

Hard to say for sure what your husband will find out here, but both State and UNC-CH have programs in graphic design, and RTP/Cary/Triangle area have their share of developers, advertisers, architectural firms, white-collar firms, etc. I'm not qualified to say much more about the market for graphic design here, but I do hope you'll visit out here to get a better idea.

After California, most distances here won't seem all that long, even if you have to commute from a Chapel Hill residence to somewhere else in the Triangle area, although I-40 is becoming an appalling bottleneck, so flex-time is a useful concept.

Enough random ideas. Keep in touch, let us know.

starrsville

All of the above advice is very good, but my #1 pick in NC would be Asheville.

christiegr

I was raised in Raleigh and I would suggest checking out North Raleigh or the Cary , Apex area.
Asheville is pretty, but is lacking in jobs.
I now live in Fuquay Varina (south of Raleigh)which is probably too small for out of towners.Raleigh has grown way to much over the last 10 years,with alot of traffic.
Someone previously stated visiting in July , it is very hot that time of year.

cmcfong

Debra lea, I see you asked about finding work as a graphic artist. A friend of mine just moved to NC from NY. She, too, is a graphic artist. All attempts to find a job with a company were failed. She got a bit depressed and decided to do work as an independent contractor...in three months she is doing extremely well and has more business than she ever expected.
As to a cosmopolitan population, I would have to say the RDU area, especially Chapel Hill, is the most mixed in the state. The best weather is probably on the coast and the most active lifestyles are probably in Asheville and its environs. You will be square in the middle.