Where to live in the North East
 

Howdy all,

I know this topic comes up often, and sorry to bring it around again, but could any in the top right corner offer some recommendations? I currently live in Jacksonville, Florida and I absolutely hate this place. I'm a Colorado girl originally, I wound up down here by way of an alcoholic ex husband who chewed us up and spit us out financially (himself included). There's nothing left for me back west so I'm figuring on heading north from here.

Pertinent details:
I'm a single mom; I have a twelve-year-old and a Chihuahua, so I need a relatively safe place with decent schools (most are HORRIBLE down here).
I'm in insurance; P&C, Life, sell, service, claims- I can always get jobs, but don't always make big money.
I like all four seasons but autumn is my favorite; Florida's complete lack of seasons is depressing.
I'm not a big city girl- I find small towns much less terrifying.

Anybody who cares to weigh in, you would be much appreciated.

Why not just apply for jobs and move for the first good offer that comes your way?

What draws you to the northeast? There are good schools and 4 seasons in a lot of places.

The bad news about NH is the best schools are probably in the towns with the higher taxes but perhaps you are thinking rental? But it also depends on your child. Our son went to a regional school and we live in a small town with a lower tax rate than our neighbors. He did not want to go to college but some of his friends did and have very good jobs.

The better jobs might be in southern NH/northern MA area but I wouldn't be able to take the rush hour commutes. Young friends recently moved to Amherst with two sons similar aged to your child and are raving about all the activities and general area. They are avid outdoors people.

If you can get a job with the state that would give you a lot of choices around Concord NH and pretty good schools. There should be a lot of job opportunities around Manchester. People used to move to Bow for the low tax rate but low taxes are no longer true. If you are going to look at schools also look at other after school activities such as Scouts, 4-H and optional after school ski programs. Warner is one of my favorite towns and is part of the Kearsarge Regional School District but high taxes. Very active community is worth it to a lot of people. (See Warner Fall Foliage Festival)

I just wouldn't head too far north. Franklin schools have problems. A niece used to teach further north but found bad attitude among too many students. Economically depressed areas go along with schools not getting enough money since schools are supported by local property taxes in NH.

I don't know anything about western NH such as Keene area on VT border. Seacoast area would probably be too expensive. I know people who have jobs but difficulty finding affording rentals in the general area. South of Manchester gets into areas that are close enough for commutes to Boston. I was shocked at the price friends recently paid for detached condo in an over 55 community in Londonderry area.

You might consider subscribing to the Union Leader to help you get to know the area. It is published in Manchester NH. The Concord Monitor would have more news about communities a bit further north. Manchester is big city. Concord is much more "small town" for a state capital and has a nice downtown. A good friend lives in Concord and has a daughter who teaches in an elementary school. Good sign when someone wants to stay in the area.

I like the area from Milford to the Vermont line a lot. Nashua is too big, too much traffic, too many big box stores. Keene has a university to drive the economy and lots to do for you and your son. All these places are on the Mass/NH border, more or less. Brattleboro is just over the VT line and a great small city/large town.

There are a lot of upscale towns in the area of Massachusetts south of Nashuathat are within easy commuting distance.

I would urge two things: first, that you broaden your understanding of your skill base from" insurance person" to someone with sales experience, customer service experience, financial experience and whatever. Think of someone who practiced these skills in the insurance business but who could apply them to health care, government, higher education, manufacturing and logistics. Get some transition training while you are in Florida at a community college; you will learn new skills and how to package them and not feel like you are wasting your time.

Second. My wife and I were military children, we moved every 2-3 years, and we were good at moving. We each went to three different schools between 9th and 12th grade.

A lot of kids don't have this experience, and particularly at your son's age will resist moving and hate the new place. Sometimes this leads to acting out and negative behavior. Consider your son carefully, and conduct your move as seamlessly as possible. Try to move to a town where you can stay, even if you have to change schools. Never, ever look back. Our mom made each new place seem like the best place in the world.

You can find out lots of helpful "relocation information" about any state/city/town at: http://www.city-data.com

That's where you should start your research.

Geico has a major service center in suburban Buffalo... the area is in a major rebirth... schools outside of central city are top notch... the area is still affordable, great for kids and culture...

Weather has changed over last 10 years... milder winters...

Most of the Philadelphia suburbs have excellent schools -
Radnor (http://www.radnor.com/), Tredyffrin Township (http://www.tredyffrin.org/) and Lower Merion (http://www.lowermerion.org/) are a few to check out. All of these townships have top rate schools. Typically the closer you get to Philadelphia the more expensive rents tend to be. So Lower Merion is likely to be more expensive than say Tredyffrin Township. Perhaps the following websites will be helpful -

http://www.movoto.com/guide/philadel...lphia-suburbs/
https://www.niche.com/places-to-live...ia-metro-area/

Good luck!

The northeastern states all have many communities that meet your requirements and some that do not. Look for a job and pick a town that suits you. Do the research first.

If you want to be close to the ocean, check out Wilmington Delaware. If you want the Great Lakes, try Rochester or Buffalo NY. Rochester usually has a little less snow.

Richmond Virginia.
The suburbs west of the city are very reasonable compared to most other areas of the country. We have some very good public schools and top notch public universities. Richmond is a small city about an hour and a half drive south of DC and about an hour east from the mountains, and an hour and half to the oceanfront.
We have 4 seasons with fall being our best. Winters are light with snow and every few years we get one big storm. Summers can be hot and humid, but better than Florida I am sure.Springs are pretty, but Fall lasts usually up till Christmas. My kids never wore coats on Halloween. Weather was always in the low 60s on Halloween night.

I am from NJ but don't recommend going there. Taxes will bury you and cost of living is very high. Best pizza and bread though in NJ.
We were very happy to move to the Richmond area. It has been our home for about 20 years now.

Virginia or North Carolina. Both have four seasons without too much winter (there's a LOT of cold in the NE).

Don't blame you for wanting to ditch J'ville - despite how the state lines are drawn, it's the largest city in South Georgia.

I notice that Tom Fuller mentions Wilmington DE. We just took a day and a night there on our way to the Jersey Shore and we were both favorably impressed.

I would say right here in Pittsburgh but I'm not sure it's the right market for your field. Medicine, health insurance, technology are booming here. There is certainly plenty to do but the ocean is close to 7 hours away.

Extremely well priced housing market but the best school districts are higher priced, of course. This is a bigger city.

Wilmington seemed a very nice small city size.

Also, right near Wilmington DE are the Pennsylvania suburbs and beautiful farmland with rolling hills. My good friend moved there to the Chadds Ford area and it is quite nice with good public schools.

For what it's worth, a recent list of the states with the worst infrastructure problems (roads, bridges, dams etc)....Vermont scored much better than New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Maine was about in the middle.

Vermont also has one of the highest rated educational systems in the USA

Last I looked, Vermont has the most expensive state university in the country, in state or out of state.

Vermont has a lot of unpaved roads, both in the Northeast Kingdom and in the Brattleboro-Rutland-Manchester-Bennington area. This is a bug or a feature depending on how you feel about owning a Subaru, but there are reasons why so many people do.

The Northeast Kindom (and much of rural New England) look like Appalachia, complete with Confederate flags and Trump signs. That's because it is Appalachia. New Hampshire license plates say "Live Free or Die" and they mean it. This is huntin' and fishin' country in a big way.

The great thing about these places is that the towns -- not the cities -- rule themselves through direct democracy, like the ancient Greeks. Once a year the citizens gather for a day to hear and discuss reports on town issues, then they get to vote on their own local budget and tax rate! You want good schools, you vote to pay for them. You want low taxes, you vote to keep school costs and road maintenance low. If you don't attend and vote, you keep your mouth shut. You had your chance.

The New Hampsjire legislature, again, last I looked, doesn't get paid. They get an expense allowance during their [short] legislative sessions. No one makes a living being in the legislature.

Thirty years ago, just out of college, my husband and I (we both graduated from the Univ of New Hampshire although I am from NY) did extensive research on where in the country we wanted to live. Colorado was high on the list (I spent my first year of college at CSU) but we settled on western Massachusetts and have not regretted it for a second (well maybe a few seconds every February when we are sick of winter).

Western Mass doesn't have the horrid traffic of the eastern part of the state or southern NH. There are lots of small cities and towns, most with great schools (especially Franklin and Hampshire counties - my three kids all went to a great public school). It's called the "Five College" area for the five biggies (Smith, Mt Holyoke, Hampshire, Amherst, and UMass) but there are actually 13 in the region - so lots of culture. Lots of fairly young people since lots come here to go to college but don't leave (that tells you something - they like it better than where ever they came from). Lots of history. Lots of nature and outdoor sporting possibilities. Not quite as cold or snowy as Vermont or northern NH. It's about as far from "Appalachia" (described above) as you can get. Not that there aren't pick up trucks and hunters but they are pretty reasonable people (compared to some parts of the country) and also not the majority around here. Only two hours from Boston and three from NYC.

My commute to work each day is through hills and picturesque small villages, past farms and rivers and reservoirs and in half an hour I am in the Northampton-Amherst area with all the services, stores, etc. you could want. I love traveling, spend at least 7 weeks a year in Europe or other parts of the US but I always come home and will never move away from here.

No one makes a living as a selectman in NH, either. But, Ackislander, I think you may have scared the OP with your reference to Appalachia. I think the hunting and fishing folk are dwindling as more and more commuters move to small towns and the one farming community turns into a bedroom town. But the NH lawmakers were smart enough to provide legal protection to landowners who keep their property open to hunting and fishing. I think a lot of hunters and fishermen have a great respect for the woods and wildlife. Our neighbor up the road is a professional logger and raises beef cattle as a side line. He's keep a very neat farm and his grandchildren can be seen collecting maple sap from the trees they have tapped along the road. Some dirt roads are going to remain dirt roads by law. I think our road agent voted for Trump so we do not talk about national politics, just local.

And decent folk park their junk cars and tractors behind their barns. Personally, we highly value a good mechanic and count several as friends. Our son hangs out with a group who knows stuff about engines. One of the guys who used to be in the group was working on his Ph.d in nanobiology.

What I find fascinating are the well educated people with great paying jobs who manage to find their own quiet spot in small towns. There's a MacArthur Genius Award winner in the town next to us. A world authority on climate warming prefers the Durham area (college town). I know at least three local kids who have grown up to go teach English overseas. The OP tagged NH but hasn't been back to explain if she's really interested in other states as well.

No, I agree with everything you say about this as in almost every other case, dh.

I just don't want people to move to NE thinking they are escaping "all that" where they are living now. Vermont is not a socialist paradise despite Bernie. Rural poverty is rural poverty, wherever it is, and there is plenty of rural poverty in Vermont, northern New Hampshire, and especially inland and northern Maine.

And I didn't even mention mud season or black flies!

Actually Ackisland, I think we both should mention mud season and black flies. And for gawd sakes, people don't need to have street lights. And sometimes there's a strong smell of manure. Since there's a lot of beef cows up the road, they can be pretty noisy at times when they are separated from their calves. I didn't mind the noise once I learned they weren't bellowing because of coyotes like the ones we sometimes see and hear.

I agree on rural poverty. Sometimes people just don't need a lot of money and other times they have a hard time paying bills. There's a lot who choose to live simply and a lot who didn't have a choice somewhere along the line. I thought the school backpack program was about school supplies but just learned it was sending food home with students so they had something to eat on weekends. Which reminds me of another thing, if you're going to live in a community, you need to pitch in what you can. And I will be forever grateful to the farm kids who stopped to push me off a snowbank which I thought I could drive over with my first front wheel drive car.

<I just don't want people to move to NE thinking they are escaping "all that" where they are living now.>
Seems to me that's a common theme of posts about relocation, here and elsewhere on the Internet, from anywhere and to anywhere.

Interesting reading about New England on this thread, thanks for the thoughtful posts.