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Fort Mill or Tega Cay. Very safe areas and seem like a great place to raise a family. It is a straight shot up I-77 to get to uptown. You want to avoid that 485 traffic if you can. Until it is widened, the bottlenecks are pretty bad for this area.
IMO, Matthews seems like a great place, but every time I go there it seems I am stuck in traffic - no matter the time of day.
Also since you have kids, you might want to look for a sub with a pool - especially if you come from a cooler climate. Your first summer here will be an eye opener.
Cabarrus County is known to have good schools. Cabarrus is northeast of Mecklenburg and is bisected by I-85. Mooresville City Schools also have a good reputation. Mooresville is about 20 miles north of downtown in Iredell County. Mooresville is bisected by I-77. for the dancing, I would recommend the NC Dance Theater which is in Spirit Square in downtown. Or, I would recommend the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in suburban Matthews. You may google these individually or also google Charlotte Dancing Schools.
Most of the girls in our neighborhood dance at Miller Street dance studio which is just south of the 485 loop on Providence Road. It's a very large studio which from what I hear is both good and bad. There is a smaller studio right off of Ardrey Kell called Steps N Motion that one of my daughter's friends (high school age) has been at since it opened and just loves. It's surprising to me that someone who calls himself cheapsk8 has daughters that dance competitively - when I hear from my neighbors how much it costs - especially the cost of costumes - I think holy moly!! Anyhow - if that is a big part of your family's life I guess it would be important to find the dance studio and make sure you're not too far from it!
We live in Indian Trail and my daughter goes to Steps N Motion, she loves it there but is just a recreational dancer, though we see the competition girls while we're there. It takes us about 20 minutes to get to dance in the evenings, it would take a bit longer if we had to go earlier, like rush hour time, probably would add another 10-15 minutes to the drive.
I also recommend Miller Street or Steps in Motion. I hear that Miller street has a more conservative line on the costumes, but the previous poster is correct...very expensive. Also, the YMCA system has dance and from my understanding the Harris YMCA, which is near Southpark, has the better dance program out there...someone correct me on that because we have never been to that one, but loved their gymnastics program. Also, for Miller street they recently opened the location in baxter village which is in a good location to get to uptown as well as there are good schools. This is in Fort Mill, SC - lower taxes too. Good Luck.
I agree with the suggestion to look at Cabarrus County! Some neighborhoods on the NW side of the county (closer to Charlotte/University area) are Skybrook and Highland Creek (both straddle the Mecklenburg/Cabarrus line, but schools in Cabarrus are much better!) and Moss Creek. The schools in the area are new within the last few years - Harris Road Middle, Cox Mill High School.
You definitely should look at Tega Cay/Fort Mill area. If you do a search of Tega Cay or Fort Mill here, you'll find lots of threads with discussions about it.
I moved here in 2004 from So Cal and ended up moving to South East Charlotte (mint hill). I loved it there, but it is still somewhat rural. I have since sold that home and moved to Tega Cay and I really love this area. In SC, but still a suburb of Charlotte (can be to uptown in 20-25 minutes --not during rush hour probably...) Great place to raise kids, good schools (CMS schools are going thru some really tough stuff now, like cutting $100 million from their budget this year. eek!!), lower taxes, lots of different types of communities --depending on if you want accessibility first, large lots, low maintenance, etc. You can stop at the Fort Mill or Tega Cay Chamber of Commerce www.yorkcountychamber.com for more info.. or of course a realtor in this area could provide you info too.
Hope this helps. Good luck with your search!
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