Moving to Cleveland from Colorado (Parma, Lakewood: low crime, safe area, good schools)

[colokid]

Hi Donna,

In regards to Denver, if you are motivated to move anywhere I would suggest Denver in a minute. I've lived in North and South California and Denver beats them hands down. You'll be looking at 300 days of sunshine, I too suffer from seasonal depression, but never in Denver.

The city is clean, safe and growing. The only reason we are moving is because we are expecting our first child and my wife wants to be closer to her parents and siblings. We're both from there , so I gave in because the job at the Clinic is also a great opportunity. That being said, I would have prefered to stay here for the rest of my life. I'll do everything I can to get back here at some point.

People that are from Ohio say, "how can you live without a body of water?" Well, how often do you use Lake Erie? Seriously, there are great rivers and resovoirs if water is really what you need.

Your kids will love the mountains and everything else Colorado has to offer. My sadness truely lies in the fact that my wife does not recognize what a higher quality of life Denver has over Cleveland. Sure, family is great, but in the end it will me, here and the kids. We are our family!

You can not drive a block without seeing an Ohio or Michigan plate on a car. The midwesterners are flocking here and it shows in the attitude.

I'm broken hearted about leaving and hope it is the right decision. To anyone considering Denver/Boulder, just do it! Everything is booming here! Heck, we sold our house for a profit last week and it was only on the market for 3 days! Feel free to ask any additional questions at all.

[jricchio]

We just did the opposite. My job took us from CH to Pasadena. We love the west coast but miss the neighborhood.
We lived in the Cedar Fairmount area. Our house is for sale (S. Overlook Rd.)if you need a place to rent or own.
The neighborhood is awesome. Walking to museums, Case and the clinic. We use to work out at One 2 One on Case. Great restaurants on Lee Road. Our favorite was and is Marotta's. Check it out.

You will love CH. The people are what make it a great city.
We thought we would be in OH 2 or 3 years. 10 years later....
Like I said we love LA but miss our neighbors.
Good luck on the move.

[xwideopenskyx]

Denver is great and Cleveland is a city in overall decline. I was lucky enough to get the heck out of dodge last year and move to AZ. Honestly, I can understand how important family is but it only makes sense if you move to a better/safer city to be near your family not the other way around. Your child is number one in your family. I would not subject my children to growing up in Cleveland unless I had no choice. Sorry that your wife is unable to see how much you're giving up by moving out of Denver.

[J Dub.]

I recently moved from the Akron area to Cleveland Hts. and my wife and I love it. Our neighborhood is quiet and all the neighbors and kids on the street are great. We chose CH because we're not really suburbinish folks and wanted an area that was urban yet still fairly safe. CH may not be what it once was, but I'm not convinced that it's too dangerous to raise a family in as some would suggest. The schools are not regarded as highly as they once where, but it is still a good district.

Another suburb close to the Clinic with good schools I'd suggest is Shaker Hts. Diverse, unique, historic, and the schools are still pretty good. Those would be tops for me on the eastside; don't really have an opinion on the westside as I'm not that familiar with that side of town.

[Donna7]

Originally Posted by colokid

Hi Donna,

In regards to Denver, if you are motivated to move anywhere I would suggest Denver in a minute. I've lived in North and South California and Denver beats them hands down. You'll be looking at 300 days of sunshine, I too suffer from seasonal depression, but never in Denver.

The city is clean, safe and growing. The only reason we are moving is because we are expecting our first child and my wife wants to be closer to her parents and siblings. We're both from there , so I gave in because the job at the Clinic is also a great opportunity. That being said, I would have prefered to stay here for the rest of my life. I'll do everything I can to get back here at some point.

People that are from Ohio say, "how can you live without a body of water?" Well, how often do you use Lake Erie? Seriously, there are great rivers and resovoirs if water is really what you need.

Your kids will love the mountains and everything else Colorado has to offer. My sadness truely lies in the fact that my wife does not recognize what a higher quality of life Denver has over Cleveland. Sure, family is great, but in the end it will me, here and the kids. We are our family!

You can not drive a block without seeing an Ohio or Michigan plate on a car. The midwesterners are flocking here and it shows in the attitude.

I'm broken hearted about leaving and hope it is the right decision. To anyone considering Denver/Boulder, just do it! Everything is booming here! Heck, we sold our house for a profit last week and it was only on the market for 3 days! Feel free to ask any additional questions at all.

Thank you, Colokid! Appreciate all of your feedback on living in Denver/CO. I'm glad to hear that there are a lot of people from OH and MI there; I'm really excited and happy to hear that. We will have to get out there via a visit and explore things. We drove through CO and stayed in Colorado Springs in the early 80's as hubby and myself were moving to S. CA. Colorado Springs was the MOST beautiful area that I ever saw in my life. I remember the clear blue sunny sky the most; this is the part most enticing to me, especially when the dark and dreary months of winter hit Ohio. NE OH winters, especially January through February remind me of brown and white pictures; because all the leaves are off of the trees, the roads are covered with snow, or basically dirty snow due to the plowing, gravel being mixed in with it, etc.

I can "hear" in your posts how you're going to miss CO. That is really tough. To be fair to your wife, I can say that we also moved back to NE OH when we were about to have children and 23+ years later; here we are. Of course, my husband is fine with OH; his family is still here. My mom passed away in 2004 - she was a huge rock to me as we were having our children. I am the one more motivated to move as most of my friends and business associates live on the West Coast and out west. Becoming a new parent can be scary; I'm sure that being close to her parents and siblings will help her at this time as you both transition to becoming parents. Congratulations on that, by the way! I'm really sorry that you're moving out of an environment that you love; I really do hope that your job at Cleveland Clinic goes well, and that you meet some very nice people who will help ease the transition of moving from CO to OH. As life moves on, things change, and hopefully in due time, you'll be able to move back to CO if that's where your heart is as far as a location that you love living in - with your family. I know that your wife will appreciate all that you're doing for her, and that hopefully it will make everything that much stronger; life seems to be about making compromises for those that you love! Hopefully, this will be reciprocated in time and you and your new addition(s) will find your selves in CO again! Thank you for your very nice post - I really appreciate hearing all of the feedback about CO. I wish you and your wife a very happy pregnancy and may your life always be blessed with abundance, health, happiness, and most of all love.

[louislinus]

Like many of you, we moved back to Cleveland to be near family as we started having children. While we had an amazing life in Denver and I do miss it desperately, I think we made the right decision. It was/is really important for me that my kids grow up with their grandparents and extended family. I love the all the trees here and the green grass and the rain! Oh how I missed rain when I lived in Denver. So while I can agree that the lifestyle here is different, whether you like a place or not is really up to you. You decide whether you are going to like it or not. My husband lived in Colorado (Evergreen to be exact) most of his life and his parents are still there. He agreed to move back here because it was really important to me, and he came, thankfully, with a great attitude about the move and has made the most out of it. In my opinion the most important piece of any place is the people who live there.

Things I love about Denver:

- Sunshine almost everyday
- Architecture, I love an old Denver Square
- Easy to navigate and get around. Because Denver is a newer city (especially compared to those of the northeast) the land plan is very logical and once you get the gist of how it is laid out it is almost impossible to get lost.
- There are a lot of young people and it feels very vibrant.
- Dry climate meant nothing every mildewed, wet clothes dried in minutes, and food took a long time to go stale.
- My great friends who still live there.

Things I didn't love about Denver:

- Intense sunshine. In the summer I sometimes felt like the sun was burning my eyelashes off. It can be really strong and sometimes drove me crazy.
- The dry climate really did a number on my skin and I had to constantly moisturize.
- Not very diverse. Denver is a very WASPish city. I love that in Cleveland I have met so many diverse nationalities. Certainly Denver has a somewhat diverse population, but it is very very white compared to Cleveland.
- Traffic. Parts of Cleveland are bad, but nothing compares to my old daily commute from the city south on I-25 to the Denver Tech Center.

All in all the things I love about Denver FAR outweigh the things I didn't love. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[mandygirl]

Hey, REGRETTING? Have you communicated this with your wife yet?

[tribecavsbrowns]

To the OP, Shaker is far and away your best bet. Cleveland Heights is beautiful but has problems with unruly youth and nowhere else on the East Side is very urban. If you're looking for more of a small-town urbanity, Hudson or Chagrin Falls would be worth checking out.

I'm also going to give you some advice, so take it as such and not just me being a prick. The way you introduced yourself on here was really unattractive, and if you have that attitude with your neighbors (the "I don't really want to be in Cleveland, I'm too good for this place" attitude) your relocation will be unsuccessful.

Good luck to you.

[twange]

I'll second the vote for Chagrin Falls...great schools, charming square... a bit lilly-white for sure. The commute would be reasonable as well. Closer than Hudson but not by much.

[UK Wildcat]

Since this is a moving to Cleveland because of the Cleveland Clinc, I guess it would be a good place for my first post. First of all I know nothing about Cleveland, other than what I have read on the internet. In fact I have never been to Cleveland unil my wife had her interview at the CC this past March and then it was in and out (I did get to check out the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame - very cool) My wife and I are from the Lexington, KY area which we like very much. She will be starting a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology beginning July 1, 2008 (the fellowship is three years). I am also in the health care field, currently director of Physical Therapy at a hospital. We have two boys age 3 and 4 weeks. We want to have a close drive to the CC and also want to be in a neighborhood where our kids can go outside in the yard. I have heard both good and bad comments about Cleveland Heights, which is the area that we are initially looking at. But what other neighborhoods fit the bill? Sometimes I wonder would it be better to live farther away for the right neighborhood? At any rate I have a very positive attitude about it. Any tips would be appreciated.