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Im looking for a suburb of wilmington that is similar to cary nc. I plan on starting a family and i want a lot of the people to be familes. I am willing to pay around 250k but do not want a home on the beach. I am looking for a nice medium-large city with lots to do. Thanks!
Im looking for a suburb of wilmington that is similar to cary nc. I plan on starting a family and i want a lot of the people to be familes. I am willing to pay around 250k but do not want a home on the beach. I am looking for a nice medium-large city with lots to do. Thanks!
There is nothing like Cary in the suburbs. Wilmington is about 100,000 people and it is the largest city on the coast. Cary is the same size, but it is part of a much larger metropolitan area with many more social and cultural activities.
Wilmington is fine for raising a family but just don't expect it to be Cary. There are more retired people and more college students.
I was also going to mention Hampstead as a possibility, as the schools are good. However, it is about 8,000 people compared to Cary's 100,000 people. So, you should expect the number of things to do to be significantly smaller.
Alexa, per your question in the city vs city forum, with your specific needs I think that either Charleston SC or an inland city may suit you slightly better than Wilmington.
Honestly, I do like Wilmington, and if I had to live in Coastal NC still, it would be my first pick, provided I could secure a decent job there. As others have said though, Wilmington is comparatively small- it does have suburbs, but not on the scale of somewhere like Cary. Also, I stand by what I said in my original response in the city vs city forum regarding the job market in Wilmington and COL in comparison to the Midwest.
I have seen Alexa's other post, and have to agree with Glamatomic. The job market in Wilmington is very competitive as many young college graduates want to live there. I'd suggest concentrating on finding a job first (any job!), and the secondarily, look for the right suburb. After all, it would be at least 6 years before any child would be needing a school.
BTW, Charleston probably has more to do and a has better job market than Wilmington. However, I think the public schools in North Carolina are better.
This post strikes me as being kind of funny....my question is "Why do you want to be in a suburb?".
In other words, why not just move to Wilmington, which has a ton of families, good schools, & plenty of things to do. As someone mentioned Cary is about the same population as Wilmington. See why that's funny...Wilmington is what you are actually looking for..I think you are being jaded by the "suburb" angle.
For 250K you can buy a house in the Holly Tree/Pine Valley area of Wilmington and be 15 minutes from 2 different beaches, downtown, and all the shopping/entertainment Wilmington has to offer. Once you get off of College Rd, Wilmington has relatively quiet affordable neighborhoods, filled with families. It is actually amazing how quiet it is considering all of the bustling traffic on the 4 lane roads.
Since you mentioned Cary...I assume you are looking for a walkable community with parks, etc...I'll refer you to the cross city trail website, which is a 10 mile trail that is about 75% completed that goes through Wilmington. It links Halyburton Park, Empie Park, UNCW and Wrightsville Beach.
Let me also say that the reason Cary became Cary was that Raleigh wasn't serving the needs of those looking to relocate as well as Cary was located near RTP. Wilmington is working hard to clean itself up and is really making amazing progress. The best thing about Wilmington is the geographical logistics...its only so big...7 miles from the river to the ocean and the county is really a peninsula, which is why the suburbs of Hampstead and Leland are in other counties entirely. In 10 more years you will see more drastic change in Wilmington...more hotels & marina's downtown, more refurbished shopping centers, more renovated older homes and more trails connecting to the cross city trail, which will be completely finished in the next year or so. The City has a $40 million capital improvement plan it is implementing to repave city streets and has made significant progress in addressing its drainage issues. Public Housing in Wilmington has always been a sore subject, but if it keeps moving at the pace it is, the public housing in Wilmington may go from the worst (& oldest) in the state to some of the nicest in the state.
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