MOVING TO SC~ Greenville or Columbia???? (Charleston, Spartanburg: insurance, travel, jobs)

[jordansmom]

Hello,
This is all new to me and seems a great place to get honest opinions from all sides.
We have been transferred from the St. Louis, MO area to SC. My husband has been given a choice of either the Greenville area or the Columbia area. The two towns seem VERY different!
My husband is concerned about the heat in Columbia compared to Greenville. I'm concerned with the "only new" housing market in Greenville.
No matter which area we move to I will always look at the top schools for that final decision (even though our child is in college).
Lead me through this maze! Pro's and Con's are great. We are currently in an established neighborhood about 30 miles from downtown St. Louis. One of the top school districts in the U.S. We have just under 1/2acre yard. We will be looking in the $300-350,000. price range. whatever area we move to.
Thanks for any and all input!!!
JordansMom

[Tommy1981]

I lived in Greenville for a little over a year (May 06 to July 07). I went to school and lived nearby for 6 years before that. I moved in Columbia in July last year when I got married because my wife had a good job here.

I just laid out a few difference in this post:
possible move to columbia

I think its hotter in Columbia, but statistically its not a significant difference. You will see more winter weather in Greenville. Greenville is close enough to the mountains that it usually gets a little bit of snow or icy mix a time or two each year. These same winter systems usually turn to rain when they get down to Columbia.

As I mentioned in the other post, Greenville's downtown is better in my opinion. I also like all of the festivals and events in Greenville. Greenville has Artisphere, Fall for Greenville, and Freedom Weekend Aloft, among others:
Main Street Events - Create. Produce.

Columbia has a few similar festivals, but I think the ones in Greenville are a bit more refined. Columbia has St. Pats in 5 Points which is a St. Pat's day festival with a fairly big draw to the college students in town (lots of Green Beer). I'm sure Columbia has other events that I haven't discovered yet, but they're not as big in the city here as the ones are in Greenville.

Columbia is closer to Myrtle Beach and Charleston and I've enjoyed spending a weekend at these places. You could make the trip from Greenville but its about 2 hours further away, so its not quite as easy to the time to get away, and with gas at $3.50 it can make a decent financal difference too.

Greenville is closer to the Mountains, similarly to Columbia with the Beach, Greenville makes it that much easier to get up to one of the NC ski resorts.

The two cities really are more alike than you think. You may want to spend a weekend in both places to really get a feel for each town.

[waccamatt]

I find the cities to be very different. Columbia is a college town with 7 colleges and universities and a very substantial white collar work force with state and federal government, education, banking, insurance and health care being major employers. Greenville would have a higher percentage of blue collar jobs and is more on the conservative end of the political and social spectrum while Columbia is more on the moderate/liberal part of the spectrum.

Average salaries are slightly higher in Columbia and average home prices slightly lower, but the differences are not tremendous. As far as entertainment is concerned, Columbia would be on more concert tours/ice shows, etc. due to the larger arena. Greenville's arts center has a bit of an edge over Columbia's so they probably get more traveling broadway shows than we do.

I find Columbia's population to be more diverse than Greenville's, also.

[Frankie117]

Greenville and Columbia alike are quite diverse. Really, the towns aren't much different from each other, I suppose it all depends on what kind of things you like to do. Both Greenville and Columbia's suburbs have excellent schools, some of the best in the state. As far as the manufacturing sector goes, Greenville is a large automotive-centered area, while in contrast Columbia is big on construction materials.

With your price range, you could probably get much more for your money in Greenville, but its really all about personal preference. I'd rather live in Columbia, but not for the arts scene, but for the easy access to most of the area lakes and hunting grounds.

Politically, Greenville has fairly Conservative suburban atmosphere, but most of its downtown residents are quite Liberal, a similar situation exists in Columbia.

[Nausikaa]

My husband and I have had the choice as to whether we live in Greenville or Columbia, as he works in both areas, so we have pondered the same question.

Greenville and Columbia are both very hot in the summer. Columbia is about 2 degrees hotter on most days in summer. My husband is regularly in both cities, and he says he can't tell the difference - hot is hot. The difference in temperature is most noticeable in the winter, when Greenville can be 8 to 10 degrees colder. Greenville has quite a few ice storms, which can disrupt the power lines, and driving ability.

When thinking about Greenville, Columbia and Charleston, I see it like this. Charleston has the beaches and the historic district. It is not close to a lake, and is quite a long drive from the mountains.

Columbia has a huge lake on the doorstep, which provides boating, skiing, jet skiing, swimming, fishing and walking/biking across the dam. It is a university town. It is only 100 miles from Charleston, and just over 100 miles from the foothills of the mountains.

Greenville is near the foothills of the mountains. It is quite a drive to a lake. It is 210 miles from the beaches, which is quite a long drive.

I live in Columbia, we have a boat, and we live very close to the lake. We enjoy the lake more than the mountains or the beaches, because it is readily accessible. When I have visitors they always want to go to either Charleston, Hilton Head or Savannah - which is very doable from Columbia. They rarely ask to go to the mountains.

I like to go to the mountains once a year, to look at the leaves, or just to visit. It's not something I would do every weekend.

If I lived in Greenville, I would not go downtown and walk around every weekend, and I would not drive to the mountains every weekend. As far as living in Columbia, we can easily have days out in Charleston or Charlotte. We can easily drive up to the mountains. We can enjoy the lake 10 months out of the year.

So the answer lies in what do you like to do? Greenville and Columbia are very similar in size, schools are good, shopping is good, and housing is affordable. If you like hiking and artsy festivals, then Greenville is for you. If you like the lake, the university, and the proximity to the beaches and historic district of Charleston, then Columbia is for you.

[jordansmom]

Thanks for the feedback.
I have been very disappointed with the housing I see in Greenville. My husband calls that type of housing "kachinka" meaning stamped out duplicates, very close together.
Our, or should I say his, major concern has been the temp. factor in the summer. 2 degrees isn't a huge factor and since he travels 80% of the time he may be more concerned with the snow/ice factor in the winter and the mobility from that. I am not into all these new housing subdivisions and it seems in our price range you are forced into that in Greenville. Columbia appears to be more traditional in the looks of housing.
I also agree it is more centrally located and has access to more areas in less time. My husband will be travelling to Atlanta frequently and he was looking at Greenville as being an hour closer. . .
Thanks,
Jordansmom

[Skyliner]

Most of the comments I read in this thread are all personal opinions and heavily biased. That is usually the way these "city vs. city" questions are answered. I very highly recommend that you visit both cities in person before even beginning to formulate a preference. Both places have pros and cons, many of which extend far beyond the geographical layout. Before I share my comparison, I would love to offer a few links to important information about the vibrant and diverse city of Greenville, South Carolina.

Lots of random Downtown photos - Courtesy of several City-Data.com members.

Greenville Convention and Visitors Bureau - Informative and easy to follow. Be sure to obtain a copy of the handy and durable pocket visitors guide.

The City of Greenville - Official website of the city government.

Greenville's Visionary Planning - This is one reason we are so excited to be living here!

Best City for Walking in South Carolina

Upstate Alliance

These are just a sampling of many helpful links available, though you will also find many helpful discussions in the Greenville-Spartanburg sub-forum.

[waccamatt]

Likewise, here is a link to some photos of Columbia:

Waccamatt's page |

[Nausikaa]

Originally Posted by Skyliner

Most of the comments I read in this thread are all personal opinions and heavily biased.

I thought the OP was asking for personal opinions?

[Tommy1981]

There are plenty of subdivisons in Columbia that have that "kachinka" feel. Its not unique to Greenville. But we found several older house in Columiba that had the things we were missing from the newer subdivisions. I'd imagine there would be a similar thing in Greenville. It took several trips with our Realtor to get her to understand we really didn't like the newer developments. They are very popular and being a newly wed couple I think our Realtor had a hard time believing we didn't like those kind of houses.

What I did find with the slightly older (10-15 yr old) houses is there is much less supply. Most of the houses are fairly unique, or at least unique on that block. We had a couple of houses that we were interested in go under contract before we could get an offer in. So you may want to get your ducks in a row and act quickly if you find an older home that you like because you probably don't have many similar alternatives like you'd have with the new constructions.

The Ice storms in Greenville are definitely more frequent than Columbia, but they're not especially significant at stopping travel. Maybe one storm a year will stop folks from getting to work (usually just in the morning, by Noon its probably good to go), and maybe two will cancel school (they're very conservative at calling school because it only takes one bus on a back road to make not cancelling school a big problem). Generally when it Ices, the ice sticks really good to trees and plants, but not so much to roads with the exception of the bridges/overpasses. The city gets out and sands the bridges down pretty good, so usually that's not too bad. I wouldn't let the small threat of icy weather in Greenville scare you away.

A couple of years ago, there was an ice storm that was particularly bad at bringing down trees, which knocked out power for about 1/3 of the city. Duke Power (the only electric company in Greenville) got out and had most of the city back up inside of 24 hours, but there were a few larger sub divisions that didn't get power for 4-5 days, and they (and the local media) made a big stink about it. Granted, power out for 4-5 days is a really bad thing, but it was a very small percentage of the city, and Duke had crews working around the clock. I think this incident has gotten more exposure for Greenville and Ice storms. Again it was a very small portion of the city, and it doesn't happen like that very often (I'm not sure I know of any other incident like that, at least not in the past 20 years).