From California...to Ohio! (Columbus, Westerville: fit in, apartments, crime)

[LifesWhatUmakeOfIt]

Hello all,

My family and I are looking to move from CA in the next year.
After looking at some different states/cities we noticed how great Westerville sounds.
But we've never been there before and we are asking for some help .
We are looking to live in a city where the crime is very low; very good schools; very family oriented;many things to do as a family and as individuals; great housing (4/5 bedrooms for maybe $250K); Good people.

Do you think Westerville is our city? Or should we look at other cities?
Oh! We like newer houses....

Thanks for your help!!!

[Zippy7fo]

Originally Posted by LifesWhatUmakeOfIt

Hello all,

My family and I are looking to move from CA in the next year.
After looking at some different states/cities we noticed how great Westerville sounds.
But we've never been there before and we are asking for some help .
We are looking to live in a city where the crime is very low; very good schools; very family oriented;many things to do as a family and as individuals; great housing (4/5 bedrooms for maybe $250K); Good people.

Do you think Westerville is our city? Or should we look at other cities?
Oh! We like newer houses....

Thanks for your help!!!

anything on the north/west side...columbus as a city meets your requirements..

[bichita13]

Westerville is great. It's a very nice, family-oriented area. There's a university there (Otterbein) but it still has a quaint, old town feel. And as long as you don't plan on public transportation, you will have easy access to the highways and are about halfway in between the city's two best shopping centers (Easton & Polaris). Westerville is more or less a 20-minute drive to downtown Columbus.

You might also want to consider Upper Arlington (more centrally located), or Dublin (northeast Columbus).

And to anyone moving to the Buckeye State, the most important thing you can do to fit in is to learn the correct response to when someone yells, "O-H!" ;-)

[NewToCA]

I think you should give Worthington and Powell a look too.

[chicagoerin]

Gahanna would be great!

[sftong]

Hey Life, I saw quite some people moving from California to Columbus. Just wonder what makes you look at Columbus, if you could share.

I myself would love to go California -- superb weather, heaven-hell food comparison (so much authentic and ethnic foods there), pretty scenery (mountains versus complete flat in columbus), exiciting cities (San Fran, San Diego, LA), much better theme parks, Beaches and Ocean, much greater career opportunities (Cisco, Oracle, VMWare, etc etc etc) ....

I mean, I just could not figure a good reason to be in Columbus.

NewtoCA, are you enjoying youself in Sacramento? Any regrets and advice? Thanks!

[LASam]

Originally Posted by sftong

Hey Life, I saw quite some people moving from California to Columbus. Just wonder what makes you look at Columbus, if you could share.

I myself would love to go California -- superb weather, heaven-hell food comparison (so much authentic and ethnic foods there), pretty scenery (mountains versus complete flat in columbus), exiciting cities (San Fran, San Diego, LA), much better theme parks, Beaches and Ocean, much greater career opportunities (Cisco, Oracle, VMWare, etc etc etc) ....

I mean, I just could not figure a good reason to be in Columbus.

NewtoCA, are you enjoying youself in Sacramento? Any regrets and advice? Thanks!

Being a former buckeye now living in SoCal... I can tell you the reason a lot of people would find Columbus attractive is because of...

A) Housing prices
B) Stable job market and economy
C) Attractive urban (Victorian Village/German Village/Grandview etc...)
D) Attractive suburban (Dublin, Worthington, Westerville etc...)
E) Good public schools in suburbs and private schools in the city
F) Lower cost of living

That all being said... I don't regret moving to California one bit. After living in Ohio for over a decade, I was ready for a change. California certainly provides that. It is a great place to live if you are young and without kids, or are wealthy and have a family. If you have a family and are not wealthy... it can be a tough place to enjoy.

[Paddington]

I think Westervile is one of the older main line suburbs of Columbus. I don't think it's housing stock is as new places like Dublin or New Albany, which is where I would look for a new home.

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by sftong

Hey Life, I saw quite some people moving from California to Columbus. Just wonder what makes you look at Columbus, if you could share.

I myself would love to go California -- superb weather, heaven-hell food comparison (so much authentic and ethnic foods there), pretty scenery (mountains versus complete flat in columbus), exiciting cities (San Fran, San Diego, LA), much better theme parks, Beaches and Ocean, much greater career opportunities (Cisco, Oracle, VMWare, etc etc etc) ....

I mean, I just could not figure a good reason to be in Columbus.

NewtoCA, are you enjoying youself in Sacramento? Any regrets and advice? Thanks!

Yes, I like it out here just fine. No regrets so far, it hasn't been disappointing at all.

I like the variety of things to do out here. In looking at Columbus and Sacramento I would say that Columbus is much more of an organized place, in that the homes and shopping are more consistent within an area. In Sacramento it is much more haphazard, very nice apartments or homes are adjacent to apartments and homes that could stand some updating or maintenance. Also the shopping is much more organized and homogeneous in Columbus, it is much more widespread and scattered in much of Sacramento.

In Sacramento you will find many more home grown businesses, and far less chain stores and restaurants, until you go out into the deeper new suburban areas. Sacramento has a less impressive skyline than Columbus, but when you walk around downtown there are far fewer empty storefronts in Sacramento and the streetscene is far more active on weekdays (excluding the Ohio State campus area in this analysis). While Columbus has German Village, Victorian Village and the Short North as nice places with an urban vibe, Sacramento has the very extensive Midtown area, which is over 200 city blocks absolutely loaded with older homes and apartments, many of which are quite charming, loads of restaurants, stores, coffee shops and galleries and a heavily treed canopy (including huge palm trees, which Columbus doesn't have yet (global warming may fix this though)).

Cost wise I find Sacramento apartments or housing to generally be about 50-80% higher than Columbus, but this seems to generally be offset by plentiful jobs with wages about 20-30% higher than Columbus, and great opportunities for advancement. Utilities are less out here due to the mild winters (ave high in mid 50s to low 60s) and summer days where humidity is low and even when it gets to 100 during the day it drops to about 60 at night (meaning only half the day is hot). For homeowners the property taxes are 1% of house purchase price, about 1/2 of property taxes in Central Ohio and the income tax is comparable due to California not having any city wage taxes.

As far as things to do within a couple of hours, you will be dead before you do everything. There is so much to do and see, and such a great variety you cannot cover it all. From deep ski areas (Olympic training ground is only an hour and a half east of Sacramento) to beaches and boardwalks to surfing to mountain climbing to water skiing to waterfalls to quaint small cities to wine country to...

[sftong]

Thanks NewToCA. Appreciate your detailed post.

I wonder if there is any large private employer, or any public listed company there? I am trying to figure what sort of IT/software jobs are available out there.

How far is the drive from San Francisco?

Thanks
Sean