Moving from Atlanta to the South (transplants, 2015, lease)
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I'm a 35 year old white male, proud southerner (accent and all), recently divorced with sole custody of my son who is currently finishing up 8th grade and will be starting HS, and have lived 32 of my 35 years in North Atlanta/Buckhead area (was born and spent the first 2 years of my life in Southwest VA and lived for a year in South Florida when I was 18).
I like Atlanta truly but I think it would be nice to live in a city that has a bit southern culture and also I would like to give me and my son a fresh shot.
I work in Financial Planning and Wealth Management, mostly with elderly and aging folks planning retirement and I can move my work anywhere. I want to be in a large it mid sized urban city with amenities and things to do but yet still a place where the southern culture, values and social norms haven't been diluted so much. For instance on Friday I counted in my head and heard 3 southern accents but at least 75-100 Northern type accents from places like NJ, NYC, and Boston.
Is there any city that maintains Southern culture and values while still being a big or medium sized city with the amenities that comes with that?
What about Nashville? Memphis? Knoxville? Huntsville? Charleston? Richmond?
I have been to Birmingham and didn't like it, some of the suburbs were very nice but the city was very ghetto for the most part. Same for Jackson, MS.
I'm only interested in living in the CSA Southern States, to the exclusion of Florida and Texas and Georgia since that's where we live. So that would be Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia.
Please tell me which city you think is perfect for us and why.
Well, if you didn't like Birmingham, you probably won't like Memphis either, so scratch that. Charleston, and to a lesser extent Huntsville, are getting tons of Northern/Midwestern transplants so scratch those too. Richmond is in that Southern/mid-Atlantic transition zone and since you sound like something of a Southern purist, I don't think you'd like it there. Nashville isn't as characteristically Southern as Memphis; still solidly Southern, but definitely one of the "it" cities in the South right now receiving a lot of transplants from outside the region, so you may not like that. Knoxville, I think, would probably work well for you, as well as Chattanooga. And although you're excluding Florida, north Florida is definitely more characteristically Southern than the rest of the state and you may want to consider Jacksonville; it gives you Southern with a little bit of a Florida flair, with nice weather and beaches nearby to boot.
If you're looking for a less-diluted mid-sized to large Southern city in terms of Southern culture your choices are fairly limited in this day/age but there are some out there. I would recommend Mobile/Gulf Shores AL, Savannah GA/Hilton Head Island SC or Augusta GA/Aiken SC which all have fairly healthy economies, a significant wealthy retirement population (in terms of work prospects) and bigger city amenities yet are still well-influenced overall by Southern culture.
I'm a 35 year old white male, proud southerner (accent and all), recently divorced with sole custody of my son who is currently finishing up 8th grade and will be starting HS, and have lived 32 of my 35 years in North Atlanta/Buckhead area (was born and spent the first 2 years of my life in Southwest VA and lived for a year in South Florida when I was 18).
I like Atlanta truly but I think it would be nice to live in a city that has a bit southern culture and also I would like to give me and my son a fresh shot.
I work in Financial Planning and Wealth Management, mostly with elderly and aging folks planning retirement and I can move my work anywhere. I want to be in a large it mid sized urban city with amenities and things to do but yet still a place where the southern culture, values and social norms haven't been diluted so much. For instance on Friday I counted in my head and heard 3 southern accents but at least 75-100 Northern type accents from places like NJ, NYC, and Boston.
Is there any city that maintains Southern culture and values while still being a big or medium sized city with the amenities that comes with that?
What about Nashville? Memphis? Knoxville? Huntsville? Charleston? Richmond?
I have been to Birmingham and didn't like it, some of the suburbs were very nice but the city was very ghetto for the most part. Same for Jackson, MS.
I'm only interested in living in the CSA Southern States, to the exclusion of Florida and Texas and Georgia since that's where we live. So that would be Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia.
Please tell me which city you think is perfect for us and why.
While Nashville does have a lot of northern transplants and California transplants, it remains a very Southern city. It's also got a lot of jobs in your field. Swiss banker and financial advisor giant UBS has about 1,000 employees in its downtown Nashville tower and has said it plans to add another 500 there within a year. It's also expanding into suburban Franklin and adding nearly 300 new employees there including a whole new army of wealth management consultants.
I'm not looking for somewhere with a similar culture to some small Piedmont town. A little mix is fine but Atlanta and the big North Carolina cities are starting to become like Northern Virginia in the sense that besides a few streets named after war heroes like General Lee or such, culturally you might as well be in Bergen County, NJ. A southern accent from someone is as rare as an accent from North Wales. The social climate is very much liberal and secular, and although that has always been a niche in areas like Midtown and even though I am not even religious and I am not even of the dominant religion I do like the influence. I figured that Nashville would keep its influence because of the country music scene. Additionally I am open to the suburbs. As for Memphis, I know that there is a lot of problems but I have been to Germantown and East Memphis and it seemed beautiful and had most of the amenities I needed so if I ignored the rest of th city I could like it there. My issue with B'ham is that I didn't feel safe anywhere.
About Huntsville, I have heard that it is still very "Alabama" and conservative, where did you get your info from? Is it from experience or second hand?
About Huntsville, I have heard that it is still very "Alabama" and conservative
Very untrue. It has a significant number of transplants due to NASA/aerospace industry and is among the most well-educated cities in the South which has it trending more liberal. In fact it's the "bluest" city in Alabama apparently.
While Nashville does have a lot of northern transplants and California transplants, it remains a very Southern city. It's also got a lot of jobs in your field. Swiss banker and financial advisor giant UBS has about 1,000 employees in its downtown Nashville tower and has said it plans to add another 500 there within a year. It's also expanding into suburban Franklin and adding nearly 300 new employees there including a whole new army of wealth management consultants.
Stay far away from North Carolina and Virginia. Areas like Northern Virginia and the Research Triangle won't work for you. The Greensboro/Winston-Salem area just might, however. Same with Richmond, although it definitely has transplants and it's in the transition zone between the South and Mid-Atlantic. You can tell you're almost out of the South in Richmond, plenty of similarities with DC.
The southern metros that aren't necessarily attracting loads of transplants won't work for you, either. Most aren't very nice, like Memphis or Montgomery. There's a reason they're not attracting loads of transplants, let's put it that way. If you think Birmingham is "too ghetto" than areas like Memphis won't work. If you want a nice southern metro, chances are that metro will have some transplants. I'm thinking South Carolina for you, maybe the Greenville area or Columbia. Tennessee could also work. Nashville is very "New South" on par with areas like Charlotte but I feel like Nashville has managed to retain more of its southern identity. From what I've heard, Nashville has attracted more Midwestern transplants as opposed to areas of North Carolina and Florida that have been attracting loads from New York/New Jersey. In this case, Nashville isn't quite as "northern influenced."
I don't think well educated means liberal automatically, your bias is showing my friend.
Uhhh, except it's not really a bias. Of the Top 25 to 30 Most Educated Cities, all but two are "Blue"... 2014
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