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My wife is high up in her company and in order for her to keep climbing that ladder and make more, she will need to relocate.
The company has offered her positions in Tallahassee, Columbia, SC, and Draper, UT - all the same job title with the same responsibilities. She has the option of not taking it and staying where we are.
We currently live in Birmingham, Michigan. Birmingham is fantastic and I love it here. We currently live in a $400K home - but it doesn't get us a lot of space because the taxes here are incredibly high. Something nice here runs around $600K
Together we are sort of leaning towards Utah because how beautiful it looks in photos, but are considering Tallahassee due to the weather. We are very tired of Michigan winters despite spending our entire lives here.
My wife is also 20 weeks pregnant so we need to think about good schools and daycare.
Any advice on these cities is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I see Draper is a suburb of SLC, so some of this will come down to size. SLC is the biggest metro of this bunch, then Columbia, then Tallahassee. Columbia and Tallahassee will be more similar, being Southern state capitals and college towns. Both will certainly be warmer than Draper.
Aside from weather, good schools, and daycare, what other considerations are in the mix? Do you have a geographical preference?
Well - we definitely like big cities. NYC, Vancouver, and Chicago are some of our favorites and we are 15 miles from downtown Detroit as it is.
I've also had a desire to live in Florida after visiting a few times as a kid and vacationing there as recently as 2014. I also am a Florida Gator football fan.
Draper seems to be the leader right now. I'm an Art Director in the IT field, so I'm worried about employment for myself if I'm a smaller community. I will most likely be paid less than I am now.
My wife is high up in her company and in order for her to keep climbing that ladder and make more, she will need to relocate.
The company has offered her positions in Tallahassee, Columbia, SC, and Draper, UT - all the same job title with the same responsibilities. She has the option of not taking it and staying where we are.
We currently live in Birmingham, Michigan. Birmingham is fantastic and I love it here. We currently live in a $400K home - but it doesn't get us a lot of space because the taxes here are incredibly high. Something nice here runs around $600K
Together we are sort of leaning towards Utah because how beautiful it looks in photos, but are considering Tallahassee due to the weather. We are very tired of Michigan winters despite spending our entire lives here.
My wife is also 20 weeks pregnant so we need to think about good schools and daycare.
Any advice on these cities is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I would strongly urge checking out Columbia. It's an overlooked gem that's beginning to become "discovered" and has some of the friendliest people I've ever run across, and a cool city with a lot going on as state capital and home to the University of South Carolina. South Carolina has a reputation for extreme conservatism but that is changing rapidly toward moderate and Columbia in particular has been pretty much maybe just to the left of center and comfortable enough politically/socially for most. The cost of living is probably the lowest of your three options and the weather a happy medium of moderate four season versus long winters or long summers. Suburbs like Blythewood and Lexington are beautiful, in close proximity minus big traffic headaches and have excellent public schools.
I would strongly urge checking out Columbia. It's an overlooked gem that's beginning to become "discovered" and has some of the friendliest people I've ever run across, and a cool city with a lot going on as state capital and home to the University of South Carolina. South Carolina has a reputation for extreme conservatism but that is changing rapidly toward moderate and Columbia in particular has been pretty much maybe just to the left of center and comfortable enough politically/socially for most. The cost of living is probably the lowest of your three options and the weather a happy medium of moderate four season versus long winters or long summers. Suburbs like Blythewood and Lexington are beautiful, in close proximity minus big traffic headaches and have excellent public schools.
how do you know if he has a problem with 'extreme conservatism'? iHe did not mention politics in general and he is unhappy with high taxes in Michigan, it seems possible he is a conservative.
I would also recommend Columbia if Utah is ruled out. Utah is pretty remote and advantage of Cola is it near a lot of other cities that are fun to visit lke Charleston and Savannah, and it near both the beach and mountains.
What may be an advantage of Draper is that it is a fast growing community and it is in the biggest metro out of the 3 mentioned. So, that may be something to consider.
how do you know if he has a problem with 'extreme conservatism'? iHe did not mention politics in general and he is unhappy with high taxes in Michigan, it seems possible he is a conservative.
I would also recommend Columbia if Utah is ruled out. Utah is pretty remote and advantage of Cola is it near a lot of other cities that are fun to visit lke Charleston and Savannah, and it near both the beach and mountains.
I don't know, but I mentioned in case he did. South Carolina has that reputation in general but it's changing, and pointed that out in case it was a deterrent. People often don't ask due to how some can often jump all over a post when it comes to pointing out political aspects of varying cities.
I don't see any evidence of that. Historically SC was a liberal Democrat state, FDR got like 96 percent of the vote and we had Democrat senators. The was a two term Democrat governor 10 years ago. SC did not start voting Republican for president until late 60's with Nixon. It took longer for GOP to gain control of the state congress.
Haley won easily a couple of years ago against a fairly moderate Democrat at least in his rhetoric.
Our state income tax is the highest in the southeast at 7 percent which was set a long time ago. 'Extreme conservativism' would have bumped that rate down.
A lot of times 'extreme conservatism' is just regular conservatism.
Together we are sort of leaning towards Utah because how beautiful it looks in photos, but are considering Tallahassee due to the weather. We are very tired of Michigan winters despite spending our entire lives here.
Utah has some tough winters too and you will have to deal with inversions. Sometimes the inversions make the air toxic and authorities warn against children being outside breathing in the fumes. There are threads in the Utah/SLC forums regarding this issue.
Draper is also a bland cookie cutter sprawling suburb, but obviously people don't mind because it is growing.
I don't see any evidence of that. Historically SC was a liberal Democrat state, FDR got like 96 percent of the vote and we had Democrat senators. The was a two term Democrat governor 10 years ago. SC did not start voting Republican for president until late 60's with Nixon. It took longer for GOP to gain control of the state congress.
Haley won easily a couple of years ago against a fairly moderate Democrat at least in his rhetoric.
Our state income tax is the highest in the southeast at 7 percent which was set a long time ago. 'Extreme conservativism' would have bumped that rate down.
A lot of times 'extreme conservatism' is just regular conservatism.
A state that until recently flew the Confederate flag over it's capitol building by most would be considered extremely conservative, without further scratching the surface to discover perhaps not..
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