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I'd love some feedback on my situation ...I'm a stay at home mom with a toddler & a preschooler. My husband's job will be relocating us this summer but we aren't sure where. We have to submit our preference for a city and I really have no idea how to get some accurate data to come up with our preference list. Here is what is a priority for us right now...how would you rank these cities and why?
Houston
Dallas
Atlanta
Washington, DC
Boston
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Phoenix
Newark NJ
Our priorities:
School systems
Cost of living (so I can continue to say home with the kids since we won't have family in any of these areas)
Faith "climate" (we're Christians)
Traffic
Weather (we're not really into extreme hot or cold )
Location: from houstoner to bostoner to new yorker to new jerseyite ;)
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Well, you should take your husband's salary into consideration and compare the cost of living in those cities, for starters. Google "cost of living" and quite a few sites will come up.
I'd love some feedback on my situation ...I'm a stay at home mom with a toddler & a preschooler. My husband's job will be relocating us this summer but we aren't sure where. We have to submit our preference for a city and I really have no idea how to get some accurate data to come up with our preference list. Here is what is a priority for us right now...how would you rank these cities and why?
Houston
Dallas
Atlanta
Washington, DC
Boston
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Phoenix
Newark NJ
Our priorities:
School systems
Cost of living (so I can continue to say home with the kids since we won't have family in any of these areas)
Faith "climate" (we're Christians)
Traffic
Weather (we're not really into extreme hot or cold )
Thanks in advance!
Houston - Based on your wants, this would rank very high. Negatives would be traffic and summer weather.
Dallas - Similar to Houston, but much more inland (no beach nearby if that matters) and to me, is less laid back than Houston.
Atlanta - Again, similar to Houston. Not sure about the schools though, might have better luck in Houston or Dallas. Might be more expensive than the Texas cities, and has been hit harder by the recession.
Washington, DC - Expensive (how can you make it on one income there?), and have not heard great things about the schools.
Boston - See DC... except the schools are probably better.
Philadelphia - Might be expensive, not sure.
Baltimore - See Philly.
Phoenix - You're going to get the extreme heat here. I'd go with one of the other places.
Newark NJ - Isn't this expensive as well?
I agree with houstoner. Salary needs to be taken into consideration, especially if considering DC, Boston, Philly, or Newark. Those are high cost areas, and could be cost prohibitive if the salary isn't there.
I love Boston, DC, and the NYC area. But the cost is out of hand, traffic is a nightmare to say the least, the faith climate isn't the best, and the climate is extreme.
Thanks already for feedback! Funny, I had in mind Houston, Dallas, Altanta, and DC ranked as my preferences in that order and after some online research, came across this list of 10 worst cities to raise a family and Dallas and Houston was on there...
You see, we have to rank our preferences but there is no guarantee we will get one of our top choices. So far I'm really just working off of my impressions and some data from the web but so much of what I'm reading is sheer personal preference so I have to consider the source.
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...I'm a stay at home mom with a toddler & a preschooler. My husband's job will be relocating us this summer but we aren't sure where. We have to submit our preference for a city and I really have no idea how to get some accurate data to come up with our preference list. Here is what is a priority for us right now...how would you rank these cities and why?
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