NY'er needs advice! (Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem: apartment complexes, job market, neighborhoods)

[onegtoro]

My husband and I are planning to move to NC. While I'm really excited about this decision I am very nervous since I've never lived anywhere else but NY. We are looking at Greensboro b/c of the city life and Winston Salem since he has family there. I want to start off with an apartment before buying anything so I can make this transition carefully. A couple of questions - Greensboro vs Wintston-Salem, advantages and disadvantages, how are the job markets in these two cities, I'm an office administrator here in NY and work with a large not for profit, recomendations of nice, decent apartment areas (looking for quiet areas, not too much into the craziness) and any other information anyone can offer. Thanks!

[SunnyKayak]

Triad jobless rate hits five-year high

[d_Random]

Sunny hit it right on the head...the job market is in the crapper in Greensboro and W-S right now. It might take a couple of months to find something.

[memorytheatre]

Did you say that you were moving to Greensboro for the CITY life? That's an interesting thought. I guess compared to Tobaccoville it has city life, but barely. Greensboro has inexpensive housing, nice neighborhoods and decent schools for North Carolina, bit is a bit boring to say the least. My wife who is from up North worked as a writer/editor at a company in Greensboro for a while and she swears that she had evangelicals trying to convert her everyday. Lots of that in G'boro. I'm from North Carolina and am used to that kind of thing and more than that I am comfortable enough to tell people to spare me the bible-thumping. Don't want to hear it. She was a little more intimidated and tried to be nice, if weirded out by it.

[superk]

onegtoro, I hope you enjoy your move to NC. I think you'll enjoy living in the beautiful piedmont-triad area of the state.

As far as the job situation, right now it pretty much sucks, and is only getting worse. I'm sure that it will get better, but right now isn't that good.

For apartments in Greensboro, anything on the highway 68 (Eastchester) corridor, down Wendover Ave. to I-40 is good, as well as Bridford Parkway and Adams Farms, Brassfield and Battleground Ave.

For Winston-Salem, if it were me I'd try to avoid apartment complexes near Wake Forest, you know how students can get rowdy. Country Club, Robinhood, Silas Creek, and Reynolda might be good places to start.

As far as Greensboro vs. Winston-Salem, it's tough to really pick one over the other. That's probably why, when we lived in that area, we stayed in between both and lived in Jamestown. For Arts, I'd pick W-S. For entertainment, I'd pick Greensboro. I think Greensboro has a better selection of restaurants, but I'm sure someone from W-S might argue that point.

[CarolinaMan]

Jamestown, NC is a short drive from High Point and Greensboro. I would say you could be there in less than 15 minutes with heavy traffic. Also, jamestown has lower taxes and utility rates thwese cities. The town website is www.jamestown-nc.gov.

[wsnc62]

As far as job hunting, and the overall health of the Triad economy..the Miken Institute (research group in CA) just rated Winston-Salem 99th in the country and Greensboro 141st as far as economic growth. I live in Charlotte, and tend to favour Winston-Salem over Greensboro because of the slight edge in median household income, wealth of support for the arts, and its redirection into a bio/nano tech driven employment base over manufacturing. Winston-Salem is second only to Charlotte in Fortune 500 companies.