Charlotte or Raleigh?

[devoneri]

We just moved to Charlotte and had originally decided on Triangle area, also outside of Wake county. I've been very pleased so far with everything in Charlotte. Tons of beautiful trees in lots of areas and the traffic isn't even all that bad! There are a lot of good schools from what I can tell right in the city and the Student Placement office staff has been very helpful to us so far. Even the magnet programs still had vacancies when we went a couple weeks ago. Housing seems about the same but overall, we've found better stuff & zoned for better schools here in Charlotte.

[findingmesomeday]

My husband's been to Charlotte a few times on business and said he wasn't impressed with it. He's never been to Raleigh, but for some reason he has it in his head that we would fit in better there. If I come up with a job first, it will probably be Raleigh but if he does (he's in finance) it would be Charlotte. If our overall goal is to find a slower pace of life where we can better save some money vs MA, then I'm open to either place. It would actually be easier if he got the job first because I might be able to stay put here for a bit and get our oldest through high school. He's going into his junior year but I doubt my husband would be able to find a job in less than 4-5 months even with a full court press. So then I would stick it out to let him finish 11th grade. At that point, we'd all go to NC for the summer, I'd get the younger two started in school and come back up with the oldest for the first half of his senior year. Once his college apps are in, we have friends with whom he could live and finish out school. So Dec/Jan of 2009, I would be down there full time too.

At least it sounds like a good plan on paper!