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My husband and I are relocating to North Carolina from Michigan in June 2013, we are looking for a change and a fresh start, as Michigan holds a lot of heartache for us. We have a young family, and we are looking for a family friendly, safe, and affordable place to live. We are looking into the Raleigh, Charlotte, and Fayetteville areas. I have a degree in Medical Administration and my husband is a machinist, wondering what the outlook is for those two careers in these areas. We are looking for the good and the bad about these cities and would appreciate your honesty. How are the school systems in these locations? If you live in one of these cities, what do you like/dislike about it, where are the good neighborhoods? If you think a different location would fit us, please feel free to give us your input as we are open to options.
The best place, however, is the place where you can find a job. Search Indeed.com in each area and your job titles; monitor it by getting job alerts. It might give you a better idea of where there are more opportunities. Good luck.
P.S. I searched Indeed.com, and not much comes up in Fayetteville, and there are more machinist jobs in Charlotte than Raleigh and more medical administrative jobs in Raleigh than Charlotte.
I would highly recommend Greensboro. It's a beautiful city in the piedmont area of the state and completely overlooked for some reason by many moving to NC. Greensboro is the third largest city in NC, behind Charlotte and Raleigh. It's very family-friendly, largely safe and a quite affordable place to live. Either of your jobs would transfer just as well there as they would to any of your other choices in the state. The west side of Greensboro (Starmount Forest, Guilford and Friendly neighborhoods) and northwest side (north of the airport) offer the best neighborhoods as well as very good schools. I like the fact that it offers in my opinion a similar feel to the Raleigh area without the congestion/traffic that has taken over there in the past 10-20 years. Greensboro has a large minority population (40% black) nearly all of which is segregated to the east and southeast side, which unfortunately is a turn off to many but not a factor for those who choose to live to the west and northwest sections of the city. Hope you consider it and drop into visit as I think you'll like what you see.
I would avoid Fayetteville. We lived 10 miles down the road and we almost always drove to Raleigh or Clayton for shopping and dinning out. Fuquay Varina might be a place to consider. You can be on the Johnston County side and kids attend Harnett County Schools. Wake County / Raleigh is nice, but the schools are confusing.
Charlotte is also nice, but the city and its burbs are big city. If that is what you like, then Charlotte is a possibility.
RULE NUMBER 1--Find employment and move there. If you move there may not be employment.
We definitely will not move unless we have jobs!!! Kyle19125, thanks for your input on Greensboro!! Funny you posted that, as my husband came home from work today saying that the OMAX technician who comes into his shop was headed that way to install a water jet. We will definitely take a look that way when we visit the area next week!! We can't wait to see what North Carolina has to offer. We hear it's beautiful and we are excited to witness the beauty for ourselves.
Stay away from Fayettenam (aka Fayetteville). Charlotte and Raleigh are both great. There are several affordable towns outside of Raleigh including Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Apex, Wake Forest, and Clayton.
Like other posters have mentioned, move to where your fortunate enough to find work.
Last edited by escapenc; 07-31-2012 at 12:13 PM..
Reason: grammer
As others have said fayeteville is all military. Sounds like from your professions and background Raleigh/Durham area would be a fit job wise.. Resareach triangle would be a good start for the hubby and plenty of medical related jobs in that area with private and university hospitals etc in the area. Greensboro along the lines of Raleigh but not quite as much avaiablity there profession wise as RDU area. Charlotte banking centered and while fun to visit not my first choice,
People can find a nice life in Fayetteville. It is a military town with the good and bad that go with that. There are plenty of nice places to live and fun things to do here. I moved back to raise my kids here after I retired from the USAF. If you can find a job here; don't let the naysayers scare you.
My husband and I are relocating to North Carolina from Michigan in June 2013, we are looking for a change and a fresh start, as Michigan holds a lot of heartache for us. We have a young family, and we are looking for a family friendly, safe, and affordable place to live. We are looking into the Raleigh, Charlotte, and Fayetteville areas. I have a degree in Medical Administration and my husband is a machinist, wondering what the outlook is for those two careers in these areas. We are looking for the good and the bad about these cities and would appreciate your honesty. How are the school systems in these locations? If you live in one of these cities, what do you like/dislike about it, where are the good neighborhoods? If you think a different location would fit us, please feel free to give us your input as we are open to options.
I recommend you check out smaller cities other than the 2 largest in the state (Raleigh and Charlotte). Cost of living in those cities will be higher than you are used to in Michigan. In addition, unemployment in Charlotte in particular is much higher than the national average so competition for jobs is very stiff.
Look at places like Statesville, Winston Salem or Greensboro
Charlotte's unemployment is sitting steadily around 9%, and cost of living is most likely going to be higher than what you're leaving in MI while community services / schools are lacking greatly. NC schools, overall, rank at almost the worst in the nation for the state. You will find good schools here and there, but there are a significant number that are not good.
I'm originally a Lansing area native and we left MI in 2007, came to NC in 2009. While I'm not headed back to MI, we're ready to leave Charlotte since we've had our own little one arrive. It is the type of city you either like or don't like - I highly recommend spending a significant amount of time visiting your prospective city before moving.
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