[ariesmoon]

I've visited Omaha years ago, cheaper apartments/groceries made me very interested in moving there. I'd like to move from NYC soon but will know for sure within a month. I've been mainly thinking of VA because I have family and a friend there, but the low unemployment rate has made me put this state back in the running. I have enough savings to be able to move and job hunt while in either state but of course, my money will last longer (over a year) while in Nebraska.

Job wise, I'm open to anything like retail, but would prefer a city/government job and then finish schooling to finish my degree a year later.

What I would like to know is where is most of the activity whether it be job wise, schools, fun things to do? I would prefer to move near where the jobs usually are as well as the major highway that would take me to this said job. It's also important I'm near a school, and would like a park to take my son, dogs. Thanks in advance.

[Bjbrown2]

[SIZE=3][/SIZE]Omaha is very diverse when it comes to area. Economically the further westyou go the more expensive the housing is. This is not necessarily better areasto live, but they are in more demand and thus drive up the prices, plus thereis much more new construction out West than anywhere else in the city. As faras jobs go I think it is a pretty good place for employment. I have switchedjobs maybe 6 times since I was 16 (23 now) because I would work full time and apart time job while paying my way through school, so the part time jobs changeda lot due to higher paying opportunities becoming available. But whenever I waslooking for a new job I would send out 5-8 applications online from a site likecareer link and always had a job within 2-3 weeks after that. Currently theonly education I have is an associate’s degree (BS will be done in November)and I have two jobs. One is full time (40-50 hours a week) paying 14$ an hourand one is part time (24 hours a week) paying $15.60 an hour. So the availabilityto make decent money without a degree is definitely possible. (I have both ofthese over a year and got them right before my associates were completed). Ithink a lot of it comes down to how much you try to get a job. Obviously I am apretty persistent person (working 64-74 hours a week and full time student) soperhaps that helps me land jobs easily in Omaha? Just look at career link, it’sa website with lots of listing for Omaha. As far as areas to live, most areasare close enough to the highway to be anywhere in town within 20 minutes orless. (Maybe more in rush hour).
[SIZE=3][/SIZE]

[ariesmoon]

Thanks so much for the response. Now I have to see about the schools.

[Bjbrown2]

You could use zillow to see the school rating of certain areas. They work with a website that uses its ratings based off of national test scores. As far as OPS (Omaha public schools) goes, nearly every single middle school (grades 7-8) gets a 2 or 3 rating out of ten and every single high school gets a 1 out of 10 except 2 get a 2 out of ten. Terrible ratings. I went to a 1 high school and even in all honors classes it was like the teachers didnt care at all, they would just assign busy work and never very engaging. The best school districts by test scores are the Millard district (West/ South West omaha) and the Elkhorn district. Elkhorn very good but that is very far west and i think technically it is it's own town but im not sure there was an Annex a couple years ago but I dont know what all parts of Elkhorn that became apart of Omaha.

[ariesmoon]

Yea those are terrible. My son would need a school for autistic children so the score would probably not work, but it is still a good reference. My son is three.

[UNMC]

District 66/Westside is a good school district. It's separate from OPS even though it's boundaries are basically smack dab in the middle of Omaha.