Quote:
Originally Posted by chonsey01
i am still looking for employment. im a hair stylist and am good at what i do. i dont think it will be hard to find employment. so where ever i live i will look for a job hopefully close to there. before anyone asks why would you move before you find a job, the answer is because we have saved for this move and are able to live for a while without jobs. i just dont know what area to stay away from. i am not trying to relocate and move to an area like the one i grew up in!!! i want more for my children. so any suggestions? i know cary is a so called good area but i kind of want to be in raleigh but in a area that is a community where the kids can play and enjoy life!!!
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chonsey01, welcome (soon) to Raleigh!
I'm not from Cleveland, but we had family there when I was growing up, so I've spent a fair amount of time in the Cleveland area. And I now live in Raleigh. As far as looking for where to live in the Raleigh area, I think you'll find things here a lot more loose and relaxed than in Cleveland. For one thing, you'll quickly notice that Raleigh is far less segregated, racially, socioeconomically, and otherwise than Cleveland is. As you know, typically in the Cleveland area, there are fairly rigid patterns whereby the white folks live over here, the black folks live over there, and the rich people are over there, and the poor people are over there, etc. Raleigh is a lot smaller, and also a lot more mixed-up, so very few places around Raleigh are all-white or all-black, and even the rich people and the poor people don't live all that far away from one other. And unlike Cleveland, there are few if any places in Raleigh "to stay away from" altogether. Raleigh has some somewhat rough areas, which some locals refer to as "bad neighborhoods," but they're very small, and the worst areas in Raleigh aren't even in the same category as the tough neighborhoods in Cleveland. There are several places in Cleveland where I and most people simply wouldn't want to live or raise children if you have a choice, but that's not really the case in Raleigh, or at least much less so. There are very few places in Raleigh where I would hesitate to live, personally. So, I don't think you need to worry too much about picking the wrong place. Most of the sketchiest places around Raleigh are some of the low-rent, run-down apartment complexes around town, so it might be wise to avoid them, at least sight-unseen. But something like what you're talking about doing, renting a house in a decent subdivision like Weslyn, makes sense and should turn out well. Obviously, like you said, you won't want to rent a place strictly based on what you find on the internet, so you should definitely check it out carefully and ask lots of questions when you're here in February. But it sounds like you're on the right track.
Incidentally, I don't know a lot about Weslyn, but I actually did some work at a house there a number of years ago (I'm a landscape contractor). It's a very, very small little subdivision, but it seemed fine—nice but ordinary. The people I worked for there were older folks, but very nice. If you're getting a good price on a rental there, it could be an excellent value, but of course do your due diligence before you sign anything. Weslyn is in the northeastern part of Raleigh, which is kind of an interesting part of town. Northeastern Raleigh tends to be particularly diverse, both racially/ethnically and socioeconomically, and it's mostly not fancy, but nice, decent neighborhoods. I really like the northeastern part of Raleigh, personally, and I live not too far from there myself. It's certainly a terrifically covenient location. A neighborhood like Weslyn is quite easily accessible to downtown Raleigh, as well as Triangle Town Center (one of the biggest shopping malls in the area), lots of other retail and commercial development, and also to the I-440 Beltline, the I-540 outer loop, US 1/Capital Boulevard and US 64/New Bern Avenue, which are all major arterial thoroughfares in the region. Since you're not set yet on where you'd be working, that seems like a pretty good place to be. And the nice thing about renting at first is that if you end up not liking it for whatever reason, you can pack up and move somewhere else relatively easily as soon as your lease is up.
Have fun and good luck!
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