Monett/Pierce City Mo Area (Springfield, Ozark: rent, find a job, buy)

[bayousfarewell]

Hi. Trying to relocate from louisiana to missouri. I may have a job is Pierce City which is about 5 miles Monett (in Barry co) 39 miles from cassville and an hour from springfield. Has anyone been there? I have 2 young children, one with special needs. It is frustrating trying to find a job from so far away with so many things to consider. Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks.

[Arrby]

I've never lived there, but have friends in Monett and have worked in the area many times over the last 30 years. Briefly, it is very rural, although Monett has some pretensions to being an industrial city with more manufacturing than any community its size than I can think of. Pierce City barely qualifies as a town; it is very small.

The area is, of course, in the Ozarks, and is therefore hilly, but not rugged hills. There are lots of outdoor activities available with Roaring River State park down by Cassville and Bull Shoals lake maybe another 30 miles south. Jolly Mill is probably my all time favorite picnic park and is just a few miles south of Pierce City.

Monett to Springfield is actually more like 45 minutes city limits to city limits. Quite a few people commute from there into Springfield daily.

Big City services are going to be scarce to unavailable, even by Springfield "big city" standards. Same for shopping. I think (I hope) you would find the local people to be welcoming, if somewhat standoffish at first. Most organized activities are going to revolve around either the schools or the churches as the area simply has not enough people to have many civic organizations, although some do exist.

At the present time the local housing market is somewhat depressed and I suspect you might be surprised at what you can buy or rent for a given budget.

Perhaps if you could put your questions into a more concrete, specific form we could provide more help.

[bayousfarewell]

Thanks for the input. I like rural and hilly. Where I live is rural and flat. I am used to not being around big city perks and we like the outdoors. My son needs good PT and OT services. We drive about 45 minutes now for that and were hoping to minimize the weekly distance, as it gets to be a bit much to juggle. I see that the index for cost of living in the area is below 100. I think 78 so it is about the same as where we currently live. The biggest issue would be a cut in pay for me....about 13,000 to be exact. I just don't know if we can swing it. I am trying to decide weather we could move in hopes that my husband could also get a job. We both work as educators. He would probably be taking a cut in pay also. We are looking for a small community to raise our boys in. I prefer Cassville actually. We have been there before and though it is a little farther from sprinfield, it is beautifully, they have a good parks and rec dept. and the YMCA has suitable programs for my boys. I like a slower paced kind of living anyway. We are hoping a job will turn up for him in the next week. If not, I will have to turn this one down and may not have another opportunity to move this year.