St George (St. George, Washington: mortgage, new home, job market)

[mawilson]

hello everyone.
This is actually from a Utah resident that doesnt know a whole lot about Washington County. So hopefully someone here will be able to help me out. My wife and I are looking really hard to get out of the cold weather. we have been considering Arizona, Nevada California, pretty much all of the warmer spots in the country. We need to stay close to utah because all of our family lives here, and besides that we know that Utah is hard to beat for raising children. Of course Nevada arizona etc are great for weather but it seems like raising our 2 year old daughter there would be a little rougher and not as family friendly. So after all of that I can get to my question. What does everyone know about St George? being from Utah but being a non mormon, we have heard that St. george is extremly religious, even more so that Salt Lake. is this true? what is it like down there? How is the job market?

[zena564]

I think that St. George would be a good choice. I live in Las Vegas right now, and I would not want to raise a family here... just my opinion. St. George has similar weather to Vegas and is way more beautiful. You have so many recreational options there. And it definitely seems like a nice place to live. I have only visited, so I can't speak about the LDS issue. However, I have heard about people who live there who are non-mormon and they do fine.

[Aerorick]

I live in Newcastle 40 miles north but we go there often for shopping for things you can't find anywhere else nearby. It's got just about everything. And thirty minutes in any direction will get you in the boonies. Albeit beautiful boonies. It seems there's either the old St. George and the new St. George. It's grown massively with new home tracts speading out in all directions. However it does seem ripe for getting hit with the mortgage mess. When you combine adjustable rate increases with low wages something is going to give. It also appears there wasn't a lot of zoning or planning. So much is combined in a relatively small area that the roads are overwhelmed sometimes.
But other than that it's probably as good a place to raise a family as a anywhere else. I'm of the belief that how one raises children comes from the inside, not from the area. A childs world is only what they can see and hear in their home. They don't have any idea what city they're in. As far as the LDS issue? It's becoming less of an impact to non-LDS folks everyday.

[inventme]

Job market in a health care related field is great. Construction related field is pretty tough right now. LDS issue not a big deal unless you make it one.

[Couder]

I live in the St George area and we still get cold weather and it is colder than Las Vegas and even Mesquite which is only 30 miles away. The summers are extremely hot and is similar to Las Vegas there. The St George area is a very expensive area to live due to the cost of living here. There is a large influx of Las Vegans and Californians here now which has had a big influence in the culture in the past couple of years.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

I see the temps on the TV news daily. It's rare to be under 100 or so in the summer. If you can stand that, and the influx of relatively wealthy Californians fleeing high home prices, then it's for you.

[Nomianca]

St. George is a great place to live, although expensive. We are ONLY moving because of the cost issue.

There are a lot of St. George topics in the Utah forum (not the Salt Lake area sub-forum but the other one) that has a lot of good information in it.

And like Inventme said, religion is only an issue if you make it one.