Roanoke vs Richmond (apartment, rent, high crime)

[Spongedaddy]

I know there have been some threads like this in the past, but I wanted to get a current temperature.

We currently live in Tampa with our 8 and 10 yr old. My wife wants to be a bit closer to her family in the N.E. and the Tampa area seems to be taking a beating worse than many similar areas. We don't want to go back to the NE and have no interest in MD. VA seems to be the best fit since the Raleigh area has a lot of overgrowth, school redistricting and a few other issues.

It's come down to Roanoke vs Richmond. From what I gather Richmond is a larger city with more suburbs, perhaps more job opportunities, a few high crime areas and some good schools. Roanoke seems to be a small city with a good outdoor country area, good schools outside of the main city, fewer job opportunities (yet lower apartment rent it seems) and the county is less suburban.

Is that a fair assessment and is there anything I have missed?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

[Mr_Jonas]

A fair assessment I would say.

Roanoke is a bit more "rebel flag waiving, Nascar watching" type of mentality depending what part of Roanoke you are in.

[ScranBarre]

I just posted a thread on this very recently with a poll, and there is a LOT of great information about both cities there. I'm becoming disillusioned with the poser and soccer mom-oriented lifestyle in NoVA, so I'm researching both cities myself. Scroll down and check it out.

[mikeas]

I'd personally rather live in Roanoke than Richmond. Very reasonable place to live. There are not a lot of high paying jobs and very limited corporate presence but its a town where you can actually make a living doing what you like. You can find a $400 apartment in a nice part of town which is very unusual.