Downtown Charlottesville (Richmond, Washington, Short Pump: transplants, crime, home)

[hollygolightly]

Hi, I have a few questions about Charlottesville and would appreciate any input for a young couple looking to relocate from southern NJ.

-What are the safer residential neighborhoods downtown?
-Is there much nightlife? Restaurants, shopping, etc...
-How is job availability?
-Cell phone reception-which service? anyone know how is T-mobile there?
-Are there problems with crime, gangs, drugs, etc.?
-Any NJ transplants who could comment on the difference in cost of living?

Thanks everyone!

[norm6269]

Ill try to help you as much as possible, I first have never lived in C'Ville, but I have been there many times, and loved it. It is a music town for sure, lots of artists there, very small. UVA, University of Virginia is basically the town, you'll see lots of college students and post grads. I would say there are not if any gangs, it is very country like outside of C'Ville, very beautiful. I don't really know about cell phone service, i beleive verizon would be the best bet, and i would recommend checking remax or longandfoster, etc for home prices. hope this helps.

[art2t]

Originally Posted by hollygolightly

Hi, I have a few questions about Charlottesville and would appreciate any input for a young couple looking to relocate from southern NJ.

-What are the safer residential neighborhoods downtown?
-Is there much nightlife? Restaurants, shopping, etc...
-How is job availability?
-Cell phone reception-which service? anyone know how is T-mobile there?
-Are there problems with crime, gangs, drugs, etc.?
-Any NJ transplants who could comment on the difference in cost of living?

Thanks everyone!

I'm going on year 6 in C'ville - I hope I can offer some answers to your questions.

-Residential neighborhoods downtown that are mostly safe (I mean, it is downtown, so there is a degree to which you want to be cautious, but the city as a whole is fairly safe): Belmont, Woolen Mills, anywhere off of Park Street or Locust Avenue, most areas immediately surrounding the downtown mall.

-Nightlife - restaurants - etc. C'ville has a ton of great restaurants. Some recommendations: Fleurie, Continental Divide, L'Etoile, Zocalo, Mas, Amigos, Blue Light Grill, Christian's, South Street. There are way too many to list here, but that should give you a place to start. The downtown mall is a center of nightlife - bars, a couple of which have dancing, in the summer there's "Fridays after Five", which is a concert with beer/wine/mixed drink service that's free entry - but you buy your own beverages. The Pavilion has a lot of good concerts coming in - as does Starr Hill Music Hall and the Paramount Theater - also downtown. Shopping is improving in the area - we recently got a Target, and there's a Walmart, a reasonably large standard shopping mall, and then a more upscale one at Barracks Road - there are stores there like Ann Taylor Loft, Banana Republic, Talbots, Barnes and Noble, Panera Bread, etc.

-Jobs in education are competitive - I know this only because I'm a university student and my husband is a teacher - he had to teach in an outside county (about 45 minutes away from town) during our first year here because there were no jobs in C'ville City or Albemarle County. He now works for the City, though. The main employer is, naturally, the University. There are always lots of job listings there, but I'm not sure how competitive it really is.

-Cell providers that I've used are Alltel and Cingular - both are fine. Cingular doesn't do as well as Alltel outside of C'ville in surrounding counties, but it'll do for the most part. Not sure about T-Mobile.

-Crime, drugs, etc. I mean, every city has this sort of thing - but it's certainly less visible in C'ville than in other cities in the U.S. There are certain areas that you want to steer clear of, but certainly you're not in as much immediate danger as you would be in NY, DC, or other more metropolitan areas. In the University area there are occasionally incidents - there's been a serial rapist on the loose for as long as I can remember, some peeping tom things, a couple of shootings - mostly alcohol/robbery related - but these sorts of things only happen once or twice a year - not daily or even monthly - barely annually. You always know about it because the news makes a really big deal - they rarely have a lot of interesting news because so little actually happens crime wise here!

I'm from VA, so can't offer comments as a fellow NJ dweller. But my dissertation advisor is from Elizabeth, NJ, and has lived here since the seventies, apparently loves it.

[roanoker 4]

Charlottesville has a very nice downtown mall. Lots of upscale restaurants that serve outdoors, plus a very nice italian gelato ice cream parlor. The countryside around C'ville is similar to the movie "GIANT" with Elizabeth Taylor with lots of horses and farms and lots of money. I think several Hollywood stars have residences there. Also remember its only about a 2 hour drive to Washington DC(if you can brave the DC traffic)!! There is a Amtrak train that goes there from C'ville. Its about an hour to Richmond's west end with a fabulous mall called Short Pump. I would say you have the best of all worlds living in C'ville. The only complaint I have ever heard about C'ville within Virginia is that the local "blue bloods" tend to be a little "snooty" toward "outsiders". In other words, don't move there if you like "The Beverly
Hillbillies".

[VaNative]

Originally Posted by roanoker 4

Charlottesville has a very nice downtown mall. Lots of upscale restaurants that serve outdoors, plus a very nice italian gelato ice cream parlor. The countryside around C'ville is similar to the movie "GIANT" with Elizabeth Taylor with lots of horses and farms and lots of money. I think several Hollywood stars have residences there. Also remember its only about a 2 hour drive to Washington DC(if you can brave the DC traffic)!! There is a Amtrak train that goes there from C'ville. Its about an hour to Richmond's west end with a fabulous mall called Short Pump. I would say you have the best of all worlds living in C'ville. The only complaint I have ever heard about C'ville within Virginia is that the local "blue bloods" tend to be a little "snooty" toward "outsiders". In other words, don't move there if you like "The Beverly Hillbillies".

That's because part of "Giant" WAS filmed at Lynnton Farm near C'ville. Sissy Spacek has had a place there for years.

Originally Posted by hollygolightly

Hi, I have a few questions about Charlottesville and would appreciate any input for a young couple looking to relocate from southern NJ.

-What are the safer residential neighborhoods downtown?
-Is there much nightlife? Restaurants, shopping, etc...
-How is job availability?
-Cell phone reception-which service? anyone know how is T-mobile there?
-Are there problems with crime, gangs, drugs, etc.?
-Any NJ transplants who could comment on the difference in cost of living?

Thanks everyone!

I remember when the downtown mall wasn't a mall but streets and I saw a movie at the Paramount before it closed back in the early 1970's. As you can tell, I lived there a long time. In fact, all my life until 2004 when I moved to Orlando and other than family and friends, I don't miss it a bit. I saw a lot of changes in the area and for the most part they were good changes. About the only real problems with the Charlottesville area are the high cost of living (but if you're coming from the North then everything should be cheaper for you) and a lack of a "night life"...at least when I lived there. I can tell you teaching jobs are extremely tough to get unless you graduated from PVCC or UVa as the school systems generally favor "local" graduates over out of towners. My brother went to WVU and graduated with an honors degree, passed all the exams needed and completed his student teaching in Morgantown yet he couldn't get a teaching job in Charlottesville and he grew up there!

I loved "The Hook" in the fall with the football games and the leaves are beautiful but it's a still small town so keep that mind. The traffic is horrendous especially after a football game and I have to deal with the Orlando traffic everyday and that's no picnic I can tell you.

Consider your move wisely...it's definately a different culture there with all the money that's in Albemarle County. Depending on where you live now, you might become bored there but it is a nice place to raise a family.