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Gainesville is the only outlier and I personally wouldn’t want to live there (much better places to live in Central/Northern Florida). The other 3 cities are pretty close to each other. I would choose Columbia because that puts you in the middle of Augusta and Myrtle Beach and Charlotte is a quick drive up I-77 if you need a big city fix and want to catch a ball game. South Carolina really is a great place to raise a family. Have you also considered Greenville? Greenville is really an awesome place to raise a family.
Out of the three Columbia SC. It’s the largest metropolitan are of the three and may offer more it’s really close to Augusta, Charlotte, and Charleston. Columbia has some good suburban schools in Irmo, Lexington, and Blythewood. (I’m a Columbia native and have visited Myrtle a beach dozens of times, but couldn’t live there, Augusta is a smaller Columbia, but I’d rank second, and I don’t know much about Gainsville.
Another vote for Columbia SC which weirdly gets little love over Greenville or Charleston. It's a sophisticated city of around 140K with a well-educated populace (home of the U of South Carolina and the state capital) that supports a lot of cultural opportunities and interesting independent businesses in a few different commercial districts. The Congaree River and trail offers a lot of recreational options as well as neighboring Lake Murray. It's also an easy 90-minute drive to Charlotte for further diversions like pro sports and its major airport hub. It's also two hours or less to either the mountains or beaches.
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