Best gay friendly place for a working class lesbian couple w/kids?? (renting, crimes)
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We are a lesbian couple with children. We're "working class", though we're both planning on continuing our education to remedy that.. but for now, that should give you an idea of what we can / cannot afford.
We're also a mixed (ethnically) family.. Hispanic and Caucasian.
We currently live in San Antonio, TX. I'm a "native Texan" and my partner is from Iowa but has been here in SA for 17 years. We don't really like it but we bought a house here and figure we will stick around a while before either selling it or maybe renting it out to go explore other possibilities, so any move might not be for another 5 years.
Here's what we do/don't like about where we live:
1. It is SO freakin' hot. I've heard that in South Africa when they have very hot days they refer to it as "Texas Hot" and I totally believe it. I grew up on the Texas coast, near Corpus Christi, where it's hot but breezy, then moved here in 84 where it's just hot. Either way we really both HATE the endless summer. My partner really misses snow, and my kids have never seen it. We'd love 4 seasons. We can handle hot summer if it's truly "summer length" vs. the May to October hell here.
2. Me being a native Texan and having family for generations back from Texas and all over the South (Louisiana, SC, Georgia, Alabama), I do have a fondness for the South but it's a love/hate relationship. We're very liberal and like "city life", or at least a lot of tolerance and quirkiness. I still love things that are traditionally "Southern" though. Friendly people, funky festivals, a slower pace overall. We don't like the pockets of intolerance and discrimination and ignorance...
3. While we live in a city that has a very large population of Gays and Lesbians with kids, we'd like to find a place where people are more "out" and the community is more developed and cohesive. People here (within the GLBT community anyway) seem to be politically apathetic and in general scattered. If you aren't into the bars there's no "community" to be found.
4. We like the excitement and walkability of urban living, or at least a city that is very nearby. Our current house is 2 miles from downtown SA and downtown SA, while not that great, is what we do like best about living here. We also love older homes (ours is a 1915 cottage) and would really like to find a similar home elsewhere at an affordable price.
5. Our kids go to a charter school that is very unique and we would hope that any place we moved to would have similar options, though the eldest will be graduated by then.
6. We love Austin but it's still too hot.
So, any ideas? Of course it needn't be perfect. In the past we've looked at the Atlanta area... no real other ideas though. It doesn't have to be in the South but we'd like it to be friendly and not pretentious.. no area that is heavily focused on materialism. I guess we're more crunchy than all that.
Like I said this move is years away so we're just rolling ideas around in our head for now.. but our first really HOT week prompted me to post.
If you're looking for southern charm, relatively liberal, and less hot than SA, I'd recommend...
-Louisville, KY (vibrant gay scene)
-Asheville, NC (very artsy, eclectic)
-Nashville, TN (socially moderate in city proper, but known for being funky and different)
-Charleston, SC (I don't know...it just seems like it could work)
Really, no place outside of the south is going to have the southern hospitality and at-ease nature you're used to. Different regions just have different social habits.
If you do decide to look further away...well, when you said crunchy, I immediately thought of the Pacific Northwest. Portland could maybe work.
Louisville and St. Louis come to mind, though St. Louis doesn't have as many touches of the South as Louisville. Both are very affordable and apparently pretty liberal.
St. Louis will get hot, though probably not as hot as Texas. And the winters get cold, but are milder than Chicago. The housing stock is older. Finding a home 80-100 years old isn't that hard, especially in the city. How many bedrooms will you need? What's your budget? That would be helpful to know. S
outhern Missouri will have more southern touches, but there's not any major cities in Southern Missouri. Springfield has about 100,000, though. But from my experience in rural Southeastern Missouri, you'll probably get more looks here, though nobody will (most likely) actually say anything to you (because you're a lesbian couple with children). I live in rural Southeast Missouri and, unfortunately, most people I know here would probably look down on you. They have a right to believe what they want, but you might get some looks. When I was in High School I heard the "N" word here fairly regularly, stuff about Muslims being terrorists, homophobic terms (like about leaving all gays on a desert island and they would extint themselves because they can't have children like straight couples do), I've heard Jew used as an insult.
Anyway, St. Louis should be fine, as would be Kansas City. The city is generally pretty tolerant. And just visiting Southeast Missouri I don't think anybody would say anything to you, especially if you don't make your orientation well-known (most people would probably assume you were friends or sisters if they just saw you walking with your kids). But I'd be careful about living down here in rural areas. The landscape is beautiful, and the people in general are friendly, but behind closed doors people (especially high schoolers) will say very hurtful things. I mostly notice it at school, not at my church. But there's judgement there, too, though most of it is probably out of concern.
People around here aren's used to diversity, so they don't generally do as well with tolerating things that they don't agree with. If they don't agree with it, that's their right. But sometimes they have a hard time identifying with people who are more liberal and tolerant.
Try Portland or Bangor Maine- the latter will have the lowest living costs.
Also Western Massachusetts- Westfield, Chicopee, Hadley- most liberal part of the USA- gay marriage legal; living costs surprisingly affordable.
Providence RI and area-moderate 4 season climate; very gay & liberal-
Eastern CT- half way between Hartford (Very liberal) and Providence- moderate 4 season climate, low housing prices for the northeast- Gay civil unions-Connecticut ranks as the third or 4th most liberal state.
New Haven CT- very liberal- with Yale- also Middletown CT-working class yet funky and liberal.
The 6 New England states are uniformly easily the most liberal and tolerant place to live for gay men and lesbians.
Massachusetts has gay marriage, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut have civil unions. All the states have anti discrimination and hate crimes legislation. The religious far right is non existent here.
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Check out the Top 101 list on this website...it gives you a list of the top communities in terms of % of likely lesbian couples living together.
Northampton, MA is #1 in the US, Decatur, GA (my hometown) is #2. I love it here, and it doesn't get any more 'out' than Decatur.
The best fringe benefit is Decatur's great school system...there are plenty of kids that belong to lesbian couples in the system, which I would think is a big plus for you.
Plus, it's a beautiful, progressive community...a college town that is 6 miles from downtown Atlanta...there's a festival here about every month...I just attended the arts festival last weekend and 'the grrlz' were very well represented there.
Well, my aunts would say Bellingham and the North West area of WA. They moved there with my cousins from Tampa about 8 years ago and they love it. Bellingham is more a rural area as far as housing, but Olympia and Seattle and all of those places in that area seem to be wonderful as well.
Check out the Top 101 list on this website...it gives you a list of the top communities in terms of % of likely lesbian couples living together.
Northampton, MA is #1 in the US, Decatur, GA (my hometown) is #2. I love it here, and it doesn't get any more 'out' than Decatur.
The best fringe benefit is Decatur's great school system...there are plenty of kids that belong to lesbian couples in the system, which I would think is a big plus for you.
Plus, it's a beautiful, progressive community...a college town that is 6 miles from downtown Atlanta...there's a festival here about every month...I just attended the arts festival last weekend and 'the grrlz' were very well represented there.
A few years ago the mayor of Decatur announced that gay families are welcome there. And it worked. Decatur is VERY gay-friendly.
Plus, not only does Decatur have a wonderful, walkable downtown area, it's got a couple of MARTA subway stops connecting Decatur to downtown Atlanta, Midtown Atlanta, as well as the posh shopping areas of Buckhead and Perimeter. It's entirely possible to live in Decatur and rarely use a car.
Here are some pics of the area, taken from Google Images:
First up, a pic showing Decatur's downtown area and its proximity to downtown and midtown Atlanta (and the lush forests of Atlanta)
I find we seem the most interested in Decatur, but the question that follows is, could we afford it?
I also keep reading that one should stick only to the 30030 (?) zip code. What I'd like to know is, what exactly is "bad" about the other Decatur (i.e. not the City Of) or surrounding zip codes?
I'm just wondering, because I know that here where we live (San Antonio), there are areas touted as the "best" and there are zips some people insist are the only good ones in town, but in reality there are plenty of safe areas that are much more affordable.
We want to be close as possible to a GLBT friendly area (like Decatur) but from what I've seen on Realtor.com and Craigslist, there is no way we'll ever be able to afford The City Of... Our current house is in a working class neighborhood in SA and we paid about $72,000. It was built in 1915 and is 2 miles from downtown and is about 1100 sf. I figure, if we wait a bit and move (maybe sell), and we are in better jobs by then, then MAYBE we could afford 150-170k? I don't know, I'm not good at things like that but it's my best guess.
I take it coming back to Iowa is out of the question?
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