[txman210]

First and foremost, I appreciate all input and will add to those that may have questions I didn't include that would impact your recommendations.

Next, I always thought Vegas would be a good fit for me and my family due to the climate, environment, amenities, and taxes. A little about us. Late 30s, 1 young child, SAHM, and I work remotely for the government. This is in my contract and backed by the federal unions, so it would be very hard to overrule this. As my screen name suggests, I've spent much time in Texas. However, since 2018, I've lived out west, first in San Diego, and now in Eastern Washington. I'm very happy in Eastern WA, but Mrs. txman210 is not, due to a few factors. First, she has a strong dislike of snow/ice, and we get a decent amount of that. Two, it's quite far from our families in Texas. Thirdly, it doesn't have the amenities she prefers such as stores, boutiques, and restaurants. I, on the other hand, have grown to strongly dislike traffic. This applies to going out on Saturdays too, which has now impacted Texas. I have little patience for crowds and have seen numerous studies where traffic is plain bad for your physical and mental health. I find the air (outside of smoke season) where I am now quite refreshing. Also, I appreciate the natural beauty that is present in the Western part of the county. I also despise the crowds and humidity out east. In addition, I've developed a medical condition that makes it hard for me to breathe when the air is not clean and/or there are many allergens. As such, in my mind at least, this rules out most places east of the Front Range. (if you find options that disagree with this, I'm all ears though...)

Mrs. txman210 prefers San Diego, and I enjoy it too, but feel the cost would preclude us from having a home and a sane commute to schools, stores, and for Mrs. txman 210's commute, if she returns to work. The downside is that our closest friends are there.

As a compromise to our desires, it seems Vegas would give the missus her desire for a more cosmopolitan lifestyle, near our friends in California, with my desire of less traffic, taxes, and cleaner air. After pretty extensive research online, though, I'm concerned about the quality of education for our child. As such, I've expanded the search out of Vegas to include Prescott, AZ, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM, Tucson, AZ, and possibly Clark County, WA. Each place has its pluses and minuses, of course, but Vegas would seem to be our best bet if the schools would provide the best environment for our child. If not, we would be willing to sacrifice our desires for our child's best interest.

Thank You all in advance.

[movin1]

Vegas is very dry and dusty. Air quality is generally good though. Can you handle four months of very high heat (June-September)? At least it's not humid like Texas. Traffic has gotten worse in Vegas, too many newcomers. It's a desert, it's not green like WA or even AZ.

San Diego is great but very expensive. Vegas has lots of shopping, entertainment, and restaurants. Everything is expensive here now.

Schools are not well rated here, I'm retired and don't have kids so I can't comment on them firsthand.

Prescott, AZ is interesting but small. The drive down to Phoenix is scenic but scary (winding roads in the mountains).

It's a five hour drive to San Diego from Vegas. How often will you want to make that drive? At your age, having friends close is important, IMO. I'm not sure how easy it is for people your age to make new friends in Vegas.

I didn't care for the home style in Albuquerque (lots of Adobe style homes). Santa Fe is an hour away and an entirely different scene.

You need to decide if you want to be in a more metropolitan area (Vegas, Scottsdale, San Diego, etc) or a smaller city away from the main city.

If cost is not a factor, San Diego is a winner - it has great weather, shopping, beaches, close to LA, etc. Scottsdale, AZ is very nice. It's even hotter than Vegas in the summer but warmer in the winter. I'm pretty sure the schools are better, but you need to research schools any place you want to live if that is a priority.

[Mike from back east]

There was a time I was looking at the Temecula / Murietta area of CA, close enough to San Diego and L.A. to be viable.

[WorldKlas]

I have residences in Dallas metro and Henderson. Traffic and climate much better here in the Las Vegas Valley. shopping is good here, (better in DFW but fine here too). I hear negatives about the schools, however schools in Green Valley and Anthem seem to be better regarded than other places. Traffic is getting more crowded, however nothing at all like we have in TX.

I was in San Diego a couple of days ago. Flew out at 8am and returned on a 9pm flight. An hour flying time and $48 round trip (by passing the choosing of seats fee!) on Spirit Airlines. We moved to Henderson instead of San Diego because of better real estate prices and much, much lower taxes. But San Diego was our first choice.

We have long hot summers, but we can drive to Mt Charleston, Flagstaff, many places in CA like Big Bear, etc for cool breaks.

[NW Crow]

Does the smallest "cosmopolitan" Mrs. would be happy with have 2+ mil population or 500k or what?

If you hate traffic, would you consider living downtown and walking or using public transit?

Are you looking for "good enough schools (top 20-35%) or "great" schools (top 10% in state or even higher)?

Do you have a housing price max to mention?

What do you think of Lubbock? Sacramento or a suburb? Reno? Beaumont CA?

[txman210]

Thanks for all the replies. I forgot to mention the Vegas airport as a huge advantage over the others, but we don't fly more than about 4x/year now. As far as schools, I'd prefer top schools, but may consider top 25%. Mrs. Taxman would never consider Lubbock or Reno. Sacramento has pretty bad air quality from my investigations. Mrs. Txman would prefer amenities found in Texas, SoCal, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, or Vegas. I'd like to convince her Santa Fe or Tucson have enough, but that may be difficult.

Agree San Diego is an obvious choice, except taxes, cost of housing, and traffic make it almost impossible. When I was younger, I lived in Phoenix Metro. We've both been to Vegas many times, and I've never noticed a dust issue (medically). I've noticed an issue with severe allergies in Texas and wildfire smoke in WA.

[cre8lite]

there's always mesquite....

[txman210]

To clarify, I don't think the traffic would be too bad in Vegas, but maybe, I'm wrong. My understanding is it's mostly around the strip and rush hour.

[Willy702]

I have been spending some time in DFW on work projects lately. To me the whole area has a lot of Vegas-like feel to it. There's just a lot more people and a lot more of it, but that suburban sprawl is oh so similar. Been mostly staying up in Plano and it looks and feels like Summerlin to me outside of the big office parks and HQs. The locals I work with are like Vegas locals and how they avoid the Strip, takes either a concert or sporting event to get them to go into Dallas. Plus the seasons are not that different really, just a lot more rain in DFW and the lakes and water around to show for it.

So if you don't mind casinos and gaming being all around I bet you will feel familiar with it. Of course a lot more people in DFW so much more traffic and all, but DFW does a pretty good job IMO on the infrastructure. Just no way to avoid traffic when 6 million people are trying to get around each other.

[movin1]

Traffic anywhere is relative to what you have experienced and are used to dealing with. I used to live in or near Chicago and sat in traffic far too long too many times. It's nowhere near that bad here, you just learn how to work around it. Some areas to live in are better than others. Vegas is pretty small compared to many places that don't have nearly as many upsides.