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+1 on this. Asheville is full of liberals and hippies though(not to mention drunk homeless), I wouldn't recommend living there. Now Waynesville on the other hand is an excellent city full of good folk.
It's looking like some where around Charlotte is going to be the best bet job wise given both of our backgrounds.
Job-wise, your best bets are probably the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill or Charlotte areas, followed by the Piedmont (Winston-Salem/Greensboro), with anything else falling far behind. I'd also rate them in that order for convenience to the beaches, open riding land, restaurants, culture, sports and other amenities. And weather-wise, about the same, and favorable compared to the Upper Midwest. The summers are hot and humid, but not appreciably worse at their worst than in Chicagoland. While there's still the occasional freeze or even snowstorm, the winters are so much milder that what you'd call "spring" and "fall" last considerably longer.
But I'd also say that prudence would dictate that the first step be one of you finding work in one of those areas before you make any decisions. And that you don't just look at the "cost of living" indices based on some arbitrary "basket" of goods and service that may not reflect where you actually spend your money, but research at least the costs of your biggest expenses. So not just housing, but also insurance, gas, utilities, taxes, groceries, etc. etc. since variations do NOT necessarily follow a pattern the average person would immediately see as logical. Higher consumer costs may be the result of less competition or more regulation, not necessarily higher direct costs of the inputs.
NC is a broken state. It is in a decline and will not improve for another 20+ years. You may see NC government data to suggest otherwise but most of it has been manipulated. I consider NC a dead end state, and you will likely make less income living here.
I have 4 degrees myself, including a few years of production management experience, and I'm currently jobless. I find myself eating less than 3 meals a day pretty often. The taxation here is also some of the highest in the nation. Upward mobility in a place like Charlotte is worse than most 3rd world countries.
I'm not saying you can't live well here, but I'm not saying you will either.
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