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Looking for some help. My husband and I are looking to relocate from North of Boston to the Charlotte / Raleigh area. We are trying to figure out if making the move for work is a good idea. Anyone that could help answer or offer thoughts on the following topics would be greatly appreciated.
Weather - How hot does it really get and how is the humidity?
Education - What are the best school districts for children?
Commuting - Which direction getting into either Charlotte / Raleigh offers the best commute?
Job Market - How is the job market in IT jobs?
Safety / Crime
We are researching to find a safe, well-educated area to buy a house and start raising a family.
Any thoughts on either Charlotte / Raleigh would mean a lot to us.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Update:
Hi All,
Thanks so much for the quick responses.
I am aware that Charlotte / Raleigh are not the same area. I should have been more specific in stating that we have the choice between either Charlotte or Raleigh for our move and are seeking advise. Sorry for any confusion.
Looking for some help. My husband and I are looking to relocate from North of Boston to the Charlotte / Raleigh area. We are trying to figure out if making the move for work is a good idea. Anyone that could help answer or offer thoughts on the following topics would be greatly appreciated.
Weather - How hot does it really get and how is the humidity?
Education - What are the best school districts for children?
Commuting - Which direction getting into either Charlotte / Raleigh offers the best commute?
Job Market - How is the job market in IT jobs?
Safety / Crime
We are researching to find a safe, well-educated area to buy a house and start raising a family.
Any thoughts on either Charlotte / Raleigh would mean a lot to us.
Thanks for your help in advance.
You can find what you're looking for in either place. And you can find the opposite of what you're looking for in either place. Weather, crime, traffic, cost of housing, etc. is very similar in both. The Raleigh area probably has more good schools than Charlotte, but the best schools in Charlotte are as good as the best in Raleigh.
In both areas, you need to live close to your job, which can be expensive. Where are your potential job locations and what is you housing budget?
Location: Sodo Sopa at The Villas above Kenny' s House.
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Originally Posted by drrckmtthws
Just chiming in, it might take 4 hours to get to the mountains but not Charlotte, Concord is only 30 minutes from Charlotte(University area) and it only takes me 2 hours, would be faster but passing through Siler City you have to slow down for lights and speed limit changes if you take the 64 route. Even going through 40, still make the trip in 2 hours 30 minutes(to Charlotte....if there isn't a bunch of road work on 85).
My bad, I haven't drove it since I lived in Greensboro. Was thinking it was hour+ to Gtown then 2+ more to Charlotte. It's still physically far enough away where it's presence isn't felt on a day to day basis like say Cary or Wake Forest is to Raleigh.
As far as the weather, take your hottest, most humid week in Mass and spread that out from May - September and it's that hot usually. It's about 95 here today and that's not exceptionally hot. Exceptionally hot is when it gets up around 100, which it usually does for a brief spell every summer. Might just be one day, might be a a whole week. 90s are average temps around here and 80s are "nice days". Weather in Raleigh and Charlotte is nearly identical.
Go where you find the job. Generally there are more tech jobs in the Triangle, but you only need one and there are tech jobs in Charlotte, too.
As others said, the Triangle is the more educated area. That's not to say that there aren't educated people in Charlotte, too. There are plenty, but the top tier North Carolina universities are all in the Triangle — Duke, UNC and NC State. The Charlotte region has a regional university, UNC-Charlotte, and an excellent elite liberal arts college, Davidson (but it's very small) and some other smaller regional schools.
You should know that NC has entered the Chase Teachers Out of The State derby, joining states like Kansas and Arizona in the attempt to make teaching unappealing as a career and untenable as a way for grown-ups to support a family.
In NC the Republican legislature and governor have a two pronged approach planned. The first prond is to strip teachers of job protections and bargaining rights, so that you can fire them at any time for any reason and pay them as little as you like.
The second prong strips funding from schools, so that teachers have to accomplish more and more on a budget of $1.95 (and if they can’t get it done, see prong number one).
Update:
I am aware that Charlotte / Raleigh are not the same area. I should have been more specific in stating that we have the choice between either Charlotte or Raleigh for our move and are seeking advise. Sorry for any confusion.
There are sub-for a for each of these metro areas; probably better to ask specifics about them in their "own" forums as many locals don't always read the "whole state" forum. Some of the info you ask could be learned by Googling (climate, etc). School districts are county-wide, so the whole city of Charlotte and the whole city of Raleigh each is in one district (plus other surrounding cites, in the case of Raleigh).
There is also a "read this first" thread pinned to the top of the forum with general info (ditto on the Triangle (Raleigh) forum, I don't know about Charlotte).
Weather - They are both the same. The Piedmont Region of NC is an area that truly experiences 4 seasons. Very hot summers, cool and calm Fall, cold Winters, and a rainy yet beautiful Spring. You'll get the same in both.
Education - This is a very...I don't know...complicated? question. The most basic and short thing I can tell you is that regardless of whether you move to Charlotte or to Raleigh-Durham, depending on your income you can find an area suitable to raising a family, and that includes finding good public schools. Once you figure out where to move, that's when you'll want to get more specific with this. To be honest, for every good Raleigh public school I can name a Charlotte one, and for every good Charlotte public school I can name a Raleigh one. If you think this answer is too simple, let me put it this way: "Metrolina" (Charlotte) essentially has 14 school districts, and "The Triangle" has about 6 or 7. It's complicated.
Commuting - Both cities have a tough time. Raleigh is experiencing some unbearable construction on I-40, it makes for a painful commute. Charlotte has absolutely no idea what to do with the northernmost part of I-77. 77, and to a lesser extent now 85 and 485 are congested roads at the typical times. Spending a lot of time in both cities, what I will say is that Charlotte is a substantially larger city and with that comes larger challenges with traffic. But, I do prefer Charlotte's outer belt to Raleigh's, while I prefer Raleigh's inner belt to Charlotte's. But, that's completely up for interpretation. What isn't up for interpretation is that both cities can, and do, have some pretty terrible traffic. Charlotte is farther ahead in the public transportation "game" for whatever that's worth to you, but it still isn't anything to write home about.
Job Market - You know, a lot of people will have you believe that the IT jobs in Raleigh are so much better because of the "idea" of the RTP, but I really think that it depends on where you want to work and how qualified you are. Charlotte's banks employ thousands in finance-related IT, and its other Fortune companies base their entire tech operations in the city. But, it's corporate based IT, while Raleigh's is largely what I would consider to be a "direct consumer" tech industry in that their companies are tech-based, and their products revolve around the technology that they develop. Charlotte's IT jobs are basically supplemental to its companies' actual missions, if that makes sense. Like literally anything else when talking about these two cities, the job markets are DIFFERENT. The only thing the same about Charlotte and Raleigh is that they share the same state.
Someone referenced my post that I made in another thread, I'll reiterate it here. Charlotte is a corporate city - it's bigger, and it has something like 14 Fortune 1000's based in it, whereas Raleigh-Durham has like 5 (I say "like" because I don't have my other post open, where I had the exact numbers). It's bigger, but it does not at all necessarily mean better. Both cities are fantastic places, and anyone saying contrary to that is just not being truthful. They have different missions. Visit both of them, and see what you like.
Safety / Crime - Both cities are largely safe cities, and quite honestly I would not classify one as any better than the other. Both cities are low crime and clean.
You'll have to narrow it down between the two. Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham aren't in the same area, in fact they're almost 3 hours apart. Most people in Raleigh don't think of Charlotte too often or visit frequently, and I'm sure it's vice versa. For the most part, the two metros aren't terribly different. However, Charlotte is known for banking while Raleigh/Durham is known for Research Triangle Park/tech jobs. Raleigh/Durham also has UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, and Duke. Charlotte is the biggest city in the state, but both metros are roughly the same size. Charlotte is a little more southern IMO, thanks to the NASCAR scene along with being a Bible Belt buckle (hometown of Billy Graham). Raleigh/Durham has a reputation of being a little more transplant saturated, along with being more liberal.
In your case, I'd recommend looking into the Raleigh/Durham area, possibly Cary or North Raleigh. The traffic will only get worse as people continue to move here, so there really isn't a "secret commute" that'll be the most convenient. It's incredibly hot/humid here, that'll be a huge shock coming down from Massachusetts. We're almost Deep South humid, not even joking. Charlotte is closer to the mountains but the heat/humidity is probably just as brutal over there. If this concerns you, I'd recommend looking into Northern Virginia, which is kinda like Raleigh/Durham in some ways but isn't as hot/humid. Outer NOVA suburbs like Fairfax or Manassas could possibly fit your bill. For school districts and safety, look into Cary, North Raleigh, Chapel Hill, or southern Durham Co. Good luck!
The part about the heat and humidity is so true. We lived in NC for several years, before moving to Florida. It feels cooler to us during the summer in Florida, than it did in NC......seriously. We live in a gulf coast town, so the breeze helps a lot.
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