Where should we live in North Carolina (Charlotte, Raleigh: middle-class, crime)
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My family is hoping to move to North Carolina. My husband and I both went to college there but moved to VA for work. We are hoping to move back to North Carolina because we love it. We have 5 kids with 2 more on the way. We are devout christians and attend the methodist church now but we can also attend a non-demoninatinoal church. We have kids ranging in ages from 15 to 2 years. We have lived in small college towns before like Blacksburg, VA and wouldn't mind that again. We don't want a huge city but not a tiny town with nothing. At least a 45 minute drive to a city would be nice. Any suggestions?
The entire state allows children, so we need more information to help you find what you're looking for.
Mountains, piedmont, or coast?
Do you need jobs?
Will your children be in public school?
Where did you go to college, and are you considering moving back to that same area? If not, why not? (What are you looking for that's different?)
What did you love about NC? (Whatever it is might not be the same in other parts of the state.)
Do you still have friends in NC? Close friends? Are they also devout Christians? That's where I'd start. There are plenty of churches in all parts of the state, but that doesn't mean you're going to find friends and fellowship there.
And to clarify: you'd like to live in a small city with a population around 40,000, and you'd like to be within 45 minutes of a larger city. Did I get that right?
We really don't care mountains or where but I grew up in the mountains so some snow would be nice. I am a stay at home mom right now but I hope to go back to teaching elementary school soon. We need good schools because we will use public schools. I went to college at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC, we wouldn't mind moving close to there but we don't have to. I am a little southern belle and would like a southern place, not a city with a bunch of northerners.
Right now is not a good time to find a teaching job, but by the time you're ready to go back, who knows? Does your husband need to find a job? If so, that will tell you where you need to move.
Beyond that, it's hard to give a recommendation. Talk to your family some more and find out what they'd like. Also, go here: //www.city-data.com/city/North-Carolina.html and start looking through the information for cities that are about the size you want. If you can narrow it down to a few towns, or to a region, you'll probably get more information from folks on here.
I could say, "How about Hickory?" but it wouldn't be because you'd like it, it'd be because that's the closest one to where I live. I still don't know enough about you to know if you'd like it. (It does get snow, has Southerners and Methodist churches, is the right size, and has some decent schools. But so do a bunch of other small cities, I'm sure.)
My family is hoping to move to North Carolina. My husband and I both went to college there but moved to VA for work. We are hoping to move back to North Carolina because we love it. We have 5 kids with 2 more on the way. We are devout christians and attend the methodist church now but we can also attend a non-demoninatinoal church. We have kids ranging in ages from 15 to 2 years. We have lived in small college towns before like Blacksburg, VA and wouldn't mind that again. We don't want a huge city but not a tiny town with nothing. At least a 45 minute drive to a city would be nice. Any suggestions?
You really need to narrow it down more than this. It's a large, diverse state. You say you want to come to NC specifically, so there must be certain areas you're familiar with and like--start with those? What size town are you looking for? NC is full of little towns.
If you're cultrually conservative, you probably don't want the Triangle area, the most "liberal" part of the state. The most conservative part is north of Charlotte, West of Winston-Salem, kind of around Hickory, etc.
Nobody can tell you where you "should" live because we don't know you. What specifically about NC has put the state in your sights? That will help people narrow down possibilities for you to visit and investigate.
My family is hoping to move to North Carolina. My husband and I both went to college there but moved to VA for work. We are hoping to move back to North Carolina because we love it. We have 5 kids with 2 more on the way. We are devout christians and attend the methodist church now but we can also attend a non-demoninatinoal church. We have kids ranging in ages from 15 to 2 years. We have lived in small college towns before like Blacksburg, VA and wouldn't mind that again. We don't want a huge city but not a tiny town with nothing. At least a 45 minute drive to a city would be nice. Any suggestions?
Chapel Hill springs to mind - it's growing it's way into a nice balance between student/academic/hipster/religious/kid-friendly without tilting too heavily towards any of those things - I know plenty of folks in all of those demographics and they seem to generally coexist nicely. The school system is dynamite for a public school system. And it does retain (along with Carrboro, which is exceptionally quirky, and Hillsborough, which is a bit more genteel) a small-town feel, even though it sits at the edge of a metro that is going on 1.5 million people. The median home prices are well above the statewide median, so that should factor into considerations.
The other suggestions would be Davidson (20 miles N of Charlotte), Boone (90 miles NW of Charlotte and 90 miles W of Winston-Salem), and Greenville (about 90 miles east of Raleigh).
Davidson is expensive, home to Davidson College, which is small but rather prestigious. It's a quick trip into Charlotte. And though Mecklenburg County's population is fast closing in on a million, Davidson is at the northern border of the county, and overlaps into more rural Iredell County. It's a very quaint little town, again at the periphery of a much larger (2 million +) metro. I-77, which can be a traffic menace, cuts through the western part of town, which is also on the shores of Lake Norman. I-85, which links directly to Greensboro and the Raleigh-Durham area (north), and the Greenville-Spartanburg and Atlanta areas (south) is about 15-20 miles south and east. 30 minutes to an international airport that would give you direct fights to several places in Latin America, the Caribbean and Western Europe.
Boone is a bit more distant, at 90 miles it's equidistant (in 3 different directions) to Asheville, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem. It's where i went to school, and worked for several years after that. The job market is limited - service, tourism, or the university is about it, though due to the mix of second-homers from Florida, college kids, local Appalachians, and academics, it's a great place to open a small / family business. It's very atypically left-wing for a town in Appalachia, yet there are also a lot of small, friendly churches in the area. Extremely scenic - the elevation is 3350 above sea level, and Avery County - just west is over 4000'. If you lived in Blacksburg, the climate is similar, but Boone is about 1500 feet higher up, so the winters are ferocious - I lived through 2 blizzards in a decade there, one of which dumped 3 feet of snow and produced hurricane-force winds. The school system is better than the state average by a good bit, but it's still nothing prize-winning. It's less expensive than Davidson and Chapel Hill, but it too runs above the state average. The Blue Ridge Parkway skirts the town to the south and east, at a distance of 6-8 miles, and Grandfather Mountain and several ski areas are 15-20 miles to the west-southwest near the Watauga/Avery County line. There's a small but vigorous bluegrass music scene in the area (the same is true down the road in Asheville), the late, great and already-missed Doc Watson lived right outside of town and was someone you'd see about town on occasion, so it's definitely a culturally interesting place with a lot of both history and new creative stuff happening.
Greenville is at the opposite end of the state - an hour from Atlantic Beach, about 2 hours from Wilmington and the Outer Banks (different directions), 90 miles east of Raleigh, and about 3 hours from Richmond and Hampton Roads VA. East Carolina University and Med Center/Med School are all there. Outside of Raleigh, Cary and Charlotte, it's the fastest growing of the smaller-to-midsize cities in the state, and is now the 10th largest - it might cross the 100,000 population mark in the city proper by the next census. Between Chapel Hill/Carrboro, Hillsborough, Davidson, Boone and Greenville, Greenville is probably the most affordable, and has the most middle class/suburban feel outside of the rather large campus area. It does have a higher crime rate, and is definitely sprawlier - the downtown area is small for a city of its' population numbers, and less picturesque than the others. And even though Greenville itself is somewhat middle-class (as are the southern suburbs of Winterville and Ayden), it's at the epicenter of what is otherwise the poorest part of the state, by a long shot - the counties surrounding Greenville/Pitt County are in a steep decline, both economically and in actual population in some cases. Economically, it's a bit like Boone - service, tourism, or something entrepreneurial on your own are going to be where it's at. as for scenery in the immediate area, there is none - it's flat as a pancake and Africa-hot in the summer. I know nothing about the school system.
My husband is a physical therapist and has a major in athletic trainer so he can do either. Chapel Hill is way to big for us. We have considered Boone a little. We are especially interested in the Piedmont and Mountain areas.
Chapel Hill springs to mind - it's growing it's way into a nice balance between student/academic/hipster/religious/kid-friendly without tilting too heavily towards any of those things - I know plenty of folks in all of those demographics and they seem to generally coexist nicely. The school system is dynamite for a public school system. And it does retain (along with Carrboro, which is exceptionally quirky, and Hillsborough, which is a bit more genteel) a small-town feel, even though it sits at the edge of a metro that is going on 1.5 million people. The median home prices are well above the statewide median, so that should factor into considerations.
Chapel Hill is a high-transplant area, which she wants to avoid.
Quote:
khayes6We have considered Boone a little. We are especially interested in the Piedmont and Mountain areas.
Really, there are any number of little towns in that part of the state that are hard to distinguish among in writing--you'll just need to visit them and see what you think.
We really don't care mountains or where but I grew up in the mountains so some snow would be nice. I am a stay at home mom right now but I hope to go back to teaching elementary school soon. We need good schools because we will use public schools. I went to college at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC, we wouldn't mind moving close to there but we don't have to. I am a little southern belle and would like a southern place, not a city with a bunch of northerners.
Wow.
I just found this forum yesterday, and I haven't spent much time reading posts here--but this is the fifth (I think) post against northerners.
I've known for years that "Southern Hospitality" is a sham--but it's kind of refreshing seeing people prove it to be.
Good luck with your future, though, and I hope you'll be happy.
My family is hoping to move to North Carolina. My husband and I both went to college there but moved to VA for work. We are hoping to move back to North Carolina because we love it. We have 5 kids with 2 more on the way. We are devout christians and attend the methodist church now but we can also attend a non-demoninatinoal church. We have kids ranging in ages from 15 to 2 years. We have lived in small college towns before like Blacksburg, VA and wouldn't mind that again. We don't want a huge city but not a tiny town with nothing. At least a 45 minute drive to a city would be nice. Any suggestions?
Check out Boiling Springs NC, it is in Cleveland county with a population of 4,647.
Gardner-webb is pretty much the center of the town, Gardner-Webb is a medium sized christian college.
Boiling springs isn't far from the mountains neither, it sits in the foothills about 20 minutes away from the mountains.
If you need anymore info on the area let me know.
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