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MY APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR THE LENGTHY POST.... THANKS FOR CONTINUING ON.
Hi everyone, it seems like a lot of the post I have been reading are a few years out of date so I thought I would create a new thread in hopes of getting some new insight.
My fiance and I currently live in Portland, OR and we are thinking of relocating to Texas, probably San Antonio. Although Oregon is a great place to live, taxes are starting to get out of control, state government is spending like crazy, school districts are broke and cutting down to 4-day weeks, land use laws make development & growth very difficult (my field of work) and not to mention the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country.
We are looking for a city that "feels like a small town" (similar to Portland), not too bad of traffic, good job opportunity especially in (Dental Hygiene & Architecture / Development). I know every city has its good and bad parts but we are looking for a city that is generally safe unlike Houston, Atlanta ( no offense to all the folks from those cities). If someone could give some accurate & current objective feed back it would be greatly appreciated. I will pose a few more question:
- Is it an educated city?
- Are there some nice performing arts venues & museums
- Is there good camping and fishing within 2-hours of SA?
- Are there some nice beaches close by (I have heard bad things about Corpus Christi)
- What are the best suburbs around SA?
I will be visiting Austin, Hill Country, SA & Corpus Christi in November and hopefully moving soon after. Any recommendation on what to see and do would be greatly appreciated.
AGAIN: SORRY FOR THE LENGTHY POST.... THANKS IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR.
MY APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR THE LENGTHY POST.... THANKS FOR CONTINUING ON.
Hi everyone, it seems like a lot of the post I have been reading are a few years out of date so I thought I would create a new thread in hopes of getting some new insight.
My fiance and I currently live in Portland, OR and we are thinking of relocating to Texas, probably San Antonio. Although Oregon is a great place to live, taxes are starting to get out of control, state government is spending like crazy, school districts are broke and cutting down to 4-day weeks, land use laws make development & growth very difficult (my field of work) and not to mention the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country.
We are looking for a city that "feels like a small town" (similar to Portland), not too bad of traffic, good job opportunity especially in (Dental Hygiene & Architecture / Development). I know every city has its good and bad parts but we are looking for a city that is generally safe unlike Houston, Atlanta ( no offense to all the folks from those cities). If someone could give some accurate & current objective feed back it would be greatly appreciated. I will pose a few more question:
- Is it an educated city?
- Are there some nice performing arts venues & museums
- Is there good camping and fishing within 2-hours of SA?
- Are there some nice beaches close by (I have heard bad things about Corpus Christi)
- What are the best suburbs around SA?
I will be visiting Austin, Hill Country, SA & Corpus Christi in November and hopefully moving soon after. Any recommendation on what to see and do would be greatly appreciated.
AGAIN: SORRY FOR THE LENGTHY POST.... THANKS IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR.
I would not recommend relocating to San Antonio (yes, I did live there). I'd be happy to go over the reasoning with you if you like. Send me a Direct message if interested in my non sugar coated opinion . Good luck with whatever you decide.
I'm from Washington and I can tell you as a Northwesterner San Antonio has too many things about it that are so different it's very hard psychologically to live here.
That being said, it's pretty easy to find work compared to there, and the cost of living is quite low, and if you want development this is the place.
Maybe you should look at Colorado, or some other place not so hot and flat.
Well, we're moving from Bozeman, MT to SA in less than a month, and we can't wait. We love it down there. We've loved living in the Northwest but were not natives, so maybe that makes us more amenable to the change.
As you can see, there is one person who inexplicably trolls these boards hoping to find threads like yours so he can private message you reasons not to move to SA. I've read his diatribe. Aside from the poor writing and grammatical/mechanical errors, I found his assertions to be flimsily constructed and patently false, but check it out if you want.
- Is it an educated city? Hard to quantify, but I'd say probably more than many consider it to be.
- Are there some nice performing arts venues & museums Yes, all in the Relo guide or Googleable
- Is there good camping and fishing within 2-hours of SA? Lots of options for both. This was important for us as well.
- Are there some nice beaches close by (I have heard bad things about Corpus Christi) My understanding is that Padre and South Padre Island are pretty good. And technically, S. Padre Island is the US Gulf Coast destination furthermost from the BP mess.
- What are the best suburbs around SA? That's a huge question, endlessly debated on here. You'll have to do some searching. It all depends on what you want. We're choosing to live in-town, closer to downtown.
Good luck! Give yourself enough time when you visit to see as much as possible. You can really do tons of online research that will help when you get boots on the ground.
- Is it an educated city? Depends. If I consider only those of my acquaintance in the first few years I was here, I'd say there's an overabundance of PhDs. But that was just the circle I was in (I'd also say there's an overabundance of soccer players and incredibly fit people as well as those who travel a lot). City as a whole is a little different, and many consider it to be uneducated. I'd say it's a toss up.
- Are there some nice performing arts venues & museums There are, but it depends what you're comparing it to. I don't think we have the level of large scale performing arts that many large cities have. However we have a very vibrant arts community and some wonderful venues. We also have a reasonable selection of museums.
- Is there good camping and fishing within 2-hours of SA? Again, depends on what you're comparing it to. There is definitely lots of fishing opportunities within 2 hours. Same with camping, but as for "good", that's relative. We like tent camping (preferably backpacking but with 2 kids have settled for car camping for now). There *are* places to go and they're nice, but many of them compete with RVs, and IME the campgrounds here are not nearly as nice as I've been to in the West (or even the North East, but those aren't that great either). Most places I've been car camping in the west tend to focus more on the camping experience - lots of trees interspersing the campsites, so a little more privacy and quiet. Here, you're more likely to feel like you're in a large parking lot with grass (i.e. campsites are not really separated, you're close to your neighbor and there's a good chance they'll have an RV and a generator). But if you prefer to backpack, that'll eliminate most of that problem. so, in sum, there are many nice places to go camping, but how "good" they are depends on what you consider "good camping." If you prefer and RV, you're right at home.
- Are there some nice beaches close by (I have heard bad things about Corpus Christi) There are beaches within about 2-2.5 hours. Nice is again relative. Port Aransas, just beyond Corpus, is nice and it suffices for our beach fix. But it's not the Pacific Coast.
- What are the best suburbs around SA?
Can't help you here since we don't live in the suburbs.
My above comments may sound negative. They are not meant to be. They are meant to be realistic when considering your perspective of coming from the Pacific Northwest. San Antonio is very different. Not bad, just different. It has its pros and cons. We enjoy living here, but there are indeed things I miss about other places I've lived.
If you are looking for the small town feel then I think SA might be a good choice, especially if you live inside 410. Which goes along with my second point, traffic. I have never had a problem with traffic but then again, I have never and will never live outside of 1604 or along 281 or 35. I also think that you will not have trouble finding jobs here, as the job market has been fairly stable. In regards to safety, myself growing up in a rough neighborhood, I have never really felt unsafe anywhere in the city except perhaps the east side the the city close to downtown. But then again, safety is relative.
- Is it an educated city? Depends, I think in the past, SA might have had and still carries to this day a reputation of being uneducated. However, there are a fair amount of colleges and universities in the city that churn out graduates every year. This, coupled with the fact that many people are moving to the city, might start skewing this reputation for the better. But overall, i think it just depends on the type of people you surround yourself with.
- Are there some nice performing arts venues & museums? Well, you wont being going to the MET or the NY MoA while in SA, but there are a lot of nice museums around the city that host very good original and traveling exhibits all the time. The city also has a fairly good medium sized symphony that produces shows several times a month for most part of the year and a small but good opera company that does a variety of show throughout the year (for example, next year's program includes the Marriage of Figaro and HMS Pinafore among others). Besides that there are several good live music venues and many festivals during that year, including Asian Festival, Jazz Festival, Folklife Festival, Luminaria and much more. There is also a big traveling production in town once or twice a year (Phantom of the Opera, Lion King, etc)
- Is there good camping and fishing within 2-hours of SA? All I can say is yes, but it really depends on what you like.
- Are there some nice beaches close by (I have heard bad things about Corpus Christi) I frequent Port Aransas which is close to Corpus Christi, there is also S. Padre as stated before, and don't forget Padre Island National Seashore. Now, don't be mistaken, these aren't like the beaches in Cancun with clear blue water and white sand, but they are fun and there are always people visiting them.
- What are the best suburbs around SA? Though the Stone Oak Area is nice, I personally would never live there. However, if suburban life is your thing, you can't get much better than that. Alamo Heights and Terrel Hills are nice, Castle Hills also. There are many more, just depends what you are looking for.
On the whole no. There are of course parts of the city that have a higher caliber of people, but the average San Antonion thinks no deeper than their barbeque pit.
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- Are there some nice performing arts venues & museums
Good enough.
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- Is there good camping and fishing within 2-hours of SA?
Nothing that can compare to Oregon.
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- Are there some nice beaches close by
There's a small private beach at Medina lake that's nice, that's about it. Public lands are pretty limited here.
I would not recommend relocating to San Antonio (yes, I did live there). I'd be happy to go over the reasoning with you if you like. Send me a Direct message if interested in my non sugar coated opinion . Good luck with whatever you decide.
On the whole no. There are of course parts of the city that have a higher caliber of people, but the average San Antonion thinks no deeper than their barbeque pit.
Besides being completely insulting, that assessment is off base. San Antonio overall is an educated city, to say other either means you have a much different definition for the word educated or you are on the negative end of the spectrum.
Is San Antonio overall a smart city? Now that would probably be a no. Though there are plenty of smart people, within the city the lower income areas of the inner city bring down our smart people percentage. However, make no mistake, in a metro of 2.1 million, they will find the type of people they are looking for.
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Good enough.
I'd say better than good enough and getting better but that's my opinion.
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Nothing that can compare to Oregon.
I disagree big time here. South Texas provides some of the best if not the best hunting in the US. As for fishing, well, there are plenty of rivers and lakes within 2 hours to get your rock off.
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There's a small private beach at Medina lake that's nice, that's about it. Public lands are pretty limited here.
Considering we're about an 1 and half to 2 hours from the ocean, not many beaches near by.
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