moving from Texas to the Seattle area

[hfair828]

Thank you for your help as well Xanathos. Who says people in Seattle are stand offish- you guys have been great!

[houtex2031]

Originally Posted by joygovind

Is there a specific reason (if it can be shared) for moving out of Texas? The reason I'm asking is Texas is one of the states we're considering while moving out of Michigan.

Hi,
Saw your post and I couldn't help but chime in. So I hope you get this since it's w/another post. My finance will be relocating to Seattle right before the wedding and me to follow. It's been bittersweet but we are excited about the new adventure. Texas is a BIG state and every city has it's own unique personality. Mind if I ask where you're relocating to? I'm from Houston and love it here mainly b/c of the cultural diversity which provides a plethora of restaurants. It's one place that I've found where different ethnic groups intermix and intermingle yet maintain & share their heritage but that's from my personal experience. Just look at the city counsel and the diversity that's on that panel. The only major complaint people/visitors have is the humidity...you walk out of your house and you're drenching wet of sweat. But honestly, most people go from their air conditioned (AC) home to an AC car to an AC office. The economy is strong & diverse in Houston and to top it off the cost of living is quite reasonable for being the 4/5th largest city. Big hub for medicine, energy & finance to name a few. Then you have Dallas, Houston's rival. The culture is different there. It's definitely a better planned city since Houston has no zoning but for me it feels a bit pretentious. The fine and performing arts are 10x better than Houston. San Antonio is a colorful city much, much smaller than Houston & Dallas...nice and quaint. Austin is the music city of the south, state capitol & home of UT longhorns. A small but ever growing city that has been able to stay eclectic but is slowing losing over to commercialization. The atmosphere is similar to Ann Arbor-Univ. Michigan. Economy has built itself on being like silicon valley. Then you have West Texas which is more rural and not like the metroplexes named above. There's also the Valley (McAllen-Brownsville) and El Paso all small border towns. If you're coming down from Michigan, I would strongly suggest looking at Dallas/Houston for job opportunities & good schools as the markets have not as been affected by the recession...housing prices have stayed at a steady rate but then again it never skyrocketed like Florida. If you have children in secondary school I recommend staying in the suburbs as the public school system in Texas is not very good...you need to try and be in the more affluent neighborhoods...yes there are exceptions but overall not proud of Bush's no child left behind program...did no good for us nor for the nation.

Good luck!

[mountainlover42]

I live in Texas (not for long, I hope) planning to move to eastside Seattle. You re right on. When you pair that with flat, ugly, and boring geography...and please don't even bring up "the hills" in Austin. I lived there. STILLl no comparison to the PNW and you STILL have to deal with the unbearable summers.

Originally Posted by greywolf0616

Hmmm, could those "other factors" be the uneducated overly religious redneck Pitchfork Squad?

[Phoofter]

Originally Posted by houtex2031

Hi,
Saw your post and I couldn't help but chime in. So I hope you get this since it's w/another post. My finance will be relocating to Seattle right before the wedding and me to follow. It's been bittersweet but we are excited about the new adventure. Texas is a BIG state and every city has it's own unique personality. Mind if I ask where you're relocating to? I'm from Houston and love it here mainly b/c of the cultural diversity which provides a plethora of restaurants. It's one place that I've found where different ethnic groups intermix and intermingle yet maintain & share their heritage but that's from my personal experience. Just look at the city counsel and the diversity that's on that panel. The only major complaint people/visitors have is the humidity...you walk out of your house and you're drenching wet of sweat. But honestly, most people go from their air conditioned (AC) home to an AC car to an AC office. The economy is strong & diverse in Houston and to top it off the cost of living is quite reasonable for being the 4/5th largest city. Big hub for medicine, energy & finance to name a few. Then you have Dallas, Houston's rival. The culture is different there. It's definitely a better planned city since Houston has no zoning but for me it feels a bit pretentious. The fine and performing arts are 10x better than Houston. San Antonio is a colorful city much, much smaller than Houston & Dallas...nice and quaint. Austin is the music city of the south, state capitol & home of UT longhorns. A small but ever growing city that has been able to stay eclectic but is slowing losing over to commercialization. The atmosphere is similar to Ann Arbor-Univ. Michigan. Economy has built itself on being like silicon valley. Then you have West Texas which is more rural and not like the metroplexes named above. There's also the Valley (McAllen-Brownsville) and El Paso all small border towns. If you're coming down from Michigan, I would strongly suggest looking at Dallas/Houston for job opportunities & good schools as the markets have not as been affected by the recession...housing prices have stayed at a steady rate but then again it never skyrocketed like Florida. If you have children in secondary school I recommend staying in the suburbs as the public school system in Texas is not very good...you need to try and be in the more affluent neighborhoods...yes there are exceptions but overall not proud of Bush's no child left behind program...did no good for us nor for the nation.

Good luck!

I am from Texas, mainly the northern parts, and I agree with most of what you said above. I would add that while the various cities in Texas can be very different from one another, so too can the neighborhoods of the cities themselves.

And I've lived in lots of other parts of the country and noticed the same thing: differences in cities, differences in neighborhoods and so on. We are moving to the Seattle area because we like vampire weather and once there, we'll find the cultural bits we like most.

The nation is dramatically polarized and thats not surprising considering the kind of stuff the mass media has been feeding us since Gore lost in 2000. But we are the same people and I've never lived anywhere that I looked around and thought, "gads! what a bunch of dullards, racists, elitists, coffee nerds, vacuous culture freaks and xenophobes."

So for the Michigan people relocating, I'd say do your research on the Realtor sites, utilize all the cool resources on the web these days, pick your top three per location and then go visit. But don't rely on what polarizing people have to say about entire states, cities and regional peoples. I mean, I was shocked to find red necks in Wisconsin after spending years hearing they all lived in the south.

[texastrigirl]

Originally Posted by hfair828

Thank you for your help as well Xanathos. Who says people in Seattle are stand offish- you guys have been great!

IMO, the people in the Seattle area are friendly...and just in case they aren't, you won't have to wait too long to meet a Texas transplant who is.