Tell me about San Angelo (Austin, Midland: public school, living, cost of living)

[sumire]

I'll piggy back on what everyone else said.

I'm single and been stationed here for about a year. This is a great place if you're looking to settle down and raise a family. However, hope you enjoy small town life. Considering the base and the college are here, this place is so incredibly small! And yes, jobs are incredibly scarce here unless you work in the medical industry. You might have luck applying for an HR position with one of the two major hospitals here.

Hope you're into Texas culture as well, since that's about all there is to offer here. Lots of steak houses and Mexican restaurants to eat at, but some very poor Chinese restaurants, one decent Korean restaurant...and nothing else to offer. Lots of nice furniture stores, but as far as clothing goes there is not much variety.

San Angelo wouldn't be a bad place to live...if it was the suburb of a larger city. Unfortunately "civilization" is about 3 hours away. So yes, for families San Angelo is great. For young single people though....it's the Sleepy Hallow of the west.

[Rathagos]

Knotte,

I'm currently live in San Angelo, and have since 1998. I hope to answer any questions you have, and if I don't, please feel free to either send me a direct message (located above right), or in this thread.

San Angelo (to include local areas Grape Creek, Wall, Cristoval) has a population of just over 100k. The city is pretty spread out, so the density doesn't show as much as you might think; and, of course, some parts of the city are more dense than others.

Crime in the city is relatively low, and most serious crimes are against people that know each other. Drugs are here, but not as prevalent as I've seen in many other cities. I, nor my kids, have ever been approached to buy any. But, because San Angelo is 1 hour south of I-20 and 1 hour north of I-10, who wants to travel all the way out here for random crime?

Schools are good. I've attached a link below to San Angelo Independent School District. Some are better than others, of course. There's many elementary schools, a few middle schools/junior high schools, and three high schools. Because of population and demographics, all three are in different divisions, and therefore don't play each other in regular season sports. We are also home to Angelo State University, a four-year school with some Master's classes. They have recently signed on as part of the Texas Tech system, and dorms are being currently being built to accomodate the expected increase in students.

Housing is in a buyers market right now. Since there is an Air Force base in the city (non-operational - no flying aircraft... it's a personnel training base). Since summer months are over (primary moving dates for military), the houses that are left on the market have been for a while. They are decently priced depending on location. For one of the "better" areas of town, a 4-bedroom/2 bath house can be had for less than $150k. If desired, more luxurious homes can be bought all the way up into the low millions. There's also areas on the outskirts with available land, if that's the desire.

For commercial stores, there's: 2 super Walmarts, Best Buy, Lowes, Sam's, Office Max and Depot, Ross's, Petco, Hastings, and many others. We have a mall (link below), it has the staples (J.C. Penney, Sears) and many other smaller stores in there (of course). The link should provide all the stores included in the mall.

For restaurants, we have everything from diner-throwbacks (Roxie's), to local type (Zentner's Daughter, Twin Mountains Steakhouse) to chain restaurants (Golden Corral, Johnny Carino's, Olive Garden, Outback). Everything from Asian (Korean, Chinese, Japanese) to TexMex to steakhouses.

The local paper is the San Angelo Standard Times (link below). You can search there for jobs in the town. The big markets are Goodfellow (the Air Force Base), Shannon (hospital and clinincs), and Verizon.

If you have any specific questions, as I said before, feel free to DM me or ask in the thread here. If you're coming for sure... welcome!!!

Rath

San Angelo ISD - In Pursuit of Excellence
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[grimreaperz]

I am also looking at moving to San Angelo... thanks for the information.

How are sports for young kids, middle school and high school?

[truu]

So did you end up moving to San Angelo? We are planning on moving up there in about a yr and I was wondering about the town myself. I've been doing alot of research about the place and as far as i can tell it's a wonderful place to raise children. Do you agree?

[Two4damoney]

I love San Angelo. Lots of nice well kept city parks along the Concho River, theres Lake Nasworthy, outdoor concerts in the summer, low cost of living and low rent, you can buy a nice house for a good price. The south/southwest part of town is very nice with good neighborhoods and low crime. Most of the crime and gang stuff tends to be more on the north end of town. And lets face it, what city of a little over 100K people doesn't have some gangs and crime? San Angelo is also a very family friendly town.

[catman]

It sounds like a great place to me, except for being so hot in the summer. But at least it's not humid.

[Two4damoney]

Originally Posted by catman

It sounds like a great place to me, except for being so hot in the summer. But at least it's not humid.

I agree. It was 102 degrees today but at least the humidity was only 14 percent.

[Cabguy]

san angelo is very nice place to live and raise children.the only problem there isnt much work and if there is..the pay is not that well.
but if you find a good job or have one then its a great place besides the heat.
not much to do though

[truu]

If you could choose to live in san angelo or wichita falls tx, which would you choose and why? Considering you have 2 children.

[ChristieP]

San Angelo. Wichita Falls is not nearly as pretty and San Angelo has more opportunities. The only thing WF has better than San Angelo is that WF is only 2.5 hours from DFW...