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Old 09-12-2014, 12:58 PM
 
5 posts, read 7,986 times
Reputation: 13

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Hello )!

We are very excited to be moving to the East Coast, but are totally lost about choosing a place to call home.

We would greatly appreciate any leads, especially from Californians and people who lived on the West Coast and have an idea what life is like here. You are talking to somebody who has never been to the East Coast and is originally from Eastern Europe.

The relocation specialist suggested we check out the Westchester County cities. We are looking for good public schools that are not pressure-cookers, cultural diversity, walking to school/ library/ parks, low crime rate, reasonable commute, easy access to good food (any coops out there?). Our conservative house price range is $750.

So tell me: Where do you live? Why do you like it? Who your neighbors are? Do your kids bike to school, have playdates after, go to private tutors, play competitive sports, have friends that speak 7 different languages, what's their childhood like? What does work/ life balance look like in your community?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Go )!
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Old 09-12-2014, 04:10 PM
 
107 posts, read 440,629 times
Reputation: 73
If I had to do it all over again, I would have stayed in SoCal. The only advantage to living here is our much higher income and a job my husband truly enjoys. These are big advantages and they keep us here, for the time being. But there is nothing like CA here. (Caveat -- We lived in SoCal.)

The cost of living is substantially higher. You will be surprised. You will pay more for everything, except water. As far as communities go, I haven't noticed strong differences amongst them -- some will argue strongly with me on this, but what I'm trying to get at is that you will not find a community here that resembles anything like the laid back, tolerant culture you are accustomed to in CA. (Oh, and everyone here calls California, Cali. Strange...) The communities here tend to be very segregated. There is significant racism. The outdoors are very humid and have lots of flying bugs. The towns with "good" schools are predominately white and are often described as "pressure cookers", though only at the high school level. Schools are closed for Jewish holidays -- you'll learn a lot about Jewish holidays (Californians don't know the Jewish holidays and school is in session for Jewish holidays). The commute is long. It is very wet (lots of rain and snow and swamps/marshes) year round and cold in the winter. The skiing is disappointing, coming from the west coast. The food is terrible and overpriced. There is no In N Out here.

There is a lot of wilderness just a short drive away (though you can find this in CA, too). The beaches here have warm water, not like the frigid west coast beaches. The schools aren't as heavily dependent upon the state capitol for funding -- they are mostly supported by local taxes -- so it's easier to buy into a "good" district, but will cost you dearly. Property taxes are about 3-4% instead of CA's 1%. They have u-pick orchards here (we had a very hard time finding that in CA). And, there are Xmas tree farms that will sell you trees for $60!! It is very safe in most parts of Westchester -- there is virtually no violent crime. Flights to Orlando are cheap and Disney World is a great vacation.

It's a very different lifestyle and attitude and it is hard to describe. If you like CA and can stay there, you probably should. Good luck!
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Old 09-12-2014, 07:45 PM
 
Location: Connectucut shore but on a hill
2,617 posts, read 7,007,886 times
Reputation: 3344
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliInChappaqua View Post
If I had to do it all over again, I would have stayed in SoCal. The only advantage to living here is our much higher income and a job my husband truly enjoys. These are big advantages and they keep us here, for the time being. But there is nothing like CA here. (Caveat -- We lived in SoCal.)

The cost of living is substantially higher. You will be surprised. You will pay more for everything, except water. As far as communities go, I haven't noticed strong differences amongst them -- some will argue strongly with me on this, but what I'm trying to get at is that you will not find a community here that resembles anything like the laid back, tolerant culture you are accustomed to in CA. (Oh, and everyone here calls California, Cali. Strange...) The communities here tend to be very segregated. There is significant racism. The outdoors are very humid and have lots of flying bugs. The towns with "good" schools are predominately white and are often described as "pressure cookers", though only at the high school level. Schools are closed for Jewish holidays -- you'll learn a lot about Jewish holidays (Californians don't know the Jewish holidays and school is in session for Jewish holidays). The commute is long. It is very wet (lots of rain and snow and swamps/marshes) year round and cold in the winter. The skiing is disappointing, coming from the west coast. The food is terrible and overpriced. There is no In N Out here.

There is a lot of wilderness just a short drive away (though you can find this in CA, too). The beaches here have warm water, not like the frigid west coast beaches. The schools aren't as heavily dependent upon the state capitol for funding -- they are mostly supported by local taxes -- so it's easier to buy into a "good" district, but will cost you dearly. Property taxes are about 3-4% instead of CA's 1%. They have u-pick orchards here (we had a very hard time finding that in CA). And, there are Xmas tree farms that will sell you trees for $60!! It is very safe in most parts of Westchester -- there is virtually no violent crime. Flights to Orlando are cheap and Disney World is a great vacation.

It's a very different lifestyle and attitude and it is hard to describe. If you like CA and can stay there, you probably should. Good luck!
Culture shock. Same as the gripes New Yorkers have about CA.
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Old 09-12-2014, 10:15 PM
 
5 posts, read 7,986 times
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Thank you, CaliInChappaques, very helpful info! I find even So and NorCal very, very different, I am excited to discover the differences between the East and West Coast. Aren't we lucky to have the privilege to pick the places we want to live and work at )! I am grateful for my first world problems. Thank you again for taking the time to write such a detailed note!
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Old 09-12-2014, 10:24 PM
 
5 posts, read 7,986 times
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Dear Kletter1mann, you are a funny person )! I kindly disagree though that issues like racism and segregation are petty and unimportant. I've been reading with a shock how proud and open a lot of New Yorkers are about their racist views. It's very different here in California. Those are the kind of things people want to know more about when relocating, but sometimes we wouldn't even know to ask - after all it's the 21st century ... !
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Old 09-13-2014, 05:14 AM
 
1,594 posts, read 3,565,101 times
Reputation: 1585
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliInChappaqua View Post
The food is terrible and overpriced. There is no In N Out here.
Or
Del Taco
or Oki Dog
or
Whataburger
or
Lawry's
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Old 09-13-2014, 08:03 AM
 
Location: Connectucut shore but on a hill
2,617 posts, read 7,007,886 times
Reputation: 3344
Quote:
Originally Posted by viliang View Post
Hello )!

We are very excited to be moving to the East Coast, but are totally lost about choosing a place to call home.

We would greatly appreciate any leads, especially from Californians and people who lived on the West Coast and have an idea what life is like here. You are talking to somebody who has never been to the East Coast and is originally from Eastern Europe.

The relocation specialist suggested we check out the Westchester County cities. 1, We are looking for good public schools that are not pressure-cookers, cultural diversity, walking to school/ library/ parks, low crime rate, reasonable commute, easy access to good food (any coops out there?). Our conservative house price range is $750.

So tell me: Where do you live? Why do you like it? Who your neighbors are? 2. Do your kids bike to school, have playdates after, go to private tutors, play competitive sports, have friends that speak 7 different languages, what's their childhood like? 3. What does work/ life balance look like in your community?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Go )!
1. There are plenty of places that might qualify, but there will be trade-offs. It would be helpful if you could be more specific:
  • What's a "reasonable" commute and where are you commuting to exactly?
  • What are you looking for housing-wise? In the usual candidate towns (Larchmont, Scarsdale, "River towns," Pelham, etc) you'd likely need every cent of that $750k, along with 5-digit taxes.
2. Respectively: Rare at best. Yes, routine. Yes, very common, but much more prevalent in some communities (and to an often unhealthy degree IMO). Yes, routine (also to an unhealthy degree IMO). 7 is a lot, but 2 or 3 isn't uncommon.

3. NY is essentially about WORK and $$. That's why people come here. It's not for the mountains, the oceans, the apple picking etc. It's generally an intense, competitive, high-pressure region. That is, even the lowest-key communities would likely be viewed that way if they were transported someplace else. OTOH, education level is high, general sophistication is high, people still read books and consider art to be something important.

Last edited by kletter1mann; 09-13-2014 at 08:04 AM.. Reason: typos
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Old 09-13-2014, 08:08 AM
 
7,296 posts, read 11,833,709 times
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OP - Maybe I missed it but you said you wanted a reasonable commute. If so, commute to where? If Manhattan, note there is a difference between midtown/GC and downtown/FD.
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Old 09-13-2014, 08:10 AM
 
Location: Connectucut shore but on a hill
2,617 posts, read 7,007,886 times
Reputation: 3344
And, FWIW, my very general observations on (1) CA transplants in NY and (2) NY transplants in CA:

1. The stuff they hate about CA they will love in NY. The stuff they Love in CA they will hate in NY.
2. The same in reverse.

So it depends on what you value. If you love everything about CA then it will be quite an adjustment.
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Old 09-13-2014, 08:29 AM
 
Location: Connectucut shore but on a hill
2,617 posts, read 7,007,886 times
Reputation: 3344
Quote:
Originally Posted by viliang View Post
Dear Kletter1mann, you are a funny person )! I kindly disagree though that issues like racism and segregation are petty and unimportant. I've been reading with a shock how proud and open a lot of New Yorkers are about their racist views. It's very different here in California. Those are the kind of things people want to know more about when relocating, but sometimes we wouldn't even know to ask - after all it's the 21st century ... !
Where's that come from? I don't recall saying anything about racism being petty and unimportant. What IS true is that people are far more direct and to the point than you're probably used to. You also need to remember that CA is basically new where as NY is old.

I'd also say that what might appear to a newcomer as racism isn't actually racism at all. It's "classism" based on education and income level. Really very, very few people are racists in the usual sense of hating all blacks/latinos/etc. What many people DO hate is the low class, the ignorant, and the uneducated. OK, you can say that this is a proxy for race. But I'd argue that here it really isn't. Nobody in Scarsdale or Rye would bat an eyelash if their new neighbor was a black neurosurgeon with a house on The Vineyard. But they'd be quite troubled by Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield character in Caddyshack) moving into their Bushwood.

Anyway, if you're referring to the talk on this board about the flavor of the towns (Jewish, Italian, etc), it's based in historical fact. Westchester is a patchwork of small towns/villages that were suburbs 100 years ago. There are long standing patterns of communities attracting the "same kind" of people that were already there. In some cases there has been deliberate exclusion, in cases others not. In many cases it's about educational and social aspriations. A case in point is Valhalla. The town was built to house the Italian workers who build a nearby dam about 100 years ago. The Italian vestiges linger to this day. Other towns were built for affluent NY professionals, also 100 years ago. Vestiges of that linger too.

This may be something that you choose to ignore, but it effects the flavor of the community. In any given town, whether it's good or bad depends on you. One person's plus is somebody elses minus. Hence there's lots of chatter here on how stuff like this influences the prevailing lifestyle and attitudes in a given town. If they were all the same it wouldn't matter to anybody.

Last edited by kletter1mann; 09-13-2014 at 08:39 AM.. Reason: clarity
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