Hmm, this is an interesting non sequitur.
Being Black and Jewish myself, and…well, check out one of my locations, I knew about Charleston’s Black, Jewish (now former) police chief, and while that might be of some interest for some folks, I just found the juxtaposition of **ralph124c’s ** remark and your own to be…odd. Honestly, I’m not being snarky or anything like that.
I know I really shouldn’t come in this late in the conversation and open my mouth, but here’s another thought, for what it’s worth: if you don’t want to live somewhere, please don’t move there. Especially South Carolina. Between Fort Jackson, Parris Island, and Clemson University, there’s more than enough people in South Carolina who don’t really want to be there already.
Besides which, OP, you are right: if the things you list are really what makes your husband want to move, he’s going to find stuff like that to complain about everywhere, especially a relatively poor state like SC.
Knead
SC Native
Knead,
But that’s the best part! Hubby’ll have a whole new set of complaints. The grocery stores have funny names (The Pig, Publix-pronounced “pube licks”). The air smells funny at low tide. The tea is too sweet. They won’t let me paint my house on the Battery hot pink with purple shutters. There’s no Jack in the Box around here. The anchorman and woman on Channel 5 are ancient.
He’d get bored somewhere “perfect.”
I thought it was Cayce. 
Then everything’s jake.
That’s how y’all pronounce Publix up north? Weird. And wrong.
Tremor.
No, that’s how my southern sister pronounced the store’s name when she first saw one visiting Orlando.* She came back excitedly talking about the “Pube licks,” how nice the “Pube licks” stores are. I can’t look at a Publix without chuckling.
PS: Call me “northern” again and I’ll have to get out my dueling glove…[chuckle]
Shoot, I’m from North Florida; everyone is “up north” to me. 
(except, paradoxically, those Yankees that live down in South Florida.) Anyway, Publix is a oooold Florida chain and properly pronounced like “public” with an “X”. (or at least it has been ever since anyone in my family can remember, 60+ years)
Hello,
I am a PA native who wants to move to SC. I have visited there a few times and I really liked it. I do understand that a few visits can not be the cornerstone for a permanent move; but I do want to go…I have researched the Lexington area extensively and believe this area is the area that I want to move to. I was wondering if there is anyone out there who can give me some Lexington imput?? I’ll take the good and bad…
Eh, the traffic is bad, it’s a white flight suburb, everybody commutes at the same time… if that’s the sort of thing you like then you’ll like that sort of thing.
So, zombie alert but wow I was snippity and hot under the collar in this thread lo these many years ago!
Ha! Had no idea this was a zombie until the last post. I had so many opinions, living very close to Aiken myself.
KayT, what did you end up doing?
LindaG, unfortunately, I don’t know much about the Lexington area. But I’m sure some other dopers who do will stop by shortly.
With all due respect, how did you find this message board to post this, your first, question? ETA: Sweet merciful heaven! I did a Google search on “moving to south carolina” and this thread was the second hit! :eek:
Hey Linda. I spent my teenagerhood in one of the small towns near Lexington, and my mother still works there in the library (on the bookmobile). She lives in Irmo with my stepfather, and I’m back there at least once a month to make sure everything’s kept up at the homeplace. What are you interested in learning about?
School district IN Lexington is good, others in the rural areas are hit-and-miss (don’t know if you have kids or not)…
There’s a lot of growth from people who don’t want to live in Columbia, or in Irmo (other local areas that are overdeveloped, so people are sprawling outwards).
There’s a lot of interest in developing the city, so property values are pretty high (for SC, probably not compared to PA) in town. Once you’re outside the city, they’re a lot lower on average - much lower than in Richland County (where Irmo and Columbia are).
Lake Murray is a beautiful lake, but property tax will KILL you if you get lakefront property. There’s lots of public access points and parks, so you don’t HAVE to live on the lake to enjoy it.
The city was designed a long time ago, and hasn’t modernized well - rush hour and school traffic are pretty awful for the small size of the town, and there’s not much that can be done in the actual “downtown” strip to fix it, because there’s no space between the buildings to expand. It means that if you live on ONE side of Lexington, and work on the other side, you’re in for some nasty traffic two times a day.
People are split pretty much down the middle as to their basic outlook on their surroundings - people who live in Lexington and work in the city (Columbia), or people who live in the country and work in the city (Lexington). 
So, because of the first lot - there’s decent restaurants (try Gilligans for seafood and Rush’s for local fast food) shopping options are pretty decent, (Still no Whole Foods) and a lot of different chains are represented. Because of the second group, there’s a decent amount of small roadside markets and thrift stores and pawn/gun shops.
There are a LOT of people in the local rural surroundings who consider Lexington to be the “big city” and there are even a smattering who have never in their lives been to Columbia or across the lake to Irmo.
Lexington is VERY Christian, and VERY Republican. Even more so than Richland County (Columbia itself). It’s shocking to a lot of people, but it is what it is. Know to expect it - there are still blue laws in effect, and even if they don’t apply - lots of local owned businesses choose to be closed on Sunday anyway. You WILL get invited to lots of different churches, and neighbors/co-workers WILL want to know that you’ve chosen a church home at some point.
Anything specific you’re looking to know?
Heh, this transplanted heathen, childless, Democrat Yankee is about to move to Gaston, SC.
I’d be more frightened except that I’ve spent the last 10 yrs in Chattanooga TN. And I’m a horse-addict so the area is perfect for me in that respect…
I admit, I have not enjoyed my time in South Carolina. I find that the people I meet tend to be more closed-minded than most of the places I’ve lived. And more willing to be open about racism and homophobia, even the educated and prosperous.
For the record, I have lived in:
Chicago
Los Angeles
Washington, DC
Miami
Rural Louisiana
Boston
Appalachian Maryland
Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
Rural Appalachian Ohio
Iowa City
I adapt, but having someone tell me (an educated engineer!) tell me that he forced his 14-year-old son to lay off the books and try out for football because he didn’t want him turning into a fag was jarring.
Or, of course, having my kids told by the friends that we were destined for hell because we didn’t go to any church.
nm… this is a 5 year-old thread.
Judging by her location field, it looks like she ended up in Austin, TX.
There are two types in South Carolina. There’s the type that will tell a guy they met five minutes ago about how they don’t want their son to be a faggot so they stopped letting him read books, and there’s the type with the crazy wide eyes showing the entire iris demanding to know whether you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior.
I spent a year in that miserable pit. I wouldn’t dream of raising kids there. Never, ever.
That’s sad, Mr. Chance, and not really my experience (although of course being a native it’s entirely possible I might just not see things that are obvious to outsiders.) Thing is, when we go to Pittsburgh to my mom’s family I’m always shocked as hell at the level of de facto Jim Crow up there - you go to a mall and all you see are white people. I went to a high school graduation and not only were they all white, they were Irish or Polish. Only. Seriously, it was O’Malley or Kingerski, no in between. At least here, we don’t have it figured out, but we live together.
ETA - except in Lexington and Irmo and etc. Really, why wouldn’t you just live in Columbia? We now have a Whole Foods AND a Trader Joe’s.
ETAA - somebody snuck in while I was typing. Which type am I, exactly, Mosier? I’m curious.
I’m afraid that your parenthetical thought is most definitely true. I worked with a (great) guy from South Carolina who insisted that the state got a bad rap - that you just didn’t see people flying rebel flags and that racism was no different than any other place. I’ve been there several times and when you see half a dozen flags and your white, American cab driver uses the “N” word several times between the airport and your hotel, you’re just blind to it.
In the vast majority of the country when you see a rebel flag or hear a stranger casually toss around “nigger”, people freak out. “Can you even believe that? What a tool!”
We did move to Austin, TX (thanks JohnT; I had stopped following this thread!).
I like all of Austin except the weather.
I am VERY glad we didn’t move to South Carolina.
I still wish I lived in Southern California; miss it terribly.