I work for a government agency that is closing several offices around the country (including mine in Cincinnati) and relocating the employees. They just released the list of cities where people with my position may choose to relocate. Although we are going to try and get them to send us to Columbus instead, if we fail we MUST move to one of the following cities:
Atlanta
Denver
Fort Worth
Philadelphia
Santa Ana
We don’t really like any of these choices, but that’s it.
Here are the important facts:
My wife has MS. Although temperature extremes aren’t the best for her, the overriding factor is we NEED a house without (or almost without) steps. We lived in New England for a few years, and she fell down our stairs and lost the ability to walk for half a year. The house HAS to be a ranch with a fenced (or able to be fenced) yard; we would strongly like it to have an attached 2-car garage and first floor laundry, too.
We have lots of pets, so no apartments or condos.
No kids, so no school district concerns.
We don’t have family here; my wife’s is from Western Kentucky while mine are all in NYC. My wife does have an uncle near Philadelphia and an aunt in Boulder, CO - but we don’t particularly wish to live (or not live) near them.
Our house budget is too low for a lot of these (limit $150k or maybe $200k if we really stretch it), so Santa Ana is really a non-starter based on home prices. Denver isn’t looking too plausible, either.
Although our first choice had been Philadelphia, the housing stock really doesn’t come close to meeting our needs at that price point. Ranches up there are pretty awful.
Help! Tell us why we should or should not pick one of these. If you recommend a city, suggest some suitable neighborhoods or towns (not boring surburbia if possible, although it may be unavoidable).
Living in Columbus now, but grew up in the Dallas-Fort-Worth area. Arlington to be specific. In my periodic journeys back to the homeland I seem to find that the housing prices are better than Ohio and a ranch home should be easily found. Although many may have some sort of sunken room. My childhood home had a sunken living room. Temperature extremes won’t be a huge issue as far as outside temperatures go, but would the wild swings between hot outdoors and air conditioned to penguin friendly levels be an issue?
Personally, I find the DFW area to have become a soulless conglomeration of suburbs that is doing its best to resemble southern California. But that maybe an effect of visiting my parents who live in a soulless suburb and do seem happy there.
Once upon a time I would have considered Denver, but the cost of living is higher than Columbus. Atlanta might be the best in that lot, although their traffic can be pretty bad.
If I really HAD to pick one of those, it might well be Atlanta, one of the fastest growing economies in the country. It’s on the east coast, so near the big northern cities, and much cheaper air fares to Europe than, say, Fort Worth. I’m sure you could find a home in the suburbs in your price range, although I’m guessing at that. Growing cities have good restaurants and attract high-quality entertainment. Just some personal thoughts and not based on first-hand knowledge of the city. I do know that I wouldn’t live in Fort Worth for love nor money, nor Santa Ana. Maybe Denver, although it’s somewhat polluted.
I grew up in to Orange County, California, in Anaheim, just next door to Santa Ana, back in the days when SoCal was a great place to live. Back when there were still orange groves and big strawberry fields and uncongested beaches. My entire family still lives in SoCal and annually suggest that I move “home” to be closer to them. I was 22 when I left; have been away for 34 years. There is no amount of money in the world that would entice to move back to Southern California. I can’t speak to your other possible choices, but I strongly suggest you avoid Santa Ana and environs if you can. Just my two cents.
I missed the edit window. Popped back in to say that Southern California is crowded, expensive, and mostly covered in asphalt. If you like freeways, lots and lots of houses, strip malls and questionable air quality, definitely pick Santa Ana. As always, YMMV.
Philadelphia is nice and has plenty of transportation and is close to a lot of other east-coast cities (trains to NYC, Baltimore, DC, Pittsburgh, Lancaster, with connecting service (if not a direct train) to Chicago, Miami, etc.) It can be pretty expensive, but you have a lot of options in three different states (Pennsylvania of course, but also New Jersey (Camden area) and Delaware (Wilmington area)). If you pick a location wisely you might not need a car.
I spent a week in downtown Philadelphia last year, and although there were some cool areas, the people were the least friendly I’ve ever encountered anywhere (and I’ve lived in NYC and near Boston!) What’s nice about Philadelphia?
Denver’s got some pretty affordable but still nice neighborhoods, and pretty much all of them are going to be full of the sorts of houses you’re describing. If you’re willing to commute a little bit (and traffic isn’t terrible there by other city standards) you can probably get someplace really nice with your budget. The climate is actually pretty similar to Cincinatti, although less humidity and a little more snow. Plus mountains! Mountains are super-cool!
Philadelphia (or any of the other cities for that matter) might be more doable if you rent. I doubt 150-200k will buy much of anything in those places.
I’d personally pick Philly but like you said the places I’ve seen near there didn’t seem to be heavy on the 1-stories without steps.
But I would also eliminate Fort Worth since you don’t want boring suburbia. The rest of the choices may or may not be boring themselves but are at least close to interesting things / places (I guess, depending on how close to the mountains you pick in Atlanta if its downtown isnt interesting) The only thing I can think to do in Fort Worth is the water gardens.
The only thing Santa Ana will have going for it is the weather and you already said it was out of your price range. **Jayrey ** is correct in that it is an asphalt wasteland like much of Los Angeles with horrible freeways and traffic.
Among the remaining choices, I think Fort Worth is the best bang for the buck with Atlanta a close second. Denver can have miserable weather in the winter, which will be doubly bad for your wife so I’d cross that off the list first. Philly to me is just as bad, because the weather can stink, and personally, I didn’t like the feel of the city. It struck me the one time I was there as a very blue collar, depressing down, though I’m sure it’s where I was at the time, and that was more than 15 years ago, so things may have improved.
I would be iffy on Philly. While the location is great for travel to east cost cities and it does have culture, I’ve had plenty of friends live there and none of them are particularly fond of the place due to the high levels of crime. I’ve heard that both south AND north philly are shitty (so what the heck is left?! Center philly, that’s what), and west Philly is no garden either. Your only chance may be northeast Philly. Chester, just southwest of Philly, is a town wherein everyone says: DO NOT get off the train at this stop.
Also, one time when I was in line for the Trocadero, it started raining ash with no discernible fire anywhere nearby. While apt for a metal concert, Philly may or may not have been priming up for some sort of satanic ritual on a grand scale. I wouldn’t put it past the place. Is it worth venturing there for a proper cheesesteak now and then? Yes, yes, and yes.
Santa Ana is mixed. There are pockets of nice, and pockets of stinking hell-hole. They aren’t easy to identify. They aren’t clearly labeled… There really are some very nice bits.
If it had been Huntington Beach or Fountain Valley or even Long Beach, I might have said yes. San Diego, most certainly. Santa Ana? Dicey.
Given your housing needs and budget “boring suburbia” is probably where you’re going to end up getting the most for your money. But if you go to Fort Worth, you at least have bonus of Dallas nearby, so at least you get two big cities (three, if you count Denton) with entirely different personalities.
Well, there’s the “bad” parts of the Denver metro proper like Aurora or Commerce City. But a bad neighborhood in Denver isn’t like one in Philly or Atlanta-- they’re basically just less desirable locations, but are still completely livable. On the other hand you’ve got little satellite towns outside of the metro ring proper like Idaho Springs or Bennett, where you’ve got about 45 mins to an hour commute into the city, but $200k or even less will buy you a decent-sized house with a chunk of land.
Granted, I’ve only stayed in Denver with friends (in Commerce City, as it happens) for a week or two every now and again, but my impression is that if you’re not looking in a handful of trendy locations, the real estate market is much more do-able than some other major cities. Perhaps some actual Denver-located dopers can step in and further clarify or refute that.
45 minutes to an hour if your commute is at midnight in good weather. It’ll be an hour until you hit city traffic, then another 45 minutes to your destination.
You can get a house in the Denver metro area for $200K, but it’ll be a bungalow in an older neighborhood. But for a couple with no children, that might be OK. It’ll be a lot less than what you’d find in the midwest. Denver is a great city - there’s always a ton of things to do all year. It is the smallest city with all four major professional sports, plus it has a pro lacrosse team and Major League Soccer, and Boulder is just up the road for top level college sports. There’s also DU hockey. It is rapidly developing a foodie culture, and is the center of the craft beer movement. The only people I’d advise to stay away from Denver are the extremely sedate and those who spend most of their time indoors. It’s still fine for those people, but I wouldn’t pay the premium for living there.
The only severe weather it gets is the occasional blizzard, but you just ride it out indoors for a day and it’ll be 60 ° by the end of the week. No floods, fires are in the mountains and the rare tornadoes are wimpy EF1’s. 300 days of sunshine a year. You get used to that really quickly. It will make moving back to the midwest really hard with the endless grey skies in the winter.
Things you will miss are the big trees, lakes, and that abomination that you call chili.
P.S. Denver isn’t polluted anymore, Chefguy. They’ve done tremendous things with the air quality.