Richmond, Raleigh/Durham, Asheville, Pittsburgh, Philly, parts of Baltimore

Decatur, GA
It’s a diverse community. You could find a cute house (most are bungalow style) in/near downtown, which is quite walkable for every day living, restaurants and shopping. Metro connects you to all of Atlanta, which has plenty of arts, sporting events, colleges, etc.

Good suggestions PP. Pittsburgh will be a tough sell for DH because he won't like the proximity to some extended family he doesn't like to see, but you are right that the Deep South is probably not for us.

How pricy is Chicago? Anyone know anything about Providence?

As for the Baltimore suggestion, we have looked at this a ton because it would allow us to stay in current jobs, but the biggest issue is that real estate there is atrocious -- does not hold value and real property taxes are really high. So even though housing is much cheaper than DC, it feels like a bad financial decision to move there. We'd probably be better off staying in a condo in DC (which is presently all we can afford) in terms of longterm investment.

Baltimore

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone lived in Pittsburgh / can speak to what it’s like to live there? And more specifically, is it hard to “break in” as an outsider with no connections ?

(I’m not OP)

I’m in a suburb of Pittsburgh. I would have loved to move to Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze area but my child with an IEP was older when we moved here and I didn’t want to take a chance with Pittsburgh Public Schools. That being said, it is super easy to get to the city. Much less traffic than the DMV. There are plenty of people who grew up here and have families here going back generations. But there are more and more people moving to Pittsburgh for jobs and we have found people here without local extended family to spend holidays with. Most of the suburbs have newcomers clubs. I belonged to mine for a few months but it was filled with people of all ages and some people made nice connections there. We really like it here and find people generally very friendly. However, I am the type of person who doesn’t need to have a million friends and I don’t really care what people think of me - so there’s that lol. Overall, it’s a great city with lots of different neighborhoods and lots of great suburbs with differing price ranges and great schools.

Asheville? it's on the higher end COL wise for NC, but nowhere near DMV

Maybe the Hampden neighborhood in Baltimore. I also like Highlandtown. If you have a budget I can be more specific!

Has anyone lived in Pittsburgh / can speak to what it’s like to live there? And more specifically, is it hard to “break in” as an outsider with no connections ?

(I’m not OP)

Anonymous wrote:Philly

+1. Philly fits all the criteria.

Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh? Carnegie Hall probably puts on several shows, and of course CMU Drama dept is top notch.

Philly

OP, try Pittsburgh or Baltimore if you do not want to move to the south.

Pittsburgh probably.

I've got to get out of the DMV -- COL is insane here and we'll never catch up. But we're struggling to find somewhere to move. We need to be in a city, preferably something fairly walkable (we're okay having a car but would like to be able to commute and do most day-to-day things on foot/bike/public transport. We also need a decent arts scene, with museums/galleries, some live music, and some performing arts. We understand that a lower COL city won't have the same high quality of arts as DC, but we just want a lively scene that attracts some decent visual and performing artists.

Any ideas? Assume schools and work are not an issue -- we have quite a bit of flexibility there.