Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a person of color, I always get envious of this thread, I don't feel like I can just take my kids and move to a random non diverse city. It is privilege no having to think about how your kids or family will fit in. Enjoy

Anonymous wrote:As a person of color, I always get envious of this thread, I don't feel like I can just take my kids and move to a random non diverse city. It is privilege no having to think about how your kids or family will fit in. Enjoy

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving to upstate NY. Keeping my remote job, spouse will have to look for something new. House price much lower than here but high property taxes,

Enjoy six months of winter. I'm from there and absolutely refuse to live there year-round.

Anonymous wrote:Moving to upstate NY. Keeping my remote job, spouse will have to look for something new. House price much lower than here but high property taxes,

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

I'm a cheerleader for DC and have no plans to leave, but OMG this so much. This is my biggest complaint about the city, more so that HCOL (dare we say VHCOL?) and traffic. It's so freaking hard to get basic services done. Medical and dental offices don't accept new patients. My dog groomer schedules appointments two months out. You can't just walk into a chain salon and get a haircut for $20. Reliable handymen are impossible to find unless you happen to know someone through your social circle. Any type of home repair? Get three estimates? Bwahahaha. Go with the first company that actually agrees to do the job and then also shows up. I'm sure part of this is that having such a high cost of living drives out the working class that would provide the home / auto / cosmetic services we want without a waiting list.

On the other end of the scale, we don't have much accessibility to a lot of the quirky/cool things other cities have. Much smaller cities have studios for circus arts. There's currently a thread on Reddit about the impossibility of signing up for a pottery class in DC. I remember in the before times I wanted to take cooking lessons, and the local options were both exorbitantly priced and sold out.

I love restaurants as much as the next person and partake in them freely. (I'm one of those weirdos whose spending actually increased during the pandemic because of frequent takeout and extra booze.) But I don't understand why a metro area with such a vibrant and diverse population has very little to offer in terms of vibrant and diverse amenities.

Agree. We just had to get our oil changed and it was a massive hassle.

Anonymous wrote:Moving to upstate NY. Keeping my remote job, spouse will have to look for something new. House price much lower than here but high property taxes,

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a person of color, I always get envious of this thread, I don't feel like I can just take my kids and move to a random non diverse city. It is privilege no having to think about how your kids or family will fit in. Enjoy

Very few cities (especially on the coasts) are non-diverse. Suburbs and rural areas? Yes.

PP here. That is exactly my point, the cities are probably going to have HCOL. Most people on this thread are not moving to big city. I am in IT and considered moving to Austin because I was told it is diverse but I visited and didn't see lot of people like me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People aren't going to tell you *exactly* where they are moving. Why? Because plenty of people on this forum are snobs and will try to rip any place listed to shred. I *love* my home (i.e. the LCOL I left the DMV for) and I don't want to see it criticized by the angry, bitter people who think the DMV, New York and San Francisco are the only place to live. I will NEVER mention it by name on this forum. And, yes, my home has
1. Great school district (highly rated by all objective measures).
2. LCOL
3. Better traffic.
4. Better weather.
5. I make significantly more here than I did in the DMV.
6. Laid back attitude

These places are out there. You just have to look. Some people will never "see" them because they only want to live in places considered desirable by their social circle.

**quietly agreeing**

The herd mentality is strong. The only places that aren’t trashed (and even then, they are by some) are the places that have already been deemed “acceptable,” like Austin, and those places have already been ruined by an influx of people from the coasts.

I won’t post where we moved because one of two things would happen (1) people on here would trash it and explain the myriad ways I really don’t love living here or (2) I would actually convince people that it’s awesome, and we would be overrun, even more so than we are already.

FWiW, our house wasn’t cheaper than our house in DC, it it is bigger, has a water view, and nicer in every way. Everything here is so much less stressful. Everything — from kids stuff (schools, car pool, summer camp, etc) to little things like going to the grocery store.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Where are you going?
2) What is your HHI in the DMV (and what will it be where you are going)?

By HCOL I really mean real estate. That is truly the only think here that I think is ridiculous here. Food is honestly the same here as back home in a relatively lower COL area.

Childcare is relatively high here too, although lower cost options do exist. But I think childcare cost here are among the highest in the country.

I also think form a quality of life perspective, it's the cost of childcare plus its scarcity. When I speak to friends in other cities, even cities where childcare costs just as much as it does here or more (like NYC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle) they are always surprised by the hoops we have to jump through just to get a spot in a daycare. You see that other places but only with certain, very in demand centers that offer special services like bilingual education or that are attached to prestigious institutions. We sat on waitlists for months just to get a spot at a regular, decent daycare that was reasonably close to one of our offices. That's unusual.

There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People aren't going to tell you *exactly* where they are moving. Why? Because plenty of people on this forum are snobs and will try to rip any place listed to shred. I *love* my home (i.e. the LCOL I left the DMV for) and I don't want to see it criticized by the angry, bitter people who think the DMV, New York and San Francisco are the only place to live. I will NEVER mention it by name on this forum. And, yes, my home has
1. Great school district (highly rated by all objective measures).
2. LCOL
3. Better traffic.
4. Better weather.
5. I make significantly more here than I did in the DMV.
6. Laid back attitude

These places are out there. You just have to look. Some people will never "see" them because they only want to live in places considered desirable by their social circle.

**quietly agreeing**

The herd mentality is strong. The only places that aren’t trashed (and even then, they are by some) are the places that have already been deemed “acceptable,” like Austin, and those places have already been ruined by an influx of people from the coasts.

I won’t post where we moved because one of two things would happen (1) people on here would trash it and explain the myriad ways I really don’t love living here or (2) I would actually convince people that it’s awesome, and we would be overrun, even more so than we are already.

FWiW, our house wasn’t cheaper than our house in DC, it it is bigger, has a water view, and nicer in every way. Everything here is so much less stressful. Everything — from kids stuff (schools, car pool, summer camp, etc) to little things like going to the grocery store.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago. Bought a SFH in 2017, 5bd 2ba with a 1/2 acre corner lot for $335k. Great school district and 30 min train to downtown.

Seriously?! What suburb is this? I am from Chicago and would love to move back, but we're still finding that a normal house (3/4 beds, 2.5-4 baths, 2000-2700 sf) without any glaring deficits (half a block from an interstate, on a main artery, etc.) in an inner or "midring" suburb, in a good school district, in a town with a train is at least $600k. Plus the taxes are crazy. I'd love to know where you live! (If for no other reason than my own curiosity.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

I'm a cheerleader for DC and have no plans to leave, but OMG this so much. This is my biggest complaint about the city, more so that HCOL (dare we say VHCOL?) and traffic. It's so freaking hard to get basic services done. Medical and dental offices don't accept new patients. My dog groomer schedules appointments two months out. You can't just walk into a chain salon and get a haircut for $20. Reliable handymen are impossible to find unless you happen to know someone through your social circle. Any type of home repair? Get three estimates? Bwahahaha. Go with the first company that actually agrees to do the job and then also shows up. I'm sure part of this is that having such a high cost of living drives out the working class that would provide the home / auto / cosmetic services we want without a waiting list.

On the other end of the scale, we don't have much accessibility to a lot of the quirky/cool things other cities have. Much smaller cities have studios for circus arts. There's currently a thread on Reddit about the impossibility of signing up for a pottery class in DC. I remember in the before times I wanted to take cooking lessons, and the local options were both exorbitantly priced and sold out.

I love restaurants as much as the next person and partake in them freely. (I'm one of those weirdos whose spending actually increased during the pandemic because of frequent takeout and extra booze.) But I don't understand why a metro area with such a vibrant and diverse population has very little to offer in terms of vibrant and diverse amenities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a person of color, I always get envious of this thread, I don't feel like I can just take my kids and move to a random non diverse city. It is privilege no having to think about how your kids or family will fit in. Enjoy

Very few cities (especially on the coasts) are non-diverse. Suburbs and rural areas? Yes.

PP here. That is exactly my point, the cities are probably going to have HCOL. Most people on this thread are not moving to big city. I am in IT and considered moving to Austin because I was told it is diverse but I visited and didn't see lot of people like me.