I have really enjoyed the comments on the last post.
The thing I have come to realize about myself is I don’t really love BIG cities. There is something about being inside that massive tightly-packed urban space that makes me feel very claustrophobic.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about the things that I like about the mid-sized city (suburb) we live in. I think it is that we get a lot of the perks of city life without the hassle inherent in big-city living. Moving to a bigger city, we would most likely have to give up the following things we like about living here:
- Proximity to our extended family.
- About a 20 minute commute to downtown, even at rush hour.
- One of the country’s best library systems only one block away.
- Extremely low cost of living (Our house isn’t fancy, but it only cost about $225,000)
- The girls can walk to their elementary, Jr. High and High School.
- Walking to the farmer’s market, ice cream store and pub.
- Extremely low crime rate
- The convenience of living in the suburbs (e.g. can drive to get groceries, park in our driveway and unload), but still in a real neighborhood.
- Access to nature (lots of parks, state parks, etc)
- Kid-centered community
It is the extended family that really makes this decision so difficult. We could manage (even if we didn’t enjoy) giving up the other thing. The big things that our city lacks? So far, Chinese immersion school seems to be the only one that matters.
I thought that by moving to a bigger city, I would be happy about the possibilty of more diversity. The research I have done, shows that it isn’t necessarily the case in the cities we are considering in the areas where we would want to live*. In fact, most places the percentage of Asian kids in the girl’s school would go down. I like the idea of more comprehensive diversity, but when push comes to shove, I still don’t want them to be one of very few Asian kids.
The fact of the matter is we probably wouldn’t have much choice of where we get to go. If Mr. A decides to apply for the job he wants, we would probably pick 3 cities and only apply there. But the odds of getting the job aren’t super-high, so we would just have to go where luck takes us.
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*Yes, I realize that the areas we prefer says a lot about our privilege and the reality of our committment to diversity, but it is what it is.
If Denver is really in the running, you should check out the Stapleton neighborhood. It sounds very much like the neighborhood you descibe. It’s also about 10 minutes from the Denver International School. We are considering enrolling our daughter there when she is old enough. And we do love Stapleton. If you have any questions about Denver or the neighborhood, I’d be happy to try and answer them.
http://www.stapletondenver.com/
Laura
That list is HUGE, and important, and it describes all the things that we DON’T have, except perhaps “access to nature.” Sigh. But it’s done now. My kids are almost done with their childhoods, and we’ve lived where we live, for better or for worse. We’ve been pretty much cemented here because of my spouse’s work and how long it took him to establish himself and how he just couldn’t fathom starting over somewhere else. It’s been good but challenging on many levels. I think you have a LOT of good stuff in your current situation, and yeah, a nice house for $225K? That’s unbelievable. You couldn’t get a studio condo for that here, and it would be in a crime-ridden neighborhood, to boot.
Don’t move! I am envious as I read that list.
I like a lot of things about where we live, but I wish we were closer to my family, and we will be lucky to get a 1000 sq ft house here.
I don’t like big cities either AT ALL and would be very unhappy living in one. Columbus is a better town than a lot of people realize. Perfect? Far from it. But it’s not the po-dunk, backwoods midwestern village people seem to think it. (Studio 360? I’m talking to YOU!)
Chicago has very nice suburbs. We live in the Northwest suburbs (Algonquin, Lake in the Hills, Huntley area) These suburbs are new but you get more house for your money. The schools are very good and have good programs. What I like about these suburbs is that there are a lot of young families with small kids. The downside is that we are a little far from downton but there is a Metra service and highways.
and if you think about Ohio is only 7-8 hours away driving (it is not too bad). Good luck in your decision.
BTW. My husband is Vietnamese-Chinese so we know very good Vietnamese restaurants…….
Also, Obama is from Illinois so there you go………..
I remember you mentioning Philadelphia as one of your possibilities. I live outside of Philly and worked with a university program that offered a summer writing program for kids. I helped get registrations together and in the process learned that the suburb of Audubon, near Valley Forge, has a relatively large number of Asian kids–about half the children that enrolled in the program from Audubon’s school district (Methacton) were Asian. Wikipedia says that the Asian population of Audubon proper is only 6%, but I’d guess that’s growing, since from speaking with parents for enrollment stuff I learned that most of the families are fairly recent immigrants.
I don’t know much about the area otherwise, in terms of income levels or school quality, but I know that it’s fairly close to the city and close to public transportation (SEPTA, which is pretty decent–my husband and I both take the train to work every day). You might also want to check out one of the many small towns on the Main Line (google for the list of ‘em, I guess) since they are mostly cute little suburbs with good public and private schools, walkable towns, and lots of family stuff, and they are also right along SEPTA’s R5 line, so Mr. A could easily commute to the city.
Yikes, that’s long for someone who typically doesn’t comment here. Anyway, just some stuff to think about if Philly is indeed still in the running.
You should probably just move to St. Paul. I think we have all of the things on your list, plus Chinese immersion as part of the public school district. Of course I see that the right job for Mr. A does not exist here and the winters are terrible, but I thought I’d give my plug even so. Good luck with your decision.
One thing I realized after reading all of yesterday’s responses to your post: there is no perfect place to live. All of the areas seem great on one level, then not so appealing on another, to me anyways. But I’ve really enjoyed reading about them all!
damn! I am moving to middle america! screw the beach! Your city sounds great. Boston is cold, expensive, not too friendly, lousy public transit, pockets of diversity that don’t mix and lots of traffic)
(note: portland ore is one of our choices to transfer to and it sounds wonderful. It sounds like Toronto. which is our “if a republican wins the election we are jumping ship.” thank god for dual citizenship choice. )
Not sure what kind of job your hubby is looking for but Milwaukee has everything on your list. Fantasic arts community, world class orchestra, ballet and opera companies. art galleries. Sports teams, great school systems. Since the 70′s many large companies in China and Japan have had their US branches here. Kikoman, etc. One of Wisconsin’s biggest exports was always the wood for chopsticks believe it or not. Last summer the Milwaukee Bucks signed 7′ Yi Jianlian from China. In the first 30 days of a new trade agreement over 200 companies from China applied to do business here. The signs on the Bucks sidelines are now in Chinese & all games are broadcast there. Chicago is an hour away. you can also live in between as many people do. I’m a realtor, let me know if you want me to send you community information. Milwaukee is a community that embraces it’s different ethnic roots. Every weekend , all summer a different ethnic festival takes place here. Just a thought. Good luck. I know how much stress this can put on your plate.
Your city sounds like ours. Our town has a Chinese immersion in the works, but I’m not sure exactly when it will be opening. Have you looked into Portland? I know it’s bigger and probably more expensive, but it’s got the diversity and a successful Mandarin immersion program.
Your list makes me want to move to you – Columbus? If only my in-laws didn’t live there….Places we’re considering when we move back to the States in a few years are – Portland or Madison or in our dreams SF. I’ve lived in both Chicago and Denver and aside from the proximity of the mountains Chicago was the more pleasant city. Smog in Denver was pretty bad when I lived there – don’t know if they’ve done anything about that.
I, *so* totally agree with your statement you said here…
“I don’t really love BIG cities. There is something about being inside that massive tightly-packed urban space that makes me feel very claustrophobic.”
Here here to that, I had to totally shake my head in agreement with you. : ) I don’t care for big cities either. I would never want to live in the heart of Tokyo nor the heart of Osaka. Jammed packed trains where you feel like a sardine. People everywhere, all the time. The city truly never sleeps. No place to park. Ugh.
I’m from Denver, like I said. Born and raised. I liked that everything was easy to get to. Wanna drive to the city, takes 5-10 minutes. Drive to the suburbs, everything within easy access. When we moved to Japan, it was a no brainer we’d move out to the country. In Japan, there’s no in-between. You either choose smack in the heart of the city or the country-side. Ha ha ha. No burbs, not really. Ha ha ha. I opted for the country side. Like you said, there’s virtually no crime. My boys, can run and get fresh air in our fenced in yard. Houses are bigger. Yard sizes are nice (excellent size for Japan but not as big as American yards though). Quiet and peaceful. I will never regret not living in a big city, like Tokyo, at all.
I am enjoying your and Mr. A’s adventure with picking and deciding. I know you guys will pick the best place for you guys to call home. : )
That list mirrors my city exactly. EXACTLY. We live right on the Boston line, we have the best library in the state and one of the top 5 in the country, we have small villages within our city of 90K, and each village has a small shopping area where kids can get icecream and candy and all sorts of stuff. We have excellent schools INCLUDING a chinese immersion program at one elementary school. Our middle and high schools also offer chinese. We have a good size Asian population, we have Asian schools (private) and social clubs. We’ve been voted the safest city in America numerous times, we have very little crime rate.
My kids ride their bikes, walk, or take public transportation all over the city. So do their friends. The level of freedom from living in a subway suburb is amazing. My kids can attend sporting events like the Red Sox games by themselves (they are teens now). There is so much less shlepping around, too.
There are MANY MANY families here with chinese adopted kids and I know that there is some sort of social gathering for these families. There are plenty of Asians of all kinds to get along with, we have a VERY good asian supermarket (on par with ranch 99 in the bay area) and other smaller stores as well.
I think it’s a great place to live, butyou have to decide on what kind of housing you’re willing to live in. It isn’t cheap, but it’s also not bazallion dollar housing, either.
If the Chinese immersion school is your only concern, you might consider other ways to help your girls become bilingual. For the cost of private school, you could hire a private tutor and invest in tons of books/CDs/DVDs and enroll them in classes, etc. etc. Maybe host an au pair? Do a language exchange with somone who wants to practice English? I was reading a book on bilingualism and it said it requires about 2 1/2 hours a day of a second language for a child to become fluent. Could be doable after school or in other ways.
There is a new Chinese immersion school opening very close to us, but it seems really intense (the preK kids are learning a lot of characters and have been in school for like 2 weeks). The director has great ideas and it taking on opening a K-5 with preschool for next fall. I think as Mandarin is becoming a more popular language to learn, more schools are going to pop up to meet demand. So your choices may expand that way as well.
some big cities have neighborhoods that feel a lot like you describe.
for example, i live in oakland. people think “oakland, a great place to get shot/carjacked etc.” but i live in an area where i can walk to shops in about 5-10 min, park outside my house (or in the driveway), and there is a ton of diversity; next door = japanese grandmother, japanese-american grandaughter and her husband, other next door = af. am family, across the street = african (nigerian) family, a chinese + american interracial family with 2 kids, a chinese family…and that’s just the 4 or so houses right near ours.
plus i can see the bay from my deck, and there are huge redwoods in my neighbor’s yard that gives our place a treehouse feel. i have lived in cities (including columbus), towns etc. so i have some basis for describing that ‘city feel’ vs. the ‘suburb vibe’
so, my advice to you is research the semi-suburbs/neighborhoods hidden in the cities you want to live near/in. then, if you can at all afford it, go visit, and drive around those areas, have lunch at the local cafe, see if there are kids there, see what races make up the majority of the folks in the ‘hood…
good luck!!
I don’t usually comment, but thought I would chime in here. We relocated to Washington, D.C. from Louisville, KY 18 mos ago. We are currently renting (for $2200 a month) an unupdated 1960s bilevel home. This house sells for about $650K here. We OWNED an identical house in Kentucky when we moved here, except ours was updated – and we paid a whopping $160K for it. Did I mention that this home is about 12 miles from the District, but that commute is about 1 and a half hours by metro and anywhere from 1-3 hours by car EACH WAY? Oh, and riding the metro to work costs me about $12 A DAY.
Even aside from housing, the cost of living here is astronomical. Because stores are so small you can forget about getting less costly store brands, and many things are simply unavailable. Double coupon day? Forget it. A single gallon of milk runs nearly $5. Our daughter is adopted from Guatemala. There is a lot of diversity here (and the museums are free!), I’ll give you that, but it is so expensive to live here that we can hardly enjoy our lives – and we are BOTH practicing lawyers. Good luck with your decision, but if I were you I’d stay away from D.C. if possible. My in-laws lived in Chicago and had better luck.
Oh, and I don’t know your age, but that may be an issue as well. I’m 28 and have been married for 6 years. Our 16 mos old daughter is our first child. All the other first-time moms I know are in their late thirties and early forties. People wait much longer here to have children, which means it’s hard for my husband and I to find other couples we can relate to. Most people our age aren’t even considering marriage yet. Sorry to ramble, but I’m passionate about this. I’m sure others will have different perspectives. Feel free to email me if you DO decide to move here and I will try to give you some tips to make it more bearable. Good luck.
That is a pretty awesome list of amenities. If anybody was ever able to drag me south of the border, I’d probably move to your city!
As it is . . . for what you have now, all I can think of to suggest is that Mr A may want to consider applying for a position in southern Ontario, maybe Mississauga or Toronto! I am kidding, mostly, but . . . that was the only even possibly-constructive suggestion I could think of. In Mississauga you can get a 4 bedroom nearly-new build in the 400k (CAD) range, and there are even suburbs in Toronto where 400-500k is still an asking price! As for Toronto itself, the diversity is pretty dazzling . . . of course, I assume if those locations were options you’d have mentioned them! Still, it’s something to consider; you’ll find mls.ca has pretty comprehensive listings if you’re even idly curious.
Whatever you do decide, though, I hope that the choice only gets easier from here.
Sarah (comment above) must live pretty far out, because from where I am, a metro ride to downtown DC is only about 40 minutes (that includes time to drive to the metro, park, and wait for the train). To drive in would be anywhere from 20 minutes to 45, depending on traffic.
The cost of living is high, I guess, but you get used to it and I assume it’s comparable to other big cities. I’ve been living in the DC area for over 10 years, and am not a lawyer, and light-years away from making a lawyer’s salary. My husband is a lawyer, but not a well-paid, big-firm lawyer. Anyway, we’re able to live quite happily on our piddling salaries.
Also, since the public schools are all so good, you’d be saving a lot of money that way — other cities you’d want to consider private schools. And at least when I was paperchasing, I had found that the schools in my cluster had somewhere around a 15% Asian population.
Re: the age of first-time moms, I think it varies a lot. Yes, there are many older first-time moms (35-40+). But there are also a lot of younger, “traditional-aged” moms as well. They just travel in different circles. Especially since they can’t afford the expensive housing close in, like the older moms can.
Your list of what you like about your area is very similar to what we like about our area.
Our extended family, however, is mainly still in California so we have to have the Big Discussion every single time we visit. The endless real estate talk whenever we go there drags me down – Houses in my husband’s friend’s new ‘hood have dropped more than our entire house cost but we still couldn’t afford it (neither can the friend, who lives with his father). I used to be desperate to move back to CA but now, with kids, I fear that it would someday be necessary (e.g.: when the imploding of MI’s economy turns it into an actual black hole).
Of course, beyond housing prices, part of it is the same claustrophobic feeling from being smack in the middle of large urban areas.
to reply to the comment above… yes there are lots of asians in the boston area but try being asian or an inter-racial family its not so appealing. We know more white families with chinese kids than asian or asian/white families with asian kids. There are 4 asian kids in M’s school (including him). 1 kid is from an AM/WF family like ours and the other 2 are adopted. My husband doesn’t really like the vibe here, he says he definitely feels like an outsider. That being said I love the area I just wish it was more “minority friendly”. Though we lived in Toronto so we are just spoiled by asians being the minority-majority.
Kathy – I’m not that far out, only like 12 miles, but I drive 4 miles down route one to park at Huntington Station, then take the yellow line from Huntington to Pentagon, transfer to the Blue line at pentagon and take it to Farragut west. It’s 1 1/2 hours every day. I do work at a big firm, maybe that’s why I can’t find anyone my age I can relate to. Most of the partners I work for are just now starting families. Maybe it’s just the firm lifestyle. Because of the hours, I don’t meet many people who aren’t lawyers.