Looking to move? Consider the Triangle area of North Carolina. Seriously.

[mnhtnbb]

I've been going through some changes in the last couple of years. Those changes--together with the political situation in the country--made me take into consideration moving abroad. Or relocating in the US.

Just in the last week I have decided I'm not moving to France or Italy or Spain or Portugal. I'm not moving to Bonaire. I'm not moving back to Chapel Hill. I'm not buying a condo. Instead, I have decided to stay in my same downtown Raleigh high rise apartment building and move back up to the 17th floor with the fabulous view, staying in the same northeast corner with the same floor plan I have now. I'll just have a much better view of the terrific sunrise.

So, as part of the process of making this decision, I have looked (on-line) at a lot of apartment buildings. Recently, it seems 2 bedroom apartments are being discounted at a pretty good rate, all over Raleigh. In fact, when I did a search this morning I came up with more than 5000 apartments being available in Raleigh through apartments.com. My building alone is offering a free month for moving into a 2 bedroom before mid-December.

OK. It's one thing to have apartments being discounted (probably the developers went wild and overbuilt). What about unemployment? I just checked that and it's as low as it's ever been: 3% for Wake County (which is where Raleigh is located) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NCWAKE3URN

There must be a good number of jobs available. It's a tech area. Also a big area for health care and higher education.

If you've been thinking about making a move to a lower cost of living area of the country, take a look at the Triangle: Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill.
And come bring more blue votes!

[OnDoutside]

1. But isn't it a bad state to be in if you become ill ?

[mnhtnbb]

12. Why would you ask that?

There are two major University hospitals--UNC and Duke--in the Triangle area, along with many other affiliated hospitals and clinics. It's an area known for excellent health care.

[OnDoutside]

35. From the fact that it's a republican state, and as we've seen

They're happy to screw with healthcare in the state.

[mnhtnbb]

38. It is a purple state

and The Triangle area is blue.

Yes, the Republicans have prevented Medicaid expansion, but the issue of accessibility is different from the issue of quality.

Republican control of the Legislature is not the historic norm here.
And Dems are going to take back the Legislature.

[OnDoutside]

43. I was looking at it from the point where someone became ill and

lost their job. Just a bit south of NC, in FL, a friend of my sister in law, a fellow nurse, got cancer and ended up losing her job because she was taking too much time off to get chemotherapy. She could no longer afford the drugs and died. I hope you are right in the changing times in NC.

[nolabear]

25. Nope. It has two of the best teaching hospitals in the country.

I worked at Duke Hospital years ago on a cutting edge research ward. And I have relatives that have been a major part of another NC hospital and are considered among the top doctors in the country. The care is typically outstanding.

NC is an interesting place. I lived there for years and Mr. Bear was born and raised there. It’s got a tremendous ecology and a very large college educated, liberal, diverse population. The government has skewed conservative largely because the old boy network is strong and there has been lots of rural area, but honestly, it’s a lovely place.

[bearsfootball516]

28. Plus, the state is trending blue.

It’s going the same as Virginia, just not as quickly.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. I was in Raleigh a few weeks ago. It's a very nice area. Seems to be growing.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. we've lived in Raleigh for 28 years. It is lively, lots of culture and arts.

and for us getting expensive and crowded (traffic!) and summers are really getting hotter and more humid.

We are now house hunting in western NC... mountain area, around Hendersonville. Cooler summers, less traffic, lower prices. Only detriment is greater distance to the Outer Banks.

It is a great state to live in ... something for all tastes!

[mnhtnbb]

14. I'm going to come visit the mountain area

in the summer.

[NRaleighLiberal]

22. once we get there, open invitation!

[mnhtnbb]

39. Thanks!

Next summer!

[Raftergirl]

4. I could

never move to a Red state. I’d be perpetually aggravated.

[Garrett78]

5. I don't plan on leaving CA, but I just want to point out that NC should be considered purple.

[Raftergirl]

7. Not good enough for me.

Two R Senators
Majority R Representatives
NC Legislature majority R.

[customerserviceguy]

8. And it stays that way

until enough progressives move there. You do know that NC went for Obama in 2008, don't you?

[Raftergirl]

9. Of course I know that.

I’ll be dead before NC becomes Virginia. .

I’m quite happy in my high tax Blue state.

[mnhtnbb]

15. That's going to change.

Finally, the gerrymandering done after the 2010 election by Republicans is going to be thrown out. Prior to 2010, there were 7 Dem House Reps and 6 Repub House Reps.

We have a Democratic Governor. The tide is turning.

[mnhtnbb]

18. I left CA in 1988!

[TheBlackAdder]

54. RTP? No thanks. Blue or not. Folks up north still get called Yankees when visiting there.

[elleng]

10. Thanks, and always glad to see you're happy!

WONDERED about your changed view, as 'a room with a view' is critically important to me; I have the river, including sun AND moon set, (from living/sitting room,) creek from bedroom, and cove from kitchen window!

[mnhtnbb]

16. I also see moon rise from my apartment.

The only thing missing is a water view.

I

[elleng]

20. Gotcha!

Been catching moon rise from patio, over the creek after sunset! Wide angle rarely wide enough to catch both creek + moon, as so many trees around.

[mnhtnbb]

46. Here it is tonight

In the midst of the Belt of Venus



For those unfamiliar with the Belt of Venus

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_of_Venus

[elleng]

47. NICE and clear!

JUST caught it, amidst clouds and trees.

[lostnfound]

11. Cary is wonderful

Convenient, well-run government, super low crime, greenways, lots of trees.

[mnhtnbb]

19. Yes it is.

My oldest son lives in Cary.

[OliverQ]

13. I want to move to Europe still. Sadly I have no way to do so.

[mnhtnbb]

17. If I were 10 years younger

I might have done it.

[DFW]

27. I did.

It is not the paradise some wish it to be. But it can be gotten used to, as can many places.

First thing is you MUST learn the language of the country you are moving to. Yes, you can always find someone who speaks English, but you'll never be part of your new land if you can't speak the language. You can always find someone who speaks German in Dallas, too, but if ALL you speak is German, moving to Dallas will be one lonely undertaking. Most countries here give a language test before they even consider an application for a residence permit. Then you need a work permit, proof of financial stability (job security or personal wealth), proof of health insurance, a good reason why they should accept you, etc. etc. Don't even SAY the words "welfare" or "unemployed."

Or, find a grandparent born in an EU country, and apply for a dual nationality. Stupid rule, but it works for some countries (Ireland is famous for this, e.g.). I knew a woman from Colorado who wanted to move to the EU, only spoke so-so French, and no real reason for them to take her. She found that one of her grandfathers was born in Luxembourg, left for the USA when he was still a baby. She went to Luxembourg, researched her family tree, proved that her grandfather had indeed been born a citizen of Luxembourg, and a year later got her Luxembourg passport, and with it, her golden ticket to EU residency and a work permit. Don't even bother if you aren't 100% sure, and you had better have a lot of free time on your hands.

I went through the ringer, and got accepted (it helped that I am married to a German and speak the language fluently), but what a circus. Of course, when one of the most beautiful women I ever laid eyes on said, "come live with me on the banks of the Rhein River," I said, "just show me what hoops you want me to jump through."

[emmaverybo]

30. I don't think most pointing to the great benefits Europe offers realize that even with marriage,

immigration is tough, a long process, and you must prove financial independence and self-sufficiency as well as buy private health insurance or show you can pay for it. Those socialized med countries do not serve undocumented with full benefits either once they live in the country.

For instance, France which has taken in many refugees, and many immigrants over the years, refuses to give West Africans papers—so they protest weekly as they can not get jobs, social services help, full health benefits, even for their children, some on their own without any protection.

I could marry my long-term partner tomorrow, but even though he has dual citizenship with Ireland and America, the process is daunting. And no worries about language except to understand their accents.

Congratulations to you! You got the lady, the country, but I know you had to work hard at getting accepted. Now you can live and work in any EU country.

[mnhtnbb]

34. I have a friend who moved to France

10 years ago. He speaks French and German fluently, as well as English, and is a teacher. He landed a teaching job in an international School in Lyon without much trouble. He married and then divorced last year. Says he will never come back to live in the US.

He is now a French citizen and has a French passport. He was in his late 30's when he moved to France.

[emmaverybo]

45. Not easy at all these days though, but language opens the door on jobs. I'd never come back either.

[DFW]

37. Actually, I can only live and work in Germany unless my wife moves.

Our daughters are German citizens, so they can live and work anywhere, but I only have the local permit, not citizenship. But I wouldn't want to live anywhere else anyway. She is German, I'm used to her and her culture. If I were to live anywhere else in Europe, it would be Switzerland, and they aren't in the EU. But I speak all languages spoken there (except Romansch), wouldn't apply for welfare, and could get local Swiss sponsors, so I probably could do it. I learned nine European languages, partly for fun, partly for work. I learned two of them by deliberately asking locals to speak to me slowly and clearly until I was comfortable with them (Dutch and Catalan).'re one of us."

Since my employer is in the USA, I get zero benefits of my German de facto 50% tax rate, no pension or health insurance (a German insurer quoted me €30,000 a year in premiums due to a pre-existing condition). So I have to put aside some savings in case something drastic happens. I don't keep my savings in Germany anyway, although part of their Constitution, drawn up as a counter to Nazi confiscation practices, forbids double taxation, so a proposed wealth tax was already struck down by their Supreme Court as unconstitutional. As it is, the Germans refuse to honor parts of the USA-Germany double taxation treaty, and so they are wanting 50% on income that was already source-taxed at 40% in the States. The jury is literally still out on that one, probably will be for another 8 years.

As for getting accepted, I think I qualify for that. I was once with a group of German colleagues, one of who made a disparaging remark about their foreign colleagues (same line of work). I said, hey hold on there. He said "you don't count. You are one of us."

[emmaverybo]

44. Well i meant accepted into the country legally. That must have felt so great to hear your colleagues

count you as one of them. Language is key. Wonder if you could get health insurance here to cover you there. Blue anthem has urgent care and emergency coverage that cover even those who decide to live in any one of the over a hundred countries they have negotiated with (well with certain hospitals in them). UHC does out of country.

Anyhow, you are in a great position as a linguist! Despite the cost, what a life. And your daughters
have access to such a superior educational experience all the way around than offered here.

Thank you for the details! I was much interested.

[DFW]

51. Funny that you should say that about the German educational system

They HATED their German schools. The system was rigid, elitist, and designed in a very Darwinian way to humiliate and eliminate the timid (regardless of intelligence or ability) and reward the aggressive. Math teachers marked children wrong if they solved problems in a creative way instead of "their" way, and English teachers gave one of my daughters near failing grades for using correct English instead of "their" English. I saw one correction in which a perfectly correct English word was crossed out as wrong, and a fantasy word that Trump himself couldn't have thought up was substituted. We protested the grade to the State education ministry, who confirmed the low grade without even looking at the work. My girls couldn't WAIT to get outta there and go to school in the States.

My elder daughter, the shy one who always got crapped on by German schools, called me up just before graduation from her college in New York, and asked "what does valedictorian mean, and why do I have to give a speech?" She had been so used to being told she was worthless in Germany, that she was totally unprepared to be named best in her class. Her speech went fine, by the way.

Her younger sister took a high school year "abroad (for Germany, that is)" in Hawaii, and liked it (surprise!) so much that she wanted to stay on another year and graduate there. I warned her that German universities wouldn't recognize her US high school diploma, since high school in our state (Nordrhein-Westfalen) runs 13 years. She said, then to hell with Germany, I'll apply to a US college. She did, got in, graduated magna, and applied to law school. The US law schools only looked at LSAT numbers, and her English legalese wasn't good enough for a high score. She got into a "second tier" law school, again graduated magna, got a great job offer in Germany by a firm that needed a bilingual EU national with a US bar exam. She said here I am. She became their youngest partner ever at 31, and now makes three times what I do (she is now 34).

One funny scene--in Germany, you have to de-register your child when they switch to another school. So, when she had gotten into college in the USA, she still had to go to her old school in Düsseldorf and tell them she was leaving. They were very snotty (how DARE you want to leave OUR school?) and shoved a form in our fill out. One line was for listing the "new" school. So we filled in "George Washington University, Washington, D.C. USA." The school official started reading what we wrote, and stopped at the "new" school. Her snark left her, and she said in wonderment, "uhh, well, much success to you." It never occurred to her that someone in their school might be bright enough to be an exception. The German system doesn't deal well with exceptions.

The German educational system isn't always all it is reputed to be.

[emmaverybo]

55. I am thinking of the violence in our public schools, the lack of funding for many activities so that

parent booster clubs have to step in (sports, the arts), standardized testing determining curriculum, that in Germany my partner’s daughter (raised from 2 on there) went on school trips to Turkey and other countries, and was so well prepared for college.

I am not even talking about school shooting violence, but the every day sort. I taught an older adult college student who sent his high school age son back to a war torn country to get him away from the daily incidents in our city’s public school. I had to send my daughter out of state to a small town, so maybe it is regional or bigger town related, but a recurrent theme I heard from parents who immigrated here was that in the European countries they came from, public education at “home” was comparable to private here.

Your first paragraph, however, characterizing the German system and giving examples from your daughters’ experience with attitude, pedagogy, and bureaucracy convinces me I lack information!

I completely defer to your much closer look at essential differences and will stick to touting the Irish public school system over our own now.

Congratulation to your daughters not only surviving their educational experience, but thriving in the best way.

[DFW]

56. We gave them a LOT of support.

No matter WHAT their schools told them, WE told them that if they applied themselves seriously, we were behind them, and would always have their backs. This reassurance gave them the courage to strike out on their own. We told them there is NOTHING they couldn't do, and pounded it into them that gender didn't matter until they both believed it--and now they do.

Don't get me wrong, they are exceptional young women now, who had support that many gifted children do not (my wife is nothing short of amazing--she could have been a model and chose to be a social worker instead), plus parents who made sure they embraced their bi-cultural upbringing, and told them to exploit that gift to the max if and when they could. The main thing is, a child has to feel their parents CARE, or else, that's just one more disadvantage to overcome.

I know exactly zip about Ireland, have never even been there, even though it's less than a 2 hour flight from me. But I've been struggling against injustices in the German system (not only education) for as long as I've been involved with it. As anywhere, you are thankful for the good, and try to improve the bad where you can, and fight it where you can't.

[Kaleva]

21. How will climate change affect the region over the next few decades?

[NRaleighLiberal]

23. majorly...already has. Did a study tracking summer temps over 28

years ( as a gardener I knew it was changing but wanted to generate the supporting data. wow...!). Coastal areas increasingly impacted by heat, sea level rise, intensity of storms

[steventh]

24. I miss living in Raleigh

It was a perfect place for me then. I had a perfect house in the country. Neighbors were farmers and a peacock. Work in Research Triangle Park was plentiful.

But the house was torn down to make way for "civilization" and I got a job offer in the Piedmont that I couldn't refuse. I took a little "souvenir" with me when I left Raleigh. A little Japanese maple seedling from the Fayetteville Street Mall. It's 15' tall now, almost as tall as the mother tree.

I love your views photos from your 17th floor, mnhtnbb, as well as ones on the ground. They bring back fond memories.

[mnhtnbb]

33. That's fun you have a tree

From a seedling.

More photos coming after I get moved back up to 17 in a couple of weeks.

[handmade34]

26. I have worked in the area

my daughter was an officer for awhile in Raleigh, and it has been voted "smartest city in the U.S.".... it is a very nice area, I am looking to move but city living would be a big adjustment

[mnhtnbb]

31. I admit to being a city girl.

I've lived in more isolated settings and it's not my cup of tea. On the other hand, there are places in the Triangle where you can feel like you're living in the woods and only be minutes from a town.

It all depends on your finances and preferences.

Raleigh is known as the City of Oaks and downtown has a lot of mature trees. I like walking to everything: the ballet, the symphony, the theatre, a small branch library, the post office, and plenty of good restaurants. There is a 4 acre park across from my building. Sometimes I don't use my car for a week!

[edhopper]

29. I am fairly convinced

that Trump's narrow victory there was another stolen State.

[mnhtnbb]

32. I thought the same thing on election night.

Hillary started out with a lead of 150,000 votes from early voting.

Still, our Democratic candidate for Governor, Cooper, managed to squeak out a win over the horrible Republican incumbent.

I'm hopeful we can get rid of Tillis next year.

[jberryhill]

36. My oldest son just moved to Cary

Finished up his degree at SCAD and found a job in the tech sector with a video game company there.

My parents lived in Raleigh after the war when he was finishing up at NC State before moving north.

[mnhtnbb]

41. Great!

My oldest son, who lives in Cary, is a senior software engineer.

[AJT]

40. I am looking to relocate since I am now retired

I will do some research and see if Raleigh is a good fit. I want to get away from WI winters.

[mnhtnbb]

42. I'm retired, too.

I have a nephew on faculty at Madison. Boy, was it cold there last winter!

We do get some snow and ice in the winter and even had some single digit nights last winter, but mostly the winters are mild with coldest temps 20's at night and 30's in the day.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

48. My family lives in the area

Some in Galax ,others in Raleigh and Independence north Carolina
I go there a few times a year with my sister to see my mom.

[a la izquierda]

49. If I stayed on the US I'd look there.

But I’m 95% likely to move to the Netherlands in the next 18 months.

[mnhtnbb]

52. Lucky you!

[yortsed snacilbuper]

50. Sounds like a nice place,

I think I'll stay in Pittsburgh, it's not perfect but it's livable.

[mnhtnbb]

53. I considered Pittsburgh

when I was thinking about east coast cities with water views as possible places to relocate. Not having a view of water is the one thing I'd really like but is missing here. Having my oldest son nearby makes up for it.