Greensboro, NC- thoughts?

[McLoofus 35,182]

Anyone have any strong opinions on Greensboro, NC as a place to live?

We have 2 kids- a 4 year old and an infant.

We currently live in a somewhat expensive area and wouldn't mind a lower cost of living, but we are fortunate to be able to afford a decent home.

We enjoy diversity and culture and having things to do. We miss Atlanta. We also enjoy being safe and not dealing with soul crushing traffic. We don't miss everything about Atlanta.

We need decent public schools available. 

For anybody who has lived in Greensboro but also in other places (big cities, somewhere on the coast), what did you love? What did you hate? Would you raise a kid there? Have you been back lately? Anything awesome that people don't know about? Anything terrible?  

Thanks for any feedback. 

 

 

[AU64 10,122]

3 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Anyone have any strong opinions on Greensboro, NC as a place to live?

We have 2 kids- a 4 year old and an infant.

We currently live in a somewhat expensive area and wouldn't mind a lower cost of living, but we are fortunate to be able to afford a decent home.

We enjoy diversity and culture and having things to do. We miss Atlanta. We also enjoy being safe and not dealing with soul crushing traffic. We don't miss everything about Atlanta.

We need decent public schools available. 

For anybody who has lived in Greensboro but also in other places (big cities, somewhere on the coast), what did you love? What did you hate? Would you raise a kid there? Have you been back lately? Anything awesome that people don't know about? Anything terrible?  

Thanks for any feedback. 

 

 

You've come to the right place....lived there a dozen years, my daughter and family now live there and in all my moving around it's the best overall city I've lived in.  Downtown has been undergoing some major improvements and is looking pretty good when I was through there a few weeks ago. 

Beautiful city with well planned neighborhoods.  Very easy to get around in and with five colleges in the immediate area, always plenty of cultural related stuff going on.   Don't know that the cost of living is considered low....but certainly reasonable for a city of it's size and what it offers.    UNC-Greensboro, Greensboro College, Bennett College, NC A and T and Guilford College....plus High Point University and Wake Forest all within a 30 mile radius. 

One thing we always appreciated about Greensboro is that the road systems seemed to stay ahead of the growth of the city whereas Charlotte (where I also lived once) was always a decade behind with it's street system.   Textile industry has pretty much died out but the jobs have been replaced by Fed EX, Honda and some other modern enterprises.   Very nice and accessible airport.   

My daughter and family lives on the north side and kids attend Northern Guilford which seems to be a very good system.   In years past the city has had "balance" programs which moved kids around a bit so worth checking but in the north and west the neighborhoods are great and schools are good too.   With so many colleges, the city government has a very liberal attitude....so take that for what it's worth 

I strongly recommend you take a good look there.  

PS...pretty good sports city....nice 16,000 arena that has frequent NCAA tourney games plus local colleges, minor league baseball, some good public golf courses, stuff like that too. 

PS PS....I put it light years ahead of Charlotte as far as convenience and a good place to raise a family.  

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 hour ago, AU64 said:

You've come to the right place....lived there a dozen years, my daughter and family now live there and in all my moving around it's the best overall city I've lived in.  Downtown has been undergoing some major improvements and is looking pretty good when I was through there a few weeks ago. 

Beautiful city with well planned neighborhoods.  Very easy to get around in and with five colleges in the immediate area, always plenty of cultural related stuff going on.   Don't know that the cost of living is considered low....but certainly reasonable for a city of it's size and what it offers.    UNC-Greensboro, Greensboro College, Bennett College, NC A and T and Guilford College....plus High Point University and Wake Forest all within a 30 mile radius. 

One thing we always appreciated about Greensboro is that the road systems seemed to stay ahead of the growth of the city whereas Charlotte (where I also lived once) was always a decade behind with it's street system.   Textile industry has pretty much died out but the jobs have been replaced by Fed EX, Honda and some other modern enterprises.   Very nice and accessible airport.   

My daughter and family lives on the north side and kids attend Northern Guilford which seems to be a very good system.   In years past the city has had "balance" programs which moved kids around a bit so worth checking but in the north and west the neighborhoods are great and schools are good too.   With so many colleges, the city government has a very liberal attitude....so take that for what it's worth 

I strongly recommend you take a good look there.  

PS...pretty good sports city....nice 16,000 arena that has frequent NCAA tourney games plus local colleges, minor league baseball, some good public golf courses, stuff like that too. 

PS PS....I put it light years ahead of Charlotte as far as convenience and a good place to raise a family.  

Many thanks!

[alexava 6,973]

I can’t imagine just being able to pick any place you want to live. Sounds like a freedom I’ll never know. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

8 hours ago, alexava said:

I can’t imagine just being able to pick any place you want to live. Sounds like a freedom I’ll never know. 

Hah, me either.

If we do this, it will be because of a great job opportunity for my wife. Same reason we made the last move. I found a job last time and would need to find another one in Greensboro if we moved there. 

Main sticking point is distance from family. Hers is in Atlanta and mine is in Montgomery. We'd love to be closer to both and not further. We currently live at the beach so it's not hard to get the grands, aunts, uncles and cousins to come to us, lol. 

[alexava 6,973]

2 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Hah, me either.

If we do this, it will be because of a great job opportunity for my wife. Same reason we made the last move. I found a job last time and would need to find another one in Greensboro if we moved there. 

Main sticking point is distance from family. Hers is in Atlanta and mine is in Montgomery. We'd love to be closer to both and not further. We currently live at the beach so it's not hard to get the grands, aunts, uncles and cousins to come to us, lol. 

I was thinking you worked remotely for some reason.  

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 minute ago, alexava said:

I was thinking you worked remotely for some reason.  

I wish.

[AURex 1,994]

I'm kinda confused when you wrote " big cities, somewhere on the coast" since Greensboro is far inland. Maybe you meant an Atlantic Coast state? Meaning anyplace in GA, SC, NC, FL?

I've never lived in Greensboro, but if you are making checklists of things you want and don't want, you might want to consider taxes. When we were looking for our move - and much like you, we could literally go *anywhere* in the world -- we ruled out NC because of its taxes. Combined sales, property and income taxes were just more than I was willing to pay.

 

 

[AU64 10,122]

1 hour ago, AURex said:

I'm kinda confused when you wrote " big cities, somewhere on the coast" since Greensboro is far inland. Maybe you meant an Atlantic Coast state? Meaning anyplace in GA, SC, NC, FL?

I've never lived in Greensboro, but if you are making checklists of things you want and don't want, you might want to consider taxes. When we were looking for our move - and much like you, we could literally go *anywhere* in the world -- we ruled out NC because of its taxes. Combined sales, property and income taxes were just more than I was willing to pay.

 

 

True…taxes are higher than much of  the SE.... but .I see that Kiplinger considers it basically a tax friendly place....Very pretty residential areas throughout the city, good street system,  good sports environment, etc..... guess you have to figure what you are looking for and whether the overall cost is worth it.  I thought I was best of many middle size cities I've lived in including Charlotte, Mobile, B'ham,  and several others..    

But...as noted, it's not on the ocean. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

14 hours ago, AURex said:

I'm kinda confused when you wrote " big cities, somewhere on the coast" since Greensboro is far inland. Maybe you meant an Atlantic Coast state? Meaning anyplace in GA, SC, NC, FL?

I've never lived in Greensboro, but if you are making checklists of things you want and don't want, you might want to consider taxes. When we were looking for our move - and much like you, we could literally go *anywhere* in the world -- we ruled out NC because of its taxes. Combined sales, property and income taxes were just more than I was willing to pay.

 

12 hours ago, AU64 said:

True…taxes are higher than much of  the SE.... but .I see that Kiplinger considers it basically a tax friendly place....Very pretty residential areas throughout the city, good street system,  good sports environment, etc..... guess you have to figure what you are looking for and whether the overall cost is worth it.  I thought I was best of many middle size cities I've lived in including Charlotte, Mobile, B'ham,  and several others..    

But...as noted, it's not on the ocean. 

We've got a 4 year old and an infant. We moved from Georgia to South Carolina. We would LOVE to go somewhere and pay more taxes and be able to trust the public school systems to educate our children. Sorry, I know that borders on political, but it's hard to argue against North Carolina being a rare southeastern state in top-20 for education. Plus the McLittles would be in-state for the university system if we stayed there. 

[AU64 10,122]

3 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

 

We've got a 4 year old and an infant. We moved from Georgia to South Carolina. We would LOVE to go somewhere and pay more taxes and be able to trust the public school systems to educate our children. Sorry, I know that borders on political, but it's hard to argue against North Carolina being a rare southeastern state in top-20 for education. Plus the McLittles would be in-state for the university system if we stayed there. 

Yep....that was our feeling....was able to confidently send my kids and grandkids through the Greensboro school system K through 12....and on to in-state colleges with full confidence about what they could get.   I wonder about some of the educational rating systems...for example our local 2A HS is rated one of the tops in the state by some of the measurements but I'm not sure we are turning out geniuses around here....but kids do seem to get into very good colleges. ...so it pays to look around at school systems and individual schools as they are not all the same.  Plus the McLittles and parents would enjoy a very nice park system that's appealing to families. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

8 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Yep....that was our feeling....was able to confidently send my kids and grandkids through the Greensboro school system K through 12....and on to in-state colleges with full confidence about what they could get.   I wonder about some of the educational rating systems...for example our local 2A HS is rated one of the tops in the state by some of the measurements but I'm not sure we are turning out geniuses around here....but kids do seem to get into very good colleges. ...so it pays to look around at school systems and individual schools as they are not all the same.  Plus the McLittles and parents would enjoy a very nice park system that's appealing to families. 

We have exactly 2 concerns about moving there:

1) Would we be crazy to leave the beach? Even though it's not perfect for us here at this time in our lives.

2) Further from family. (We're already 5 hrs from her family and 6 1/2 from mine, but we live at the beach, so folks don't mind coming to us from time to time, lol.)

We're 90% certain that we would otherwise be very happy there, for all the reasons you've touched on this thread. 

[AU64 10,122]

2 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

further from family. (We're already 5 hrs from her family and 6 1/2 from mine, but we live at the beach, so folks don't mind coming to us from time to time, lol.)

That's always an issue....but I've noticed that grand parents mostly go to where grand kids are rather than the other way around.    I'm closing in on 78 and yet my kids still "invite" me to come visit for a dance performance or a play or a tennis match or something …. so we GO...

[McLoofus 35,182]

10 minutes ago, AU64 said:

That's always an issue....but I've noticed that grand parents mostly go to where grand kids are rather than the other way around.    I'm closing in on 78 and yet my kids still "invite" me to come visit for a dance performance or a play or a tennis match or something …. so we GO...

We're very lucky that our parents are still eager and able to move about the world with relative freedom- 3 out of 4 are completely mobile and the 4th is able to travel fine as long as my F-I-L is with her- so what you describe holds true for us. We are SO grateful for that but we know that it won't be like that forever. And there are a couple young cousins in the Atlanta area with another on the way. 

BUT... we know we need to prioritize our household's needs first. 

[AURex 1,994]

I can understand the willingness to pay a bit more in taxes for better educational opportunities for kids and for better public services in general. Which NC does offer. Since we *thought* we were retiring, tax rates were more a factor for us, but still not at the top of the list.

My brother (also an Auburn grad) worked at Guilford College for awhile. He seemed to like Greensboro okay. He fell in love with a girl on campus and they eloped to Seattle. But a few years later, they ended up living in Black Mountain and liked Asheville even better than Greensboro. Probably because they were outdoors types, loved hiking in the mountains.

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 hour ago, AURex said:

I can understand the willingness to pay a bit more in taxes for better educational opportunities for kids and for better public services in general. Which NC does offer. Since we *thought* we were retiring, tax rates were more a factor for us, but still not at the top of the list.

My brother (also an Auburn grad) worked at Guilford College for awhile. He seemed to like Greensboro okay. He fell in love with a girl on campus and they eloped to Seattle. But a few years later, they ended up living in Black Mountain and liked Asheville even better than Greensboro. Probably because they were outdoors types, loved hiking in the mountains.

Definitely a much higher "cool factor" in Black Mountain/Asheville/Hendersonville. And a beautiful area. 

Funny. My timing has always sucked. I'm at least 20 years from retirement and I live on Retirement Island. I would never leave SC if I were retired or close to it. Buuuuuut I've still got my kids to think about.

I will say, the schools on HHI aren't terrible. Doesn't even feel like I actually live in SC most of the time. Which I'm used to, since I came from Atlanta, which was merely surrounded by Georgia. 

[AU64 10,122]

2 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Funny. My timing has always sucked. I'm at least 20 years from retirement and I live on Retirement Island. I would never leave SC if I were retired or close to it. Buuuuuut I've still got my kids to think about.

It's still gonna be down there when you are ready for it.....we have had a small condo in Litchfield area for about 15 years....a bit over four hours from here.....nice to be able to run down there on spur of the moment for a long weekend or a few weeks.... but we like the mountains....4 season climate....all moderate.  We are in Asheville regularly for Dr. visits....interesting small city but never appealed to me as a place to live for some reason.    Downside of most of the mountain towns is their demographics....mostly oriented toward retirees like us so pretty good medical services..