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Dallas or Houston if they want the big city experience. HOAs everywhere.
The FW side of DFW has larger lots and fewer HOAs. Here in Parker County, just west of Fort Worth, we found acreage, small town friendly and a distinct lack of HOAs. Medicine is growing here, leaps and bounds. Half hour to FW. |
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I would certainly take a look at the Tyler/Longview/Nacogdoches area of east Texas. Within reasonable (but not commute) driving distance of Houston and Dallas, but more rural. Cost of living is excellent, and there are many facilities with opportunities.Great outdoor recreation, very reasonable housing costs and many medically related university programs. The natives are friendly, too!
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I would certainly take a look at the Tyler/Longview/Nacogdoches area of east Texas. Within reasonable (but not commute) driving distance of Houston and Dallas, but more rural. Cost of living is excellent, and there are many facilities with opportunities.Great outdoor recreation, very reasonable housing costs and many medically related university programs. The natives are friendly, too! View Quote Yeah, but East Texas..... |
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snip "
I'm seeing a joke here but I'm having trouble tying together Texas Roadhouse, Mount Carmel, and Baylor the Baptist rape factory". Don't you mean Twin Peaks??? |
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Quoted: Houston for medical centers, but like said before schools such but surrounding areas have small town vibes, better schools and short commute to work. Also just north of Austin like Round Rock and Georgetown have been growing and aren't liberal like Austin is. View Quote This. Williamson County is growing and close to the Capitol. Lot's of tech with Apple and Dell and then several good hospital groups in St. David's, Scott and White and Seton. |
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I'll make it a little easier for you, just avoid anything south of San Antonio. Corpus Christi is a corrupt mess.
Austin is full retard. Healthcare jobs? Houston. There are some really nice towns around there. |
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I should add..... not really a fan of big cities. A commute of around 1/2 hour would not be bad. Would prefer a rural type setting. Open to most anywhere that Texans don't consider a "shit hole". View Quote In Houston they'll need to open that up to 45-75 minute commute to get anything close to rural. they'd have to be west of Katy, South of Sugarland, or north of The Woodlands. |
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Tyler, long list of hospitals, No DFW/Central Texas commute times. Better place to live than you might think. View Quote 2nd this. Born & raised in this area. You will not find more beautiful and safe part of the state. Never locked anything for 35 yrs. In Houston now for work & some days its like i left the country |
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Houston Medical Center
Private school for the kids. Live in Mid-Town or Museum District. Fuck driving to and from the suburbs and wasting three hours of your day. Live in the Museum District and you are home in 10 minutes and then spend some of that time you saved by going across the street to the park and go for a run, or go to the gym. |
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I live on the far northwest side of Houston.
Sure, Houston itself sucks, but the outlying towns are great. There's a mixture of country and big houses. The schools are very good. There are a lot of hospitals and hospice centers nearby, but don't expect to drive down to the medical center. It's a good 1.5 hour drive from up here. |
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I should add..... not really a fan of big cities. A commute of around 1/2 hour would not be bad. Would prefer a rural type setting. Open to most anywhere that Texans don't consider a "shit hole". View Quote If it had to be that short of a commute I'd probably live in Boerne and drive to San Antonio for work. Hopefully they dont mind traffic. Its right at a 35 minute drive if traffic is moving at 80-85mph which it usually is if its not rush hour. |
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Central Texas, many many good hospitals all close together to find jobs. Cost of living is pretty dirt cheap if you stay out of Austin. Killeen has Metroplex and Seton and Fort Hood's Darnall within 15 minutes of each other and a ton of great affordable housing outside of the city with easy going and expanding highway. Temple has Scott and White and Scott and White Childrens, and the Temple VA that is also within 30 minutes of Killeen. Again, affordable housing outside the city. If you choose to go where dragons are, Austin has more hospitals than you can shake a stick at and on the opposite direction is Waco with Providence and Hillcrest. At the moment I35 has shit tastic road due to construction but in a few years it should be up and running. Central Texas gives you 4 different hospital systems all in about a hours distance of each other. A small town like Salado, Jarrel, or Lampasas (has Rollins Brook hospital) would not be a bad place to live- gets you out of the ghetto into a semi rural nice school and it is within driving distance of all those cities in about a hour. View Quote Came here to post this. Great place to live and work in Texas and your dollar goes a lot further than DFW. That being said, I'm in the DFW area and it has a lot going for it. I'm here because of what I do for a living (residential construction = that's where my money is. And the people Iove happen to be here. |
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How about Desdemona, TX? Just a random town I saw on the map. Turns out it's the birthplace of actor James Brown, most noted for his role in The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. View Quote Dedemona is a beautiful area, coastal fields and oak trees. Also great if you don't like having neighbors nearby, enjoy listening to coyotes howl and actually see the stars every night. As a matter of fact, it is a 20 minute commute to Stephenville, a town of about 20,000, a home to Tarleton State Univeristy and your choosing of any of the above mentioned health care professions. If you want to raise kids in a great school district Stephenville is a good choice. Desdemona (formerly known as Hog Town) is about 20 minutes from me as well. |
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It's a tough call. The best jobs for those skills will be in Houston or Dallas. The traffic in both places is something that has to be experienced to be believed. I can't stomach wasting so much time sitting in traffic. And any housing close the big medical centers will be either very expensive or undesirable for other reasons. Hell, they just announced that the Austin metro area is now over 2 million people. Don't even ask about the commute times here. View Quote We live in Coldspring. Wife works in Woodlands. Takes her 50 minutes to get to work. We lived in Tomball before the move. Took her an Hour to get to Hardy Toll Road/Beltway !! Crazy yeah? She says it's a good commute. No bumper to bumper. Rarely gets below 50 mph To some it may seem long. But she says its worth it to live in the sticks. OP. The Major hospitals (St Lukes, Methodist) in Houston are building new locations in the "Burbs". So the Medical Center downtown is not the only choice. Good Luck. |
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Fuck...i hate these threads.
Borders closed... Seattle is nice. |
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Quoted: The north Dallas area is your best bet for schools, jobs and affordability. Avoid Houston like the plague just because of the schools. View Quote Please. Houston has everything to offer that the Dallas area does, without the holier than thou attitude. I spent the early part of my life closer to Dallas, and the last 20 or so years in the Houston area. For me it is not even close. I much prefer Houston. By North Dallas, I'm assuming you mean suburbs, unless you are referring to something like Highland Park that is in the city. Houston could counter with the West U. area, the Heights, or Bellaire, if you actually want to be in the city. If you are talking suburbs, in the Houston area, look to Katy, or Sugar Land. Both have good school districts and cheaper cost of housing than just about anywhere in Texas. Yes, Houston has some parts of town you don't want to muck around in, but guess what, so does every other major metropolitan area. After growing up in the Dallas orbit, I got my first job out of college in the Houston area, and all I heard for the first year was how I would be dead in short order. It was made out to be some kind of Mad Maxish, post-apocalyptic hell on earth. I got an apartment smack in the middle of the inner-loop area, and within six months, I loved the place. ETA: If you want to move to the best town in Texas, take a look at Mineral Wells. I'm completely unbiased, and this suggestion is based completely on facts. |
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I have family members that are seriously considering moving to Texas. Their careers are Nurse Practitioner, IT in the medical field with MBA, Home Health and Hospice Director etc. They have started their family and are planning more children. With the above taken into consideration, where would you recommend as the best places to look to settle in Texas? Schools for the children are important along with crime rates, cost of living, cost of housing/homes, etc. All the usual stuff. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks! View Quote For the Dallas area, Plano, Frisco and McKinney would be high on my list....TONS of jobs in the healthcare industry (I'd imagine IT as well with all the corporate HQ's in the area as well), schools are phenominal too. Cost of living will be a bit high though. |
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I would seriously look in the Woodlands area, there is a huge medical presence there(multiple hospitals, clinics, etc). The area is nice to live in with good schools plus it puts you in driving range to Tomball,, Magnolia, Lake Conroe area.
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How urban are they willing to tolerate is a big question.
Inside any of the DFW-Houston-Austin-San Antonio loops is lib loaded and traffic is a clusterfuck. However, Northern suburbs of DFW- McKinney,Frisco,Allen, etc are slightly less populated and far more conservative areas. Cost of living though is high and land is closing in faster than anywhere in America with the exception of Northern Austin suburbs of Round Rock, Leander, Georgetown area, which also are great areas for careers and commutes. West side of FW is Weatherford, perfect commute location to FW, somewhat rural feel, cost of living way less than other DFW suburbs, and not growing near as fast as northern DFW areas. Anywhere East of I35 there are great rural areas, 100% of which are easily commutable to lots of healthcare careers in moderately sized cities like Waco, Tyler, etc. West of I35 becomes drastically less populated, but commutes to smaller "cities" like 100,000 or less, ie Granbury, Abilene, San Angelo, Wichita Falls, Brownwood and such, are a breeze to navigate. Cost of living in these areas is less than anywhere in the country, for the most part there are hospitals, lots of home health, clinics etc in these mid size towns. They are all extremely conservative, 99% gun owners and never miss church. As well as cost of living. of course. Texas isn't taxing your income. My wife is a home health PT, the income to cost of living ratio for her field in rural "west" Texas is huge. They cannot find enough home health people in our area and pay the ones they can get well compared to what it cost to live here. |
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The DFW Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population above 7.1 million people. Collin County, just north of Dallas County, will have a population of 1 million before the end of the decade. Frisco is not half built out and has 11 high schools built, being built or in the planning stage. It has its very own athletic district. There is a section of the North Dallas Tollway that is known as the $5 Billion Mile in that is how much development is happening there or is already completed. Jerry Jones is nearing completion of a 12,000 seat covered stadium practice facility to be shared with the Frisco ISD.
HCA has a large presence. There is no shortage of hospitals or hospital jobs. There are nursing schools that need advance agreed nurses for teaching. It is an area of great wealth, great growth, great culture, and great schools (other than Dallas and some of the very old burbs). Crime in the northern burbs is very low. EtA: Baylor Scott & White is another great system with a large presence in the Metroplex. I like the Metroplex over Houston primarily because of the weather. I am not like those Dallas-haters who don't like orderly neighborhoods and the white-collar nature of North Texas compared to relatively blue collar Houston. Dallas is holier than thou? WTF does that mean. Do some people in Dallas think Big D is better than Houston? Yes. Can the same be said for Houston people and their snarky little-brother attitude toward Dallas? Yup. They need to go to where they can prosper professionally and more importantly as a family. Both places are booming on the edges. Dallas area is seeing a tremendous amount of redevelopment of older areas commercially. They need to do their research. They can find spots everywhere in Texas that they will like. |
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I'll throw in another note. The Texas Medical Center (Houston Med Center) has opened a West Campus in Katy. There are, I believe 3 hospitals there now, and another 2 or three within a 5 minute drive. This is on the far west side of Houston, which would open up more rural areas like Columbus, Sealy, etc. to being a 45 minute drive or less.
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My wife and I both work in the Texas Medical Center and commute from Pearland. Pearland is the closest suburb to the medical center and the drive is about 30 to 40 mins during the mornings and about 30 mins going out in the evenings on 288 south. An HOV lane is supposedly in the works and construction is to begin by the end of this year with completion in 2018 or so. When there is no traffic it's about a 15 min drive to the Medical Center.
Pearland ISD and Alvin ISD have good school systems. We do not have kids so I don't have personal experience with this but our neighbors have said great things about them. We live in a subdivision off 518 (Broadway) behind Primary Arms to give you an idea. There is a plan in the works to widen 518 because traffic on the weekends is horrendous especially Saturdays. I usually take the back roads to get to the freeway. Property taxes are high around here though, we are currently at 3.4% a year and housing prices have started to go up because of all the development going on. Oh and someone mentioned HOAs all the subdivisions have them and some can be really anal. Feel free to PM if you have specific questions about the area. |
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Waco is.. people are ready to throw down and fight over the most minor stupid shit. It's a violent city. I still love Waco, always will, but there is no denying that something is off there. And it's not just me, other people have noticed. I even saw a theory in some story about the subject once that it's something about the Bosque river water. Who knows? And yes, Baylor is still the ruling institution and that's not necessarily good. View Quote Yep...and while we're being honest, the town is pretty much a shithole minus the southern half (kinda) That being said, the surrounding towns in McLennan County are all pretty nice minus some of the aforementioned north waco crap. I'm from West and it's a pretty nice lil town |
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I think you will like it. I've been here since '91 and it amazes how fast we've grown. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I should add..... not really a fan of big cities. A commute of around 1/2 hour would not be bad. Would prefer a rural type setting. Open to most anywhere that Texans don't consider a "shit hole". If they're interested in a more rural setting, have them take a look at the options for health care jobs in both Temple and Waco. Both are going to be easy commutes, lots of opportunities to buy rural property within a 30 minute commute, low cost of living, etc. The College Station area also. That's where we are hoping to head next. In Temple right now. I think you will like it. I've been here since '91 and it amazes how fast we've grown. We lived there from 05-10. Looking to get back asap....just depends on employment opportunities now. |
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The most important thing to consider is how they vote, if they're blue voters we're full. If they vote red, Texas is a big diverse place, I'm sure they can find a place to fit them.....unless, they want snowy winters or mountains. View Quote West Texas, and the Panhandle can provide the mountains and snow if they really want them. |
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Houston for medical and IT
Maybe even Waco. Traffic in Houston sucks. As does Austin, Dallas and San Antonio. Houston is the epicenter of a lot of big businesses and corporations. So lots of IT and Medical jobs. Waco has the big city feel, without being a metropolitan city. |
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Another vote for both the regions around Waco/Temple and Tyler/Longview
My wife is an RN, now at home with our kids, and we've lived in the Waco/Temple area for three years. Before that, I lived in the Tyler area for 7 years. She worked as a nurse in both Tyler and Jacksonville at Trinity Mother Francis. I'm a pastor so I'm at the various hospitals all the time. Our first child was born at TMF in Tyler and our second was born at Hillcrest in Waco. I've seen bad hospitals and good hospitals and both of the above are great hospitals. Both areas are growing, both areas have easy commutes in from solid communities with great schools. Both have low cost of living. Hope this helps! |
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My next door neighbor works in medical IT. He travels all over the county on his contracts. He started out working in Houston but since has found his work in places like Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle and Mobile. He still lives in the greater Houston area.
CN |
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Near Austin, but not in Austin. Austin burbs have good schools. Austin has a good balance of weather. Austin has good hill country access. Austin is like a puss pocket of liberals, but it is surrounded by conservative towns like Manor, Elgin, Round Rock, Taylor, Leander, Cedar Park.
Houston is just to big to easily get out of. Most depressing part of my life was spent there. Do to climate, Austin is far more outdoors focused (understand, Texas climate is not for the weak of heart - but the humidity in Houston just sucks the life out of you). I live about centerpoint between Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. (I lived near Austin for about 20 years). I will run to the outer rim of Houston for dinning occasionally (it is closer than SA or Austin).. Depending on the medical problem, we use specialists in either Houston or Austin (medical centers in Austin are closer for us). Generally NEVER go to San Antonio, but was at Fiesta last weekend - Oyster bake (100 year old party). Greater Houston is huge (almost 120 miles across), SA is probably 2 mil, Greater Austin is closing fast (but likewise that is a 90 miles across, Georgetown/Killeen to San Marcos). -- If you can tollerate liberals. Austin has a nice inner city village feel (bars where everyone knows your name feeling). I lived off of 21st, worked on 24th. Could walk to 6th w/o a problem, and occasionally even walked to Zulker (at one time it was part of the largest contiguous city park in the US-Austin's town lake parks) I am pretty sure Houston has several nice inner city villages (Belaire, Montrose, Memorial City). take the town lake parks. The trail goes arround the lake. There is a large deal of parkland on the East side (both a nature preserve on the north, and baseball fields and I assume they have finally built the large multi use park there to the south. They intended to connect it to the East side bike trail (that one will go almost 30 miles to Cedar Park/Leander). On the West Side is Zulker, which turns into the Barton Creak park (which is 12 miles long till it dead ends into a golf course. On the North side are 2 more creek bike trails - but honestly not sure what condition they are in (Shoal Creek was under repair the entire time I lived in Austin. Bull creek was only 4 miles long). Zulker itself is the heart park of Austin hosting things like ACL feast, trail of lights, Kite festival, 4th, and numerous concerts in the park |
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I would certainly take a look at the Tyler/Longview/Nacogdoches area of east Texas. Within reasonable (but not commute) driving distance of Houston and Dallas, but more rural. Cost of living is excellent, and there are many facilities with opportunities.Great outdoor recreation, very reasonable housing costs and many medically related university programs. The natives are friendly, too! View Quote This is my hope IF I get the opportunity |
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Generally... Austin - think liberal California Just imagine it doesn't exist and Denton for that matter. Houston - think New York city Dallas/Fort Worth - what one would expect in "Texas". (overwhelmingly Republican) I live in Fort Worth, and I keep seeing new construction and much of it is health care related. View Quote yep,, no bias here.. |
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FYI: Texas doesn't have the best NP laws. I'm assuming they're coming from NC, so it might be a wash, but it's something to consider.
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Thanks everyone I appreciate the replies and great info. We are planning a scouting trip for late summer early fall and you all have helped greatly.
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If they are dems or Libs tel them to fuck off we don't want them. I go out of my way to make them unwelcome when identified If conservatives, then Plano/Frisco View Quote Glad to see I'm not the only one. I will coal the shit out of any Prius with California plates and a Bernie sticker that I see. My old hunting truck, which I drive to work from time to time just to put some miles on it, is a 1992 Dodge with Cummins....that sonofabitch could smoke the Devil out of Hell itself |
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Dallas or houston. Those are arguably the two main medical hubs in Texas.
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There is a lot of room and reasonable housing out here in Far West Texas. Have them look at Alpine
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North Dallas area is very solid for city life. Richardson, Plano, McKinney are all pretty decent, lower cost of living compared to most US cities. Plenty of rural areas 30 minutes or so from there that have really low land/home prices plus all the plusses of small cities/limited rules and government if you stay out of city limits.
There isn't too much of public land/huge state parks but like another said there are plenty of lakes that typically offer decent weekend outdoors stuff and decent public parks. Arkansas and Oklahoma aren't far if you want to scratch the mountain camping itch. It's a huge state and there are tons of options but I'd scratch Houston off if you aren't a fan of bumper to bumper traffic/maddening commutes and the lower then average quality of 'yutes in the normal income areas. I've lived in North Dallas, Richardson, and 30 minutes north of McKinney most of my life so others mileage may vary. |
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