HELP! Relocating from So Cal...no clue where to live! (Dallas: upper-class, transplants) - San Antonio - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

calimom5 · 03-17-2007, 07:49 AM

Hey everyone,
You guys are just super. I love reading what you all write. Here is the deal...my in laws are moving to Rusk/Palestine area (that is the north east I believe). Hubby wants land and green...rolling hills if possible. I have heard that SA is the best place to live with kids (I have teenagers who do NOT want to leave So Cal)...I want around 5 acres or more but GOOD SCHOOLS. Is that even possible in Texas? It seems the smaller towns have lousy schools, but you can't get land in the good school areas. HELP!!!!!!

MichelleSG · 03-17-2007, 09:54 AM

I hear Cibolo has really great schools, try there. For 5 acres you're going to spend a pretty penny if you want to be in Hill Country Suburbia so you're going to have to go out a bit. Not far by So Cal standards but realize when you want land you may end up making your teens feel like there pretty far out there.

jules07 · 03-17-2007, 10:01 AM

Hi Calimom!

If I may ask, where in SoCal are you moving from? The reason I ask is we moved to SA from Huntington Beach almost 9 years ago, and our oldest was 13 at the time. Our kids adjusted pretty well, but there were many nights of crying because they wanted to move back home - they missed the beach, the weather, the laid back attitude and of course their friends. Had they been much older, I think the transition would have been more difficult. If you kids don't want to leave SoCal, might I suggest really talking to them about "why" they don't want to move. The culture is quite different here, depending of course on where in SoCal you currrently live. We lived in SA for about a year and then moved down to Atascosa County on about 40 acres for almost 5 years. Now that was a culture shock!! LOL! We're glad to be back in the city (even tho we're in the 'burbs)! Feel free to PM me if you'd like more specifics.

That said, Boerne may possibly be a good fit if you'd like acerage and still good schools. I don't live there, but have heard that their schools are good. Met alot of kids from there (many who are homeschooled, tho) and they are generally very friendly and accepting of transplants. Be prepared for high land prices there, tho. It's one of the more expensive places in the SA area to live. (And like everything else out here, growing like crazy!!)

Hope this helps. Best of luck to you all!!

neddy · 03-17-2007, 10:05 AM

Its pretty green and rolling hills over where your inlaws are moving. Down here you are going to have about a 5 hr drive to see them. Maybe looks around the Tyler area in East Texas or outside the Dallas area.

calimom5 · 03-17-2007, 05:10 PM

Thanks everyone for your responses. Jules, we are in Murrieta, CA. That is 60 miles east/south of L.A. near Temecula (if you know where that is!). North of San Diego about 40 miles. Your insights are really helpful...all of yours.

I wonder how we will adjust to the culture there. Jules you said it was "laid back" in So Cal...is it not laid back there? that is what we were hoping for...a slower pace of life. It is pretty plastic here...getting worse....the kids are growing up way too fast.

My kids are great kids. They don't want to move because they will miss their friends, and they are older...15, 13, and 12. So, yeah, it will be hard.

The problem with here is we are seeing a tremendous invasion of Hispanic Spanish speaking only people (we are not racists by any means), and it just seems to be turning rapidly. Our school (the high school) was 81 percent white when we moved here 5 years ago and is now 64 percent. Again, not to bash Latinos, but reading everything in two languages is getting old. And yeah, I know Texas is near the border....I hear that all the time too!

But the kids also want to be near their grandparents (who are moving to Texas). So, it is a toss up. We are a close family, Christian, and our kids will do whatever we ask for the most part. The older two are not doing too great in school...so we are hoping that the schools might be better, smaller class sizes, etc.

Again, thanks for everything. any other suggestions????????????? We are going to TX at the end of the month and will drive drive drive drive drive.

MichelleSG · 03-17-2007, 06:09 PM

It's laid back here but more conservative. You'll be able to tell the difference when you get here. Plastic is something you're going to see in any high school, out here the cheerleading squads have recently recevied some flak for that. No big surprise there. Of course out here you're going to see more 4H than you see in Murietta but it's not going to be as much as a culture shock as it would be if you were moving from San Diego. I moved y family from there in September and even the 5 yr old had a bit of culture shock. You are going to see much of a difference in the quantity of latinos (something I was glad of, we like the mix of cultures) but you will find it is a different kind of latino. Back in SD there were a lot of what we calld TJ latinos, there was usually no adult male in the family and lots of kids, mother didn't speak english. Gang membership was a prereq. Out here its more family oriented, as in mom, dad, kids. Totally different. Not saying there aren't gangs, just saying that you'll find more middle class latinos where we were used to seeing none.

213 · 03-19-2007, 02:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by calimom5

Hey everyone,
You guys are just super. I love reading what you all write. Here is the deal...my in laws are moving to Rusk/Palestine area (that is the north east I believe). Hubby wants land and green...rolling hills if possible. I have heard that SA is the best place to live with kids (I have teenagers who do NOT want to leave So Cal)...I want around 5 acres or more but GOOD SCHOOLS. Is that even possible in Texas? It seems the smaller towns have lousy schools, but you can't get land in the good school areas. HELP!!!!!!

There are no areas like that. San Antonio is a hideous place to live. I spent 3 years on the south side off hot wells rd and then 4 years off rittiman rd, north east. drugs, break ins and shootings are plentiful in SA. If that is what you want...move to SA. Texas has lots of great places to live, but SA, Tx does not. Unless you want to live in the Dominion, hence well off. Then, a good area is easy to find anywhere. But, if you are a working-poor or even middle class, you have to deal with idiots in any place. Listen to your kids, if they are happy there, why uproot them.

hello13685 · 03-19-2007, 07:59 AM

The crime here is not just for the working poor. I am in a gated "upscale" apartment complex on the NW side (720 sq ft. one-bedroom for $800mo.), and people's cars are often put up on blocks. Yesterday, one of my neighbor friends had her car broken into with a crowbar (they dented the door before eventually just smashiing in the window). Ashley furniture and Gold's Gym (NEW buildings within the last year--in the best side of town, at I-10 and DeZavala) have hired full-time security guards to stand in the parking lot to guard shoppers' cars). I was walking into Gold's Gym there a couple of weeks ago, and two men in a van pulled up next to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a home theater stereo system that was in the back of their van (that they had apparently stolen from someone's home). All of this to say that "213" is not exaggerating the crime. So calimom, don't choose the NW side because it's "safer." Maybe it is, but then that would make the rest of SA REALLY bad.

lcw · 03-19-2007, 08:45 AM

Look at Boerne. There are many areas that have 5 acre lots and the Boerne schools are excellent. It is about 30 miles from downtown SA.

Kanto2Tondo · 03-19-2007, 04:36 PM

Hi Cali mom
I'm a native San Diegan and I just moved from Rancho Penasquitos to San Antonio. We live in a gated community in the North-Central area...its pretty nice...go to www.mcmillinhomes.com to check it out. I still have to get used to this town though, there are so many things that are so annoying I can't list them all. But here are a few items at the top of my list: 1) The roads suck/traffic sucks; 2) There's trash/litter everywhere; 3) there are no recycling bins in our neighborhood. Coming from environmentally friendly San Diego, its hard to adjust to not caring about your environment.

Oh yeah and be prepared for the Texas school districts (in these upper-class neighborhoods) to tell you that you're child is coming from a lower standard of schooling then theirs. My middle-school daughter was in GATE in the Poway Unified School District and she is in GT here now, but since their curriculum consists of knowing Texas History etc. She's doing poorly in history class. Thus making her inferior to them. I was somewhat offended when I was told that children from California don't know as much as children from Texas because I'm not sure if I totally agree with that statement.

Other than those things, my experience here has just been OK.
One more thing, if you don't want to be around Mexicans/Latinos then maybe you should look into buying a house in some hick-town because in San Antonio, there's culture everywhere....which is really a good thing for those of us who are not white.