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If we were to move, where should we go? (liberal)


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My husband has finally finished his PhD and gotten his license, which means that for the first time in 8 years we are finally free to move about the country again. We're in the SF Bay Area where the weather is lovely but the prices are ridiculous. Since we've been here a while, we have some roots, but sometimes I wonder if that's a decent trade-off for being somewhere where we could afford a house (or apartment) with, say, a yard. FWIW, my husband's career can take us just about anywhere in the English-speaking world, as long as we know where we want to be.

 

We're on the liberal end of the U.S. spectrum and need a liberal homeschooling group. If you're happy with where you are (and it sounds like we might fit in), tell me about it!

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Come to Austin! An island of blue in a sea of red; the jewel of the hill country; a place where you can spot a Greenpeace sticker placed under the gun rack on a pickup truck. Clean air, clean water, lovely outdoors spaces, lovely people, legendary music scene, university and high-tech town, reasonable housing prices, dense urban core (we lived in the Bay Area for a while, too; my dh now commutes to work for 15 minutes on his bike rather than for an hour in the car), great weather*, homeschoolers of every stripe as thick on the ground as fleas on a dog. Many progressive homeschoolers; but we all get along together, the progressive, the conservative, the religious, the non-religious, the unschoolers, the school-at-home folks.... The whole spectrum of everyone, in an accepting culture.

 

Austin Area Homeschoolers

 

 

 

 

 

 

*guarantees do not apply to August

Edited by Sharon in Austin
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I'll toss in a vote for Houston. Yes, Texas is a red state and Houston is firmly in the Bible belt, but there's a lot here for homeschoolers. I've finally found a like-minded group but it did take a few years. There are a huge variety of hs activities at museums and theaters. Certain areas around Houston are progressive-friendly, you just have to look.

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What about if we are not happy where we are as there are no progressive hsers and we would love to have you here??

 

 

:iagree::iagree:

 

LOL. Actually, I started a progressive homeschool group last year when I moved here, and we now have 18 families :)

 

I would look at Asheville, NC. It's my dream town.

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Come to Austin! An island of blue in a sea of red; the jewel of the hill country; a place where you can spot a Greenpeace sticker placed under the gun rack on a pickup truck. Clean air, clean water, lovely outdoors spaces, lovely people, legendary music scene, university and high-tech town, reasonable housing prices, dense urban core (we lived in the Bay Area for a while, too; my dh now commutes to work for 15 minutes on his bike rather than for an hour in the car), great weather*, homeschoolers of every stripe as thick on the ground as fleas on a dog. Many progressive homeschoolers; but we all get along together, the progressive, the conservative, the religious, the non-religious, the unschoolers, the school-at-home folks.... The whole spectrum of everyone, in an accepting culture.

 

Austin Area Homeschoolers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*guarantees do not apply to August

I'm jealous. After Asheville, Austin would be the next place I'd look.

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I don't personally live there, but Ann Arbor Michigan is very liberal. I don't know about their homeschool community, but I imagine it would be very liberal. The further west you go the more conservative it becomes. It's a very big college town, I don't know what your dh's PHD is in, but there might be job possibilities.

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I really love it in DC. Plenty of liberal homeschoolers, free museums (you know, for homeschooling!), tons of culture... and it's more recession proof than most places (though there's not really anywhere unhit by this one - oy). The down side probably the weather. And while it's not quite SF level prices, it's still a pretty expensive area.

 

If I were in your shoes, I would probably go to Portland or Seattle as a PP suggested. I have an uncle in Portland and I lived in Seattle one summer and it sort of rocked. There's fewer bugs there than anywhere else in the country. That's probably a really weird selling point, but if I were considering moving there and no one told me, boy would I be sorry I didn't know THAT.

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I don't personally live there, but Ann Arbor Michigan is very liberal. I don't know about their homeschool community, but I imagine it would be very liberal. The further west you go the more conservative it becomes. It's a very big college town, I don't know what your dh's PHD is in, but there might be job possibilities.

 

Ann Arbor is cold and snowy right now (we're an hour north), but, yes, it is liberal and has great homeschool community/communities, with lots of neat opportunities.

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Ithaca NY. Utne voted us the most enlightened town in America and Mothering has (or had) us in their top 10 to raise a family. The winters are upstate NY but you learn to deal. The summers are glorious. There are lots and lots of homeschoolers. You are 5 hours from NYC and Boston and Montreal. Two colleges, one is Ivy League, lots of fun people. There is Ecovillage and the gorges and Wegmans. Oh, and we have one of the biggest used book sales in the country twice a year. It's how I manage to homeschool.

 

Check it out! We are having a blast here in our 10 square miles surrounded by reality.

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Portland or Seattle as a PP suggested. I have an uncle in Portland and I lived in Seattle one summer and it sort of rocked. There's fewer bugs there than anywhere else in the country. That's probably a really weird selling point, but if I were considering moving there and no one told me, boy would I be sorry I didn't know THAT.

 

:lol: Having fewer bugs is a great selling point, imo. I've never lived in Seattle, but it's my (and my dh's) dream city. We've visited it many times & love it. If dh could find a job out there, we'd be moving in a minute.

 

Here (Atlanta), the kids & I hibernate in the summer (majority of the year) because the bugs (specifically the mosquitoes) are so bad!!! :tongue_smilie:(Btw, Atl is quite conservative, so I wouldn't pick here!)

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Boston, MA, metro area. Cold in winter, but if you don't live at the coast, no worries about earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. No bug problems, only 3 poisonous snakes (rare to see them or any snake). Tons of stuff to do. Ocean. Mountains. The rest of New England. Well-educated, generally healthy population. Lots of liberals. Wonderful pro sports teams - Red Sox, plus football, basketball, and hockey. Fantastic library system. Ballet, symphony, theater, Boston Pops, lots of wonderful museums.

 

Arlington, Cambridge, Brookline, and Salem are all great places to live, IMO, with active homeschooling communities either right there or nearby. There is also a wonderful homeschool group in Acton.

Edited by RoughCollie
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Go to www.realtor.com and put in zip code 16335. I doubt if anywhere else is as affordable!

We are rural and semirural, have four seasons and lots of Amish folk. There is a large private (expensive) liberal arts college in town (big employer) so we are a bit more liberal than you usually find in a rural area. Pennsylvania does have homeschool regs but they are not intrusive, just a bit annoying to have to fill out paperwork and follow the same mandatory testing requirements as the public schools. We haven't had any trouble, and I haven't heard of anyone else running into problems locally.

Not much for homeschooling groups locally except for those that require a statement of faith, but I remain hopeful. There are several secular groups between 45 to 60 minutes away, but my car isn't trustworthy enough to check them out.

We are one hour from Erie, one and a half hours from Pittsburgh, and one and a half hours from Cleveland. And two hours from Buffalo. Close enough if you just have to go to museums or shop, but far enough that the loudest thing you hear at night are the tree frogs.

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Come to Austin! An island of blue in a sea of red; the jewel of the hill country; a place where you can spot a Greenpeace sticker placed under the gun rack on a pickup truck. Clean air, clean water, lovely outdoors spaces, lovely people, legendary music scene, university and high-tech town, reasonable housing prices, dense urban core (we lived in the Bay Area for a while, too; my dh now commutes to work for 15 minutes on his bike rather than for an hour in the car), great weather*, homeschoolers of every stripe as thick on the ground as fleas on a dog. Many progressive homeschoolers; but we all get along together, the progressive, the conservative, the religious, the non-religious, the unschoolers, the school-at-home folks.... The whole spectrum of everyone, in an accepting culture.

 

Austin Area Homeschoolers

 

 

 

 

 

 

*guarantees do not apply to August

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

 

I live in a small suburb south of Austin and it's fairly conservative but my mixed-race-gay-hippie-liberal family has been treated with nothing but kindness and there are homeschoolers of every flavor just waiting for someone else to slop sugar with.

 

The only con is that it gets hot as Hades in the summer here. I try to stay hidden and my electric bill gets WAY too high from the constantly running AC. Just a part of life, I guess.

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I live in the Portland Metro and let me tell you it is liberal here! The homeschooling laws are much better in OR than in WA. We don't have sales tax, people pump your gas for you (don't believe the hype, gas isn't more expensive because of it), we have few bugs, no snakes, and it is gorgeous. An hour from the mountains, an hour from the coast, the end of the Oregon Trail, we have a great children's science museum and Lewis and Clark's Fort Clatsop, the list just goes on. :) :) :)

 

I am really selling it because we are about to be transferred to Salt Lake and all I can think of is all the stuff I am going to miss!

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Definitely Portland or Seattle. Both have non-religious hs groups. The one in Seattle is quite large (several hundred families).

 

If you're accustomed to a Bay Area level of liberalness, then I would say that in my experience, you would not be thrilled with Ann Arbor. I found that it may have been liberal by midwest/Michigan standards, it was conservative by west-coast standards. Things may have changed in the past eight years, but they'd have had to have changed a lot to make it west-coast liberal.

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My husband has finally finished his PhD and gotten his license, which means that for the first time in 8 years we are finally free to move about the country again. We're in the SF Bay Area where the weather is lovely but the prices are ridiculous. Since we've been here a while, we have some roots, but sometimes I wonder if that's a decent trade-off for being somewhere where we could afford a house (or apartment) with, say, a yard. FWIW, my husband's career can take us just about anywhere in the English-speaking world, as long as we know where we want to be.

 

We're on the liberal end of the U.S. spectrum and need a liberal homeschooling group. If you're happy with where you are (and it sounds like we might fit in), tell me about it!

 

Woodstock, NY . I am on the conservative end, but this is a VERY liberal area. I am a live and let live...and have many, many very liberal friends, so I do love it here. There is a pretty nice secular/liberal homeschool group wuth some cool stuff, but I never have any time or inclination to be p[art of a group, so I can't give a first hand recommendation.

 

Oh, did I mention how absolutely gorgeous it is here?? We are also 100 miles from NYC (a good drive, but very do-able) and 45 minutes from Albany.

 

Faithe

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If you're accustomed to a Bay Area level of liberalness, then I would say that in my experience, you would not be thrilled with Ann Arbor. I found that it may have been liberal by midwest/Michigan standards, it was conservative by west-coast standards. Things may have changed in the past eight years, but they'd have had to have changed a lot to make it west-coast liberal.

 

This is a great point. I think there's a lot of variation as to how people describe 'liberal' (or 'conservative'). I agree that the east coast version of 'liberal' tends (overall) to be more conservative than the west coast version of 'liberal'. Anyway, the differences in definition should be something you guys take into account when looking for places....

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I'll put in a vote for Madison, WI! Snowy winters, great university, yummy local agriculture, fairly reasonable COL, beautiful parks, tradition of political activism, and progressives everywhere you look.

 

If there was work there in my DH's industry, I would move back in a heartbeat.

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Come to Seattle! :001_smile: It's so beautiful here and we have an amazing, supportive, large (a few hundred families, I would guess), FUN group of liberal-minded homeschoolers.

 

This really is just a wonderful place to live, and to homeschool.

 

 

ETA: Parts of Seattle are pretty expensive, but if you look at neighborhoods like West Seattle, White Center, Columbia City and Burien you can still find affordable houses.

Edited by KathleenL
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I live in the Portland Metro and let me tell you it is liberal here! The homeschooling laws are much better in OR than in WA. We don't have sales tax, people pump your gas for you (don't believe the hype, gas isn't more expensive because of it), we have few bugs, no snakes, and it is gorgeous. An hour from the mountains, an hour from the coast, the end of the Oregon Trail, we have a great children's science museum and Lewis and Clark's Fort Clatsop, the list just goes on. :) :) :)

 

I am really selling it because we are about to be transferred to Salt Lake and all I can think of is all the stuff I am going to miss!

 

All of it is completely true. Except the snake part. I've seen more snakes since we've moved here than we had in the midwest. :D But they're the harmless variety. Outside of Portland, the rest of Oregon, especially to the East tends to be a little more conservative. (Which is why we live outside of Portland.) But, wow, the opportunities homeschooling here are amazing. OMSI is wonderful, my kids could live there. The tidal pools are incredible. The trees are abundant and the mountains are beautiful. If you're into nature and nature study, you'd be tickled pink. There are very few bugs, even in the summer, so odd for me. I don't think I got a single 'skeeter bite last summer. Camping opportunities abound, including on the beach. Yes, it rains. Yes, that stinks, especially if you aren't used to it. But the summer & fall seasons are GORGEOUS. I want to be in the Midwest to be near family... But when they all die, I'm coming back. :)

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This is a great point. I think there's a lot of variation as to how people describe 'liberal' (or 'conservative'). I agree that the east coast version of 'liberal' tends (overall) to be more conservative than the west coast version of 'liberal'. Anyway, the differences in definition should be something you guys take into account when looking for places....

Um, yes. We found that midwest liberal was very different than PNW liberal. :001_huh: :D

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My area of NC. Tons of homeschoolers but I seem to be the only liberal one. I need the company!

 

I don't know where you are, but if we landed in NC it would probably be in the Triangle... my folks are in Durham, and we've been eyeing their house for years! I would imagine that you're not there, though... chances are there are a few progressive folks in the Triangle.

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There is a wonderful secular homeschooling group here but there are people in the region of all political and religious stripes. It's a place where finding your crowd is not that difficult. Cost of living is reasonable too, though, not as cheap as some rural areas, particularly in the South.

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If you're accustomed to a Bay Area level of liberalness, then I would say that in my experience, you would not be thrilled with Ann Arbor. I found that it may have been liberal by midwest/Michigan standards, it was conservative by west-coast standards. Things may have changed in the past eight years, but they'd have had to have changed a lot to make it west-coast liberal.

I'll disagree with this. I moved from Boston to A2 in 2003 and lived there until 2007. Both A2 and the neighboring towns were plenty comfortable for me and DH, both born and raised Bay Area liberals. In our playgroup, there was only one mom who was politically conservative, and she hardly counted because she was just copycatting her husband, and couldn't coherently defend a conservative position to save her life. ;) Everyone else in my circle of friends was quite liberal-leaning, and most of them were born and raised in southeast MI.

 

However, it is true that the further west or north you go from A2, the more conservative it gets until you hit another big college town.

 

I'm in southeast CT now. Cost of living is an issue, but the opportunities for homeschoolers are fantastic here. We can take day trips to NYC or Providence or Boston to take advantage of big city attractions. In my opinion, the biggest downside to living in CT (and NY, NJ, MA, NH, RI, DE, ME, and VT) is the risk of Lyme disease. I'm more than a little bit into natural living, but DEET and lemon eucalyptus bug repellents are my very good friends.

 

We'd love to consider a move to Portland OR, but we'd have to spend some time there first. We enjoyed Boston when we were childless, but now I'm spoiled by life with no traffic (both Ann Arbor and southeast CT). We detest the traffic when we go back to visit family in the South Bay Area, and it isn't even that bad! But it is bad enough that I'm not sure I really want to move back to a more crowded place.

Edited by jplain
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One more vote for the Portland area. :D Sure, we actually have 100% chance of rain, but the vibrant green is amazing. Housing is a bit pricey around here, but coming from where you are, it probably won't be an issue.

 

There is so much to do here...ocean, skiing, hiking, museums, historical sites, Bob's Red Mill, Dave's Killer Bread, easy to eat locally. I'm a true pacific northwesterner and could go on and on about it here. Homeschooling laws are very easy to work with.

We also aren't that far from Seattle and all it has to offer.

 

On the scale of liberalness (Is that even a word?) it truly does vary by location. I found that in the Mid-west, I was considered on the liberal side of life and yet here, I'd be considered a bit more conservative. (I just can't embrace the naked bike ride):lol:

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I'll have to put a vote in for Ann Arbor, MI.

 

It is a wonderful university town and Michigan has some of the most liberal homeschooling laws in the US.

 

Just to get you started--

 

http://www.zingermansdeli.com/?utm_source=deli&utm_medium=zinglink&utm_campaign=zcobbar

 

http://www.aadl.org/

 

http://www.a2gov.org/Pages/default.aspx

 

http://www.a2gov.org/government/communityservices/ParksandRecreation/FarmersMarket/Pages/FarmersMarkethome.aspx

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Thanks for all the responses... I've forwarded a bunch of them to dh to see what he thinks.

 

I don't know if we'll actually move (our roots seem to be digging in) except that it's impossible for us to get ahead here. Breaking even has been a struggle. We would have to leave friends, but it's really good to realize that there are potential friends everywhere. Thank you!

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Well, tell us why Philadelphia is a good choice.

 

I know, I didn't do a very good job representing my home turf! If I could live anywhere, it would be in this suburb of Philadelphia:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7139133487015983438&q=haddonfield&hl=en#

 

Charming, historic, small town. Real main street. Very strong sense of community. Excellent public schools if you ever chose to use them. Totally walkable.

 

Less than 20 minutes by car or train to Philadelphia's restaurants, museums, history, etc.

 

Close to the Poconos for skiing in the winter, and close enough to do day trips to the shore. Beautiful fall and spring, winter is bearable.

 

Philadelphia has tons of excellent colleges and universities.

 

I have lived in many places, including internationally. I am praying that one day soon we can move back to Haddonfield!

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  • 1 month later...

We have to live in Charlotte for DH's job, but if they would allow him to telecommute I would be looking to move towards Asheville. Definitely more my speed.

 

Dawn

 

:iagree::iagree:

 

LOL. Actually, I started a progressive homeschool group last year when I moved here, and we now have 18 families :)

 

I would look at Asheville, NC. It's my dream town.

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