UPDATED San Antonio vs Mesa, AZ

[emer222]

Congratulations on leaving that awful job! That took guts! Good luck with the job search! [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]

[AG DRESS DESIGNER]

I think you will like Texas. The cost of living is great here. The people are very friendly. WE came to Central Texas in 1995. Yes, the summers are hot. We have an in ground pool, so it helps. I'm orginaly from the Bay Area in CA.

[judiaci]

Good luck with your move and your new job! Keep us posted.

[Skittl1321]

The Houston area is great. I did my student teaching in Spring (although where I actually lived was in the Klein school districts) and just loved it.

There are so many great suburbs in Houston, and there is EVERYTHING you could imagine in the area. It's a bit humid, but really the weather is beautiful year round.

The cost of living there is reasonable, and the hospital you mentioned has a good reputation.

I've been out of Texas for 2 years and miss it. I hope you love it there!

[2liljellybeanz]

San Antonio! We just moved from there last year-and I loved it-there was sooo... much to do-and it was just a really nice area in general. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Allison

[Kenshinchan]

I live and work fairly close to Mesa, AZ. It gets very hot out here in the summers, but everyone pretty much has air conditioning, so it's not so bad. I've never heard of there being more to do in Houston than Phoenix (which, depending on where you are in Mesa, is a short drive, and pretty much EVERYONE out here considers Mesa to be a suburb of Phoenix--it's called the Phoenix Metro area for a reason). But Houston very well could be a better-planned community.

I don't know if Mesa's schools are that good; I would say that the city's services (libraries, police, etc.) are gravely underfunded, since Mesa's citizens generally vote down any tax increases at all. I believe they have no city property tax on houses at all. But if you live in an area near Mesa, like Tempe, the schools are probably better, and since all the cities out here run together, depending on where in Mesa you were, you could literally hop across the street and utilize another city's library. [img]tongue.gif[/img] (Chandler has VERY nice libraries IMO.)

Looking at the map, it appears that Mesa General Hospital is only 6 miles away from Arizona State University in Tempe. So even if "Mesa" doesn't appeal to you, check out the surrounding areas and see if they look any better!

I would suggest you check housing prices before you move. Mesa probably has the best prices for housing of anywhere in the area (in part because of the lack of property tax), but they're still awfully expensive, and there's some bad neighborhoods. When I say that, Mesa is HUGE, so it's really hard to say what parts are good and bad; I'm not that familiar with that area, but am getting fairly familiar with the rest of the "East Valley," as we call it out here.

When I was apartment-hunting online I stumbled across an apartment in Houston on accident, and I was stunned at how much you got for a price that would get you a rather crummy apartment out here. That was probably pre-Katrina, though, so prices in Houston may have increased.

Housing prices are flat or declining in the whole Phoenix Metro area, though; not a terrible time to buy a house, although some experts think the market will go lower. (If our housing market has a "hard landing" there could be some economic problems, but let's face it, as long as we have a lot of people, we're always going to need nurses.)

I don't know anything about the hospitals, but I know they are always in desperate need of nurses out here, and the population of pretty much every city in the area is growing, so I'm guessing there would be a lot of growth opportunities out in Mesa/Tempe/Phoenix. (It's incredibly difficult to even get an appointment with a family doctor out here! Please come! We need more medical personnel!)

The only natural disaster very likely to hit the area is a drought. We're pretty much hurricane-proof, and it's BIG news to get a tornado; I don't know if there's ever been one that's hurt anyone. Obviously, no snowstorms.

My parents are from Ohio, and my mom LOVES the sunshine; she actually gets depressed if she goes back to her hometown and it's cloudy. I personally think it's too hot, but I'm too unambitious and lazy to try to leave. [img]wink.gif[/img]

Arizona itself is a lovely state. In the winter, you can drive 2 hours to the north of Phoenix and quite possibly see snow. We also have the Grand Canyon. I'm not saying that Texas doesn't have nifty stuff, but most people I've heard who drive through it think it's very monotonous. (Of course, if you drive East/West through Arizona it's a bit monotonous, but North/South is just beautiful!)

I believe both Texas and Arizona have their TV shows on an hour earlier than you're used to (you know, "8, 7 central," also means 7 in Arizona).

We don't observe Daylight Saving Time, and probably never will, so if setting your clocks back has always annoyed you, you'll be very happy here. Oh, and yes, if you move out here, we can try to go garage-saling sometime. [img]wink.gif[/img]

I'm certainly not trashing Houston; actually, I could've had a scholarship to go to school there, but I didn't want to leave the state...I wonder how different my life would've been if I'd gone...oh well. But I thought you deserved some info on Mesa too. [img]redface.gif[/img]

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ September 28, 2006 01:41 AM: Message edited by: Kenshinchan ]</font>

[2liljellybeanz]

I do have to add one thing-I never really knew what school spirit was until I moved to TX. I've never seen such spirit! lol I think my Kindergartener learned the fight song the first day. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Allison

[2liljellybeanz]

I think from reading her post-that Houston isn't a choice anymore-she was chosing between San Antonio and Mesa. Arizona sounds very nice also--I'd love to visit there someday. [img]smile.gif[/img] I loved San Antonio when we lived there-it was beautiful place with reasonable cost of living, perfect weather (much less humidity than where we are now near Houston) and everything you need close by. There is actually a lot to do in the San Antonio area including Sea World, the Riverwalk and Six Flags among other things and historical things such as the Alamo. I was telling her in a PM the one thing that I like about Texas is no state income tax. That's helped us alot moving from Ohio where they were pretty high. And I don't miss the extra forms as tax time. [img]smile.gif[/img] How exciting to have two wonderful places to chose from! You must be so excited! I can't wait to hear where you end up!

Allison
*edited to learn how to spell Mesa right [img]wink.gif[/img] "

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ September 28, 2006 08:23 AM: Message edited by: 2liljellybeanz ]</font>

[ninasmom]

Definitely San Antonio. I love the river walk, the food, the people, everything. Schools are very good in Texas in general. Check out the complete list of 1200 top US schools (link below), Texas and California states have the most. These are the top 5% high schools in the country:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12532678/site/newsweek/

[Kit_Girl]

I might be moving to AZ- so my vote is for AZ. but do what other posters have said- check into house and apartment prices before you move.

Tracy