The Shrine

We currently live in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri on the Illinois side. There are several reasons that we're looking to move:

• * Too far from IT jobs - even though I live close to down town - almost all IT jobs are in the western suburbs on the opposite edge of the metro area (about a 50 minute drive).

• * Hard to walk/bike anywhere. Need the car to go almost anywhere. Requires us to own/maintain two cars.

• * The town we live in is ugly and boring. We moved here in a rush while my wife was pregnant a few years ago and didn't do enough research. It was just cheap and close to my old job.

• * The property taxes are too high. I pay $4,500 a year on a house that is worth *at most* $165K.

• * All of my family and most of hers have moved out of the St. Louis area so we're no longer tethered here.

I'd say that we'd move over to the Missouri side but my wife is dead-set against it. She says she's tired of St. Louis and wants to move somewhere else.

Given that, we're looking for a new place to live based on the following criteria:

• * Has IT jobs

• * Is walkable/bikeable

• * Has mild summers

• * Is affordable

• * Gets snow in winter (a big one for my wife)

• * Has good public schools

• * Low Crime

• * Has good public transport

• * Is generally more progressive politically

We're looking at several places in the US and Canada:

• * Madison, WI

• * Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN

• * Boston (Cambridge or Brookline), MA

• * Portsmouth, NH

• * Portland, ME

• * Ann Arbor, MI

• * Toronto, ON

• * Ottawa, ON

Most of these places we've never been to but are planning to visit this year or next.

Are there any observations that anyone can give on any of these cities? Should I avoid any of them? Are there any cities that I missed that you think we should check out?

What about Colorado?

My Parents moved there last year, and my sister/brother-in-law did 3 years ago. It's a growing state and it is beautiful.

Anarky wrote:What about Colorado?

I completely forgot to include Colorado.

We were looking at a few Front Range towns:

• * Denver

• * Boulder

• * Fort Collins

I'm a tree-hugger and my only concern is that there is already a water shortage out there and that moving there would only exacerbate the problem. We're still considering it though. It's beautiful in CO, especially up in the mountains. It's too bad that there aren't any jobs in the mountains--only on the Front Range.

My parents actually live there too. They moved there a few years ago to Grand Junction (about 20 miles from the Utah border). There are no IT jobs around where they live.

Best part of Colorado is all the out doors activities you can do. My parents live in Aurora which is a cute little city.

Also it is the thinest state in the USA

There are plenty of IT facilities in downtown STL. I work in a data center in the center of of downtown STL and have for the last 3 years, our corporate office is located out in Olive. While I was born and raised here and a lot of my family still resides here I doubt I'll ever leave though it is always an option but now with a house and the company investing another 10% in my annual salary it would be hard for me to walk away. Your property taxes are ridiculous. It is a lot cheaper on this side of the river. (I pay 1200 on a $120,000 house).

I do live on the Missouri side and I love it. I live in the city limits so I cannot comment on the schools (I went to private catholic school growing up) but I hear that we've pretty much lost any if not all state accreditation now. Depending on the area you choose over here though the schools can be excellent and you can bike to get around. Don't be deceived by the crime stats put out by the FBI. They only take into account the STL City limit population and not the entire metro area (The 270/255 circle) like they should.

I do miss the snow falls we used to get here, now all we have been getting is ice, climate change is a bitch.

I guess I see it more since I am downtown a lot but there is a lot of data center space being created down here for IT companies that provide hosting.

Become a Canadian, you'll be happy as a pig in shit that you did :-) Affordable? Not so much, Toronto is relatively expensive. Good public transport? Well, it's good for waht it is, just too small for the size of the city. Its good enough but not good. But it does have everything else you require in spades.

Out of curiosity, what kind of IT job you lookin' for? The Kitchener-Waterloo area where I live is huge technologically. After all, RIM was born and is mostly here.

Zeus wrote:Become a Canadian, you'll be happy as a pig in shit that you did :-)

Do you go through some sort of magical transformation or something?

Zeus wrote:Out of curiosity, what kind of IT job you lookin' for?

I'm a Software "Engineer" (re: Java programmer). Kitchener-Waterloo (and Cambridge?) looks like a neat area. There weren't nearly as many IT jobs listed there as, say, Toronto or Ottawa though (I looked on monster.ca). I will have to check it out when we're in the area next summer.

Imakeholesinu wrote:There are plenty of IT facilities in downtown STL

I know there are a few Java positions in downtown (I used to work at AT&T), they rarely open up. I grew up in the county and have lived in Kirkwood, Glendale, Maplewood, and U. City (for everybody else--"St. Louis" actually consists of "the city" and 100+ suburbs). I'd like to move back over to the MO side (Maplewood or Clayton) but my wife is dead-set against it for various reasons.

I do know that both Comcast and Time-Warner have their main NOC/HQs there in Denver. Hell, they are right next to each other.

SineSwiper wrote:I do know that both Comcast and Time-Warner have their main NOC/HQs there in Denver. Hell, they are right next to each other.

Al lthe more reason NOT to move there :p

There's not the volume of work but we do have some pretty big players in the tech industry here, like RIM and OpenText. RIM should be doing more on their outdated OS and apps, I imagine they will be hiring in that area. I will ask a bud if he knows anything.