Need a change of scenery

July 8, 2020 6:04 AM

I’m a 35 year old man, conservative, will definitely vote for POTUS in the Fall if I’m still here in Arlington, VA. I work in the District. I’ve been here about three years and more miserable by the day. I need some plausible starting points to travel to in order to explore a move.

I won’t bash Arlington and DC. Some people are liberal and “woke” and I’m sure they love it here. It’s about 96% solidly left and the woke culture is wearing on me.

I need to start traveling to find viable alternatives. The only positive thing for me here is the job market. But I’ve realized not even a job paying 75k could keep me happy here. I currently earn 35k a year pretax.

I’m a 35 year old single man and here are my preferences:

1) a place with slightly warmer and more predictable weather.
2) a place where people are a little nicer than here. It doesn’t have to be over the top nice, but maybe not total scumbag sociopath like a big proportion of the population here is. I think DMV tends to attract the very best and the very worst humans alive.
3) a place still in the solidly eastern U.S. although I am from California originally, I love the proximity to Italy, Israel, and other points of international interest from the Eastern U.S. Traveling from CA is only good if you’re going west or maybe south, not East.
4) jobs should be decent but it doesn’t need to have the kind of salary given by DMV nor the sheer number of opportunities. I have enough experience and job skills to land a job anywhere even if it isn’t a great paying one, and prosperity is not super important to me.
5) probably a town under 10,000 people won’t be good. I need a slower transition to feel like I’m not going from DC area to a really small town.

By the way, I don’t have a car and need to buy one, and I would of course budget to attend job interviews, landing a job out of the area prior to moving. I’m not independently wealthy and I would only be able to do this with job in place.

Thanks everyone!

posted by shirhashirim to Work & Money (12 answers total)

What is it that you do? That may impact the suggestions.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:24 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Basically any city in the south will have a larger proportion of conservatives than DC, and people there tend to be friendly, at least superficially. Adding more details would help us be more specific--do you care if it's walkable? How hot? Cost of living?
posted by chaiminda at 6:32 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

St. Louis? It's not Eastern, but otherwise it lines up with your requirements and it's a lot of fun. (I have almost exactly opposite interests, so take my advice with a huge grain of salt.)
posted by eotvos at 6:34 AM on July 8, 2020

Augusta, GA (and the surrounding area, including Aiken, SC) is fairly politically / socially conservative with a reasonably active job market, low cost of living, warm weather, polite people, and within a 2-3 hour drive to the Atlanta airport for international travel. (I am your opposite in every way other than age, so the reasons I left are the reasons you may prefer it.)

Lots of other mid-sized cities or outer-ring suburbs in the South would probably fit the profile too.
posted by fifthpocket at 6:34 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Like others have said, I think the job info is key. Assuming you’re looking for a place you could move and fairly easily/quickly find a job and you’re flexible about what kind of job it is, I think your best general bet would be the Raleigh/Durham area in NC. But even the social life there might be too “woke” for you. (I’ve found the people there to be very friendly and sociable, but then again I think the same of DC.) Atlanta would definitely suit your travel goals (it’s a huge hub) and job goals, but again maybe too “woke.” Unfortunately, it sounds like you’re uncomfortable with people outside a very narrow demographic, and that demographic tends to live outside cities in rural and very suburban areas, marry fairly young, be busy with kids, etc. So the narrow slice of people whose views you want to be around is at cross-purposes with a lot of your other goals like city/larger town living and the ease of finding a good-paying job.

You could look to Florida, but I wasn’t sure if you would categorize that as Eastern US (it’s kind of its own thing, you know?).
posted by sallybrown at 6:37 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

What about eastern North Carolina, somewhere like Fayetteville? You'd have quickish access to both the Charlotte and Raleigh airports, and both have international flights. You'd also be fairly near to some really wonderful beaches. And there's Fort Bragg, which would presumably give the culture less of a lefty feel, while also being an economic stabilizer (even if you don't work on the base, the supporting institutions in surrounding towns are usually stronger). I've always found North Carolinians pretty friendly, as well.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:40 AM on July 8, 2020

I say this as gently as possible: Metafilter tends to lean politically towards the kind of people whom you're fleeing, and I think you'll probably get better answers if you ask this somewhere else. It's not that we don't want to be helpful, but this is the kind of question that may be better answered by someone who shares your perspective.

Having said that, I would look at the Atlanta suburbs and the Research Triangle area in North Carolina. But I'm a woke liberal, and it may be that those areas seem appealing to me because they have some features that will put you off.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:42 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

I will just add, I know a fair amount of “fiscally conservative / socially liberal” people who live Southeastern US cities—people who voted GOP pre-Trump—but they aren’t bothered by the kind of things Trump fans think of when they say “woke”—gay friends, people of color, working with women, etc. These people don’t always enjoy discussing politics or social movements (not necessarily due to discomfort, some of them just find it boring) and would rather have social discussions about tv shows, food, and other topics. If you brought up politics, they might change the subject. If you’re ok with this type of social life, then I think Atlanta, Raleigh/Durham, and other Southeastern cities fit your criteria. (Maybe even Charleston, SC, but there’s less in the way of jobs.)

On the other hand, I know a few strong Trump fans who are similar to you—mid-thirties single men. They actively like discussing politics, talking about Trump, etc. They wouldn’t want to live in a place where people avoid discussions of politics and social movements. The guys I know who fit this description in the Eastern US either live in Florida or DC. (But it’s a small sample size.)
posted by sallybrown at 6:49 AM on July 8, 2020

Mod note: A couple deleted. Both answerers and OP: this needs to be strictly about getting suggestions on somewhere to live that is considered more politically conservative than DC area, and not a back and forth fight about "woke" culture, etc.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:53 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

The big airports in the southern US are Atlanta*, Charlotte, Orlando, Miami and/or Fort Lauderdale, Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth. Anywhere else and you will be connecting through Atlanta. Some of those places might be affordable to you. Politics-wise, cities are typically pretty blue, and the farther away you get the redder you tend to get. That said, in most of the rest of the country people don’t do politics literally for a living, so it’s lower-key most of the time.

The way you do this is to get on LinkedIn and the other job boards and look at listings, and apply for a bunch of stuff. The company should pay to fly you out for an interview, and they should pay to move you to the new city. If they won’t, you shouldn’t work there anyway. And the job you get determines where you move.

*ATL is in southwestern Atlanta. Depending on time of day, it may be faster to travel from Auburn, Alabama to the airport than it is from the other end of the Atlanta metro. But there is a MARTA stop, so that’s an option.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:54 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

I think you're going to be hard-pressed to find this ideal non-woke place you're wanting. If we define woke as tolerant and accepting, which is how I'm defining that word, then you're in for a surprise. It's 2020 and most people have stopped keeping quiet about intolerance & bigotry. The ideal place you're looking for probably doesn't exist.

I think ArbitraryAndCapricious is right, you're probably going to be better served asking this elsewhere, since the answers from this community (which is largely left-leaning) may not be the types of answers you are wanting.
posted by Fizz at 6:54 AM on July 8, 2020 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: Moderator, I’m going to mark this discussion as closed. I didn’t realize how “woke” this forum was and it would probably be best to just delete the thread. Thanks.
posted by shirhashirim at 6:55 AM on July 8, 2020