Moving from Seattle-Tacoma area to OKC

I’m sorry to say this, but yes, it’s considerably cheaper because OK is one of the worst states in the country for many reasons, quality of life being one of them.

I don’t blame you for wanting to get out of Seattle, but this is a situation where I can guarantee you the grass is not only not greener, but a straight up polluted wasteland compared to WA state.

But yes, quite a bit cheaper…

Actually there are a lot of nice areas in the Seattle-Tacoma region but definitely not in the city of Seattle or in Tacoma. It appears that your current salary is disqualifying you from moving into those areas. There's a reason rent is cheap in OKC. You'll find out soon enough why if you move there.

You will have to renounce your Antifa citizenship when you move here.

If your name is Supersonics, you will also have to change it to Thunder.

OKC has gotten a lot better, they have a public tax program that is forced to actually invest in the city. That combined with the Thunder have made it so much better over the last decade.

The public schools are terrible, might have to head to the burbs for a better situation there.

For running you have the river, Lake Hefner, Lake Draper. Pretty tight knit running scene but they do a great job with the Memorial Marathon every year.

If you move to the city the north side of town is nice from 15th-60th streets.

Ask the Sonics.

If you've lived in Seattle area your whole life, you will definitely regret the move after you've settled in for awhile. The job/career will not makeup for the lifestyle change. You will be surrounded by a completely different culture than you are used to even though you may disagree with the whacko's in King County. You will be overwhelmed by the "closed mindedness" of the Midwest even though you may agree with them in principle. Did I mention F5 tornado activity?

There's a better, more neutral transition but it's not OKC. I write this not because I favor one place over the other but because I have moved across those political, cultural, environmental and geographic lines several times. The first time will be shocking to you and you may truly regret it and possibly not recover from it without a restart which will be much harder if you decide to go back. Look at your companies future and study their potential for growth and your financial security. You may have to reconsider your reconsider while you find something else more secure.

24 years ago I moved, for personal and professional reasons, from Rochester, NY to Manhattan, KS. Rochester is WAAYYY less liberal than Seattle and Manhattan is surely not as bad culturally as OKC. I still found it a huge shock. Although my co-workers tried very hard to make me feel at home, I never did. For the first time in my life (I was 40 years old when I moved) I understood what women mean when they talk about being treated like second-class citizens. I had never experienced that before. Although we bought a gorgeous home on half an acre of land for very little money, there was absolutely nothing to do except work within a day's drive. And my husband hated it even worse than I did. To make a long story short, we got out of there as soon as we could, which took four years (we needed two full professor positions in similar fields of study at the same time--not easy to find).

Don't do it.

Nick Collison will be key to your transition.

A former boss, years ago, moved his family out of Seattle to a smaller eastside suburb, just about 25 miles away.

He said it seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the first day or two he woke up in the middle of some comparatively dead, dull, listless suburb and he said the first thing that came into his head was what the hell did I just do?

Have you considered offering Jamin take the position, he has posted once or twice that Seattle isn't cutting it on several fronts.

OKC has been a boomtown due to the fracking boom. The metro area is up to about 1.5 million people. Real estate is cheap because there are no land barriers and developers can keep sprawling out onto cheap farmland. And up until about the late 1990s, no one wanted to live in OKC.

Because of the energy industry boom, everyone in OKC is from somewhere else. That somewhere else is more often than not Texas. But people get pulled into OKC to work the shale formation from all over.

OKC is a southern city. It is basically Dallas' mini me. People are pretty laid back and have good senses of humor. The state is very conservative and most people you will meet in OKC are in the oil and gas business. But you will also meet plenty of normal center-left to progressive people in OKC.

There is plenty to do in OKC. Lots of concert venues from small to large (U Okla is just south in Norman if you want to hang with the kids). Plenty of decent restaurants (and real Mexican food). You are about 3-4 hours drive to DFW if you need to see an NFL game or go to a symphony concert.

OKC is hot as F in the summer with a good 3-4 months of 90+ with plenty of humidity. OKC is right on tornado alley. And most homes in OKC have no basement. Make sure you have comprehensive auto insurance as OKC also gets some pretty massive hail storms. The city is actually very green with decent amounts of rainfall, but lots of sun.

If you need to be in the mountains, the Sangre de Christo range in NM (Taos, Angel Fire, etc.) is about 8 hours drive away and most of the ski areas in CO are 12 hours. Hot Springs, AR is a day's drive and has nice camping, lakes, rivers, etc.

You could do a lot worse than OKC. Between OKC and Seattle (my wife's family is in Seattle), I am not sure that it is worth it to be in Seattle and be broke versus being in OKC with the good ol boys, mega churches and strip malls but having enough money to go out and enjoy yourself on the weekends.

But you just described why you’ll have to go hours and hours away from OKC to spend that money on the weekends.

That is my problem. I am currently an academic and I think I need to leave. I care too much about where I live.

OKC > SeaTac. Move

And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?"

The Talking Heads had a song about this very phenomena..

Living on the East Side gets your kids into LWSD. Many Seattle public schools are rated 1/10.

Bingo! Definite consideration in his decision and it was closer to his workplace. But he did have second thoughts about the decision.

For the whole story, he moved back to Seattle at one point, and about the time he got a job back on this side of the lake.

He had a real estate background, and bought a couple of more times, last hearing of a house in a retirement community in CA, which he apparently loves. Not sure if that is his primary residence, though...

So, maybe the takeaway here is to not think of any particular move as permanent.

Must have been a long time ago... The eastside suburbs are way nicer in practically every way