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Can't Decide Where To Live
H and I both grew up on Long Island, NY and both of our families still live there. We lived together in Boston from 2006 - 2008, and have lived in Philadelphia from 2008-present while H finishes up his medical residency. We will now be moving back to Boston for 1 year for H to complete his fellowship and finish up his training.
My problem: We both love Boston, New York, and Philly, but I'm very conflicted as to where to settle long-term. I thought I wanted Boston (hence the fellowship there), but now that we are about to move I am unsure.
- Boston is an AMAZING city with beautiful suburbs, but is a little far from family (a concern as we are planning on kids soon) and definitely has a moderately high cost of living.
- New York has a VERY high cost of living, but is very close to family, which may be a benefit once we have kids
- Philly has really grown on me as a city, has a more moderate cost of living, and is still far from family, but not as far as Boston
I know there's not a right or wrong answer necessarily, but has anyone else been in a similar situation? Any insight you can offer? Any considerations that may have not come up yet that I should be thinking about?
Thanks in advance! Sorry for the long post!
Re: Can't Decide Where To Live
We love love love love Boston. H grew up in the mid-west, I grew up near DC, we met in Florida and lived overseas and Boston is - for real - the first place that feels like our home.
We do not have family that lives any closer than an hour and a half by plane (or eight hours by car). And some of them are a good deal further than that.
No kids yet.
Although it will be more challenging to live away from family in some ways if we have kids, I think in others it will be easier because NONE of them live close by, which means there is no built in competition between grandparents.
I vote for Boston. Because I am biased.
I love Philadelphia.
I grew up in Delaware County, and spent time in Philly as a kid. I moved to cente3r city in my 20's. Then I moved to NYC, back to here, to Cleveland, Chicago, and London, and I could not wait to get back here to Philly again.
The regional board is a helpful and good bunch of ladies, should you wish to ask questions.
Yeah that's right my name's Yauch!
I'm going to be Debbie Downer about all this, as we're in the last few weeks of an ungodly long medical training path.
You may not have as many choices as you think. A lot of fields suck these days for job availability, as the older docs lost a lot in the market crash, and are hanging on to their positions longer, instead of going into retirement. H is in a fairly specific field, and when he applied for his job, there were 12 postings, nationally. Twelve. For 300 graduates. Now, more have since been posted, but he still knows a number of people scrambling for a job, and some had to take positions not in their specified field of practice (for which they did fellowship), but instead for the general field.
So I guess I'm saying don't stress about it too much, as the job market may make the decision for you.
Apply everywhere, and consider it a fortunate problem if you have a number of offers to choose from.
Something else to consider: non-compete clauses in a contract. If he takes a position, and hates it, how far will you have to move for him to find a new job? Will you have to move at all? Some places completely screw you over with that (the place where H went to med school had a 100 mile radius non-compete, meaning you'd have to move really far away and basically start over if you ever wanted to leave). So make sure that wherever you go you'll be able to find another position without completely uprooting your life if things don't work out.