Charlotte, NC. 4th Most Family Friendly City

I came across an article the other day that intrigued me and kept me reading on. As I read on it began to list attributes in the 50 largest cities and which cities were considered the most family friendly cities. Charlotte, NC. was fourth among the list of the family friendly cities. Moving here from the Northeast eight years ago I understood why...but now the rest of the United States is starting to realize this as well. To ensure that before I wrote this blog post the criteria was not biased in anyway i looked to see what criteria they used in the calculations. They took the largest 50 cities in terms of population and used factors such as marital status, age, housing prices, median income, crime rates, education levels, and available education and the availability of parks, museums and places of worship. As I scrolled through the list of criteria and being a father of four children from high School to elementary school, I realized these were factors in where we lived as well and helped us decide on moving to the Charlotte, NC region from Connecticut. Charlotte offers a very attractive average home price that allows most of the working people in Charlotte area to be able to afford to own a home. Being the second largest banking center behind New York City and home to the largest electric company has not hurt the income or job growth in the Charlotte area and opened up various avenues for people with numerous universities and private colleges around as well. I know from personal experience education was a major factor in my location when I moved. I wanted to ensure that my children had the opportunity to make a good life for themselves and afford them the opportunities to achieve their goals. Charlotte, NC. takes a hard knock on public education. But as a father and Realtor in the market that has the largest school system in the state; they do an exceptional job educating the young minds of today. The last criteria was parks, museums and places of worship. charlotte is not short on parks and natural greenways...In fact there is not an area or a neighborhood section you can go to that does not offer some type of park like settings or play area for children of all ages. In uptown Charlotte there are various types of museums available and for all different types of tastes of people as well. Also living in Charlotte there is nothing short of an abundance of places of worship regardless of denomination in the charlotte area.... it may have taken some think tanks a little longer but Charlotte, NC. being ranked 4th out of 50 large cities for family friendliness did not surprise me. What did was we were not ranked higher.... Dave diCecco Realtor/Broker Coldwell Banker United www.davedicecco.com