Looking to move out of Lakewood

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amother

Amaranthus

Mon, Aug 29 2022, 11:12 pm

amother OP wrote:

Hi! This would be the year to apply for schools for the following year. DH and I were discussing schools and then came to the conclusion that we don’t really want to raise our children in the school system here. We want to move out of town to a warm community with a solid chinuch and love for yidishkiet. We do come from heimish family backgrounds but we don’t necessarily need that although we don’t want to be an outcast.
Any ideas on which communities to look into?

When you say heimish, can you explain that? Does your husband wear a streimel? Uphat? Downhat? Do your kids speak yiddish?

amother

Amaranthus

Mon, Aug 29 2022, 11:13 pm

amother

Pink

Mon, Aug 29 2022, 11:28 pm

Goldie613 wrote:

What??? Where'd all the Brooklyn people go? Or is this only certain parts?

I know people have been leaving parts of NY for other areas for a while now, but I haven't heard anything Brooklyn specific.

Flatbush has emptied out a lot. All of the schools have seen decreased enrollment for years already. They have cut down on parallel classes and on class size. Shuls are also emptier than they used to be, and there are even shuls that struggle to get a minyan for all tefillos.

That said, it is very rare for a family to move here because the housing prices are insane. And NYC in general is not the greatest place to live.

amother

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 1:29 am

Thank you all for the different ideas and info! We will definitely do more research and visit to get a feel for the community first. I really appreciate all the responses!

amother

Burntblack

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 3:11 am

In my head there are 3 types of OOT

Big OOT - not as huge as Lkwd, monsey, brooklyn - but large enough that there are a few school options/different communities. Baltimore, Cleveland, Miami, LA, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal (notice all major cities)

Mid- size OOT- reasonable amount of frum amenities, may or may not have more then one community/one school option, have significant growth - Passaic, Highland Park, Dallas, Waterbury, South Bend, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Houston, St. Louis

Tiny OOT- really small community, usually evryone knows eachother, but much harder when it comes to frum amenities. Places like Seattle, Denver, Norfolk, Boston, philadelphia, rochester, scranton......

You really need to decide which kind of OOT you are looking at the. You get more options in the bigger places but more warmth in the mid size, and in the small places you have the biggest opportunities to make an impact.

Also you need to consider your children's needs.
Do they have any (even minor) specials needs (you need somewhere with services)?
Are they likley to need different kinds of schools for different kids (then you need more mid- size places)

amother

Topaz

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 8:42 am

Texas

amother

Impatiens

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 9:06 am

as an OOTer, I find what you said abt big OOT to be interesting.

LA, baltimore, and Toronto, for example, are way way bigger jewish communities than, say, Detroit and Cleveland, which I would consider mid-size.

If consider a lot of the places in your Mid size OOT list to be really small, like south bend and Cincinnati, while Passaic is big OOT...

to me, as a kollel type fam ily, we looked at cities based on things liked
1) affordability
2) how many school options there are (Need more than 1)
3) how many kollelim there are (need more than 1)

Moonlight

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 9:47 am

amother Burntblack wrote:

This list is so wrong
Philadelphia is way bigger than half the places u put in midsized
Passaic is bigger than Cleveland or detroit

amother

Winterberry

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 10:32 am

Moonlight wrote:

This list is so wrong
Philadelphia is way bigger than half the places u put in midsized
Passaic is bigger than Cleveland or detroit

It’s completely wrong. I was going to correct it and then realized there were enough mistakes I’d need to type up my own list and I’m too lazy for that. But take Houston and Milwaukee. There’s no way you can classify them as anything but tiny and yet somehow they are under midsized.

amother

Foxglove

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 1:25 pm

I live in Chicago, but grew up in Baltimore, so I know both areas well. Both are "big" out of town, and really really nice places to raise kids. I don't know your specific situation and needs, but the perk of Baltimore vs other areas is that it's really close to Lakewood (relatively) so it's much easy to travel for simchas, yomim tovim, and vacation if that's where your families live. Passaic is a nice option too.
Unfortunately housing has gone up everywhere- a small house in Chicago is now at least $450k, 3 bedroom, no master bath, small property/backyard. If there's upgrades or if the kitchen was extended it's even more, over 500k. I disagree with an above poster about rentals in Chicago- I don't think there are so many rental options in the frum areas right now.
We have friends in cleveland who didnt get their kids into the school of their choice because there was no room. Good luck! Out of town life is GREAT!

amother

Zinnia

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 4:40 pm

I agree out of town is amazing! We're in Baltimore. We could totally move to Lakewood if we wanted to since we have relatives heavily involved with some of the schools there but for us this is the best place to raise our family. We fit in 100%! Me and my husband are from in town heimishe backgrounds. We lived in Eretz Yisroel for the first 15 years and when we decided to return to the US we wanted our kids to retain the pashtus of E"Y. When we would visit Lakewood my kids would get very overwhelmed, now that we've been in the US for 10 years not as much so since everything in Lakewood eventually trickles down to Baltimore. We really only intended to stay in Baltimore for a few years but we're not going anywhere. Baltimore has every type under the sun- chasidish, heimish, Chabad, yeshivish, yekish, JPF, MO........ The girls schools are a mix of all types aside from Chabad, Khal Chasidim and Ohr Chadash (MO/Co-ed). The boys schools are not as much of a mix with TI and Toras Simcha more to the heimish/yeshivish side, TA more of a community, all types school and then Chabad, Khal Chasidim with boys divisions too. There's around 5 or 6 boys mesivtas. For shuls, aside from like 3 MO and 4 chasidish, everything else is a mix. People tend to stick with their types even if neighborhoods and schools are more diverse. Out of the 100-150 girls in my kids grades, they are friends mostly with their type. But if you come here, you have to understand that you need to be able to tolerate those different from you. That's not something you really have in Lakewood where everyone is basically yeshivish, minus or plus. You can't freak out if the lady on line at the store in front of you doesn't have the same tznius standards as you because that's going to happen. But we had that in Eretz Yisroel too. There's probably in the range of 5-6000 families here so you got it all and have plenty of families of every type. We have everything here. Lots of women and kids clothing stores, tons of restaurants- it's an in-towny type of out of town but very much out of town!! Housing is expensive here though but if you're coming from Lakewood it's probably a little cheaper. Like other posters said depending on the neighborhood, anywhere from 250K to over a million. And with Lakewood just a 2.5 hour drive, people are constantly driving back and forth.

amother

Winterberry

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 5:10 pm

I live in Lakewood and if I could I’d move to either Baltimore or Passaic. Both very nice sized communities not too far from Lakewood so it’s relatively easy to visit family. Sadly my husband has lived in Lakewood all his life and refuses to move anywhere else.

amother

Sage

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 5:14 pm

Moonlight wrote:

This list is so wrong
Philadelphia is way bigger than half the places u put in midsized
Passaic is bigger than Cleveland or detroit

Philly is a bigger city or a bigger frum community? There’s a difference. Houston is a huge metropolis- but not a commensurately sized frum community.

amother

Amaranthus

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 7:36 pm

amother Sage wrote:

Philly is a bigger city or a bigger frum community? There’s a difference. Houston is a huge metropolis- but not a commensurately sized frum community.

Way bigger frum community. 2 large schools that have both boys and girls (separate classes over a certain age) and just opened a cheder. Many neighborhoods with frum ppl, many shuls, growing big frum population

amother

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 10:01 pm

OP here.
Thank you all for the info! This was a really helpful start! I really appreciate all the responses.

amother

Sage

Tue, Aug 30 2022, 10:34 pm

amother Amaranthus wrote:

That doesn’t sound way bigger than Detroit or Cleveland.

amother

Papayawhip

Sun, Sep 04 2022, 4:43 pm

amother Sage wrote:

That doesn’t sound way bigger than Detroit or Cleveland.

Lol I have relatives in all 3 of those cities. Philadelphia is definitely smaller than the other 2.

amother

Mint

Sun, Sep 04 2022, 4:59 pm

amother Papayawhip wrote:

Lol I have relatives in all 3 of those cities. Philadelphia is definitely smaller than the other 2.

Philly has the advantage of being close to New York and Lakewood if that matters.

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