Author: /u/hyuuvely

Hi All,

I’m a Korean who has been in NYC for a long long time, but is considering relocating to Houston after news that I will be able to fully telework after the COVID pandemic. I think like many other transplants, the things that draw me to Houston are:

1. Lack of state income tax, meaning similar take home pay despite a slight paycut,
2. Low cost of living,
3. Diversity compared to other states,
4. Space. COVID shutdown has made me realize that living/working in a shoebox full-time is absolutely unsustainable.

However, three of these four things are what drew me to live in Atlanta last year and I still ended up disliking it immensely due to the following:

1. I felt unsafe with the sound of random gunshots in what were considered safe neighborhoods (my naive and gun-ignorant self thought they were fireworks at first),
2. Blatant drug usage and aggressive panhandling,
3. Immense segregation despite the diversity statistics: there was a hateful level of micro and overt racial aggressions between African Americans and Caucasians that I honestly didn’t even know was possible. Sure, there are cultural pockets and neighborhoods in NYC, but ATL seriously had highway divisions according to skin color. If one person didn’t like another for whatever reason, it was always due to skin color as opposed to their personhood. It was exhausting being Asian and caught up in the middle.
4. Bugs. Specifically, mutant roaches that were large as the mice here.

Maybe it is my lack of exposure to the whole of the United States, but those four points are what ultimately led me to move back to NYC after my year in ATL. I am afraid of making an even further move to Houston and having a repeat of this experience, especially since I won’t know anyone or anything there. The one thing I did like about Georgia was that as a Korean, I had a large immigrant and Korean American population to befriend and remind me of home, as well as Korean businesses. A quick google search and look at google maps shows me that I don’t think I’ll have an issue with this front in Houston as well.

I guess my ask of this community is – do the things I dislike about ATL largely hold true in Houston?
To Georgia’s credit, a lot of my GA friends told me that many of my experiences were due to me being in the downtown area to be close to work. Since I’d be wfh, I can see how things like avoiding being around aggressive drug use and panhandling can be mitigated. I also plan to live in a luxury high-rise/new construction apartment upon my move, so I’m hoping the bugs won’t be an issue..
Is it wrong to assume that being in Houston’s center will be safe? Is it wrong to assume it’ll be like a less crazy, but relatively safe, Manhattan? Should I avoid it like I should’ve avoided downtown-ATL?

Also, I drive, but have a 10 year old Honda w/around 105k miles. I think that it’ll be fine on a cross country trip, but do you think it’d be wiser to let go of it and purchase a newer car once I get to Houston?

Otherwise, would you have any suggestions/advice for an immigrant/potential transplant such as myself?

So sorry for the long post. And thank you so much in advance!