u/SadRoll1966

I’m moving with my Family (Wife, 2 kids elementary age, Me) to Philadelphia from Orlando in October.

We’ve been looking into it extensively and Philadelphia looks amazing from what we can see so far. Currently we’re looking to move to the West Philadelphia area and are interested in renting, at least a 2 br 1 bath. We would like to spend no more than 1700-1800 a month as that’s around what we’re paying now.

As for employment, we’re coming from the retail/customer service/office admin career fields but we don’t have anything lined up at the moment and will be looking as soon as we get there. However, we have plenty enough savings to last for a while before that becomes a dire issue.

Was wondering a few things as we have never been to the city and are moving purely off of research and planning:

Is West Philadelphia/Philadelphia a good place to raise a family? Specifically, a Black family? (Black, mixed race family coming from the deep conservative regressive south so looking for essentially an environment completely opposite of that)

How is the job market? Could we find employment easily with our background?

What are the schools in west Philadelphia like? We are a neurodiverse family with academically gifted kids so looking for a system that uplifts, challenges and encourages.

What’s the cost of living? Grocery, gas, utilities, entertainment price averages.

I have a ton more questions I’m sure but I know this is already a lot so I’ll see if we can start here so anyone with any feedback or insight would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

I’ve lived in Daytona Beach/Port Orange area for about over a decade now.

Currently been in Port Orange going on almost 7 years now and for the life of me, I can’t recall having not ONE consistent lawn mowing service.

I’ve had about 11 different people in the last few years.

It’s always the same thing. I reach out, we settle on price, they show up once or a few times, do nice work, everyone says their cordial goodbyes and then you never hear from them again.

And mind you, I’ve got a small property, doesn’t take more than maybe 10-15 minutes to service, especially when they’re using a rider. And I don’t want or ask for any special things, just a straight flat cut since that’s what the HOA requires. $40-50 bucks for 10 minutes seems like a steal to me.

Hell, I’ve even had a few of them reach out to me to ask me if I need service, I respond that I do and they say they’re gonna put you on the schedule and then they never show up.

I’ve lived all over the country. Even a few cities in Florida. And I’ve never experienced anything like this till I moved here, Port Orange more so specifically.

It’s like they don’t want the easy money. I’ve had bigger properties even with regularly scheduled service that required more work in other cities and never had issues with consistent service from other lawn care providers.

And I’ve heard that this is not an uncommon thing around here so I’m not sure what’s going on. It’s this just a Port Orange thing to not want the work or ghost people on jobs?

I might as well just get my own mower and save the money every month since At this point, since it seems like I literally can’t give the money away lol.