A fresh start in a new city can be the right decision for you and your family’s best interests. Perhaps it’ll also help you minimize your overall monthly expenses. For example, the living cost for a family of four in a city like Colorado Springs is $5336, which exceeds the average monthly income after tax ($4614) in that location (source: Livingcost.org).
Yet, the hassle of moving alongside the fear of leaving a comfortable space for the unknown often detracts people from making this decision. While it is undeniable that moving is a major, life-altering decision, the difficulties of moving alone should not be reason enough to stop you from moving. So, here are six potential benefits of moving to another place—reading these may help you determine if this is the right decision for you and/or your family.
Better Job Opportunities
Cities are often hubs of industry and business that have unique market characteristics that distinguish them from one another. In Denver, located in the mineral-rich state of Colorado, the economy is primarily based around mining, while New York, a cosmopolitan hub, is known for its financial markets.
Moving to a new city often opens you up to broader career opportunities as you move to a new economy better suited to your specialized talents. Instead of competing for limited opportunities in a city where your expertise is niche, moving to a new city with better prospects can be the best long-term decision.
Lower Living Costs
Property prices in cities are in constant flux, where changes in migratory patterns create rises and dips in the demand for property, which impacts their prices. For example, the upsurge in people moving to Colorado due to the recession and the pandemic has caused property prices to skyrocket in cities like Colorado Springs. Also, as mentioned above, the living costs in this city can be hard for many families to manage. In such cases, people have been getting in touch with Colorado Springs long distance movers so that they can relocate to a new city, and you can do the same.
If you live in a city where the cost of living is constantly increasing or one that has you living in a cramped space as that is all you can afford, moving to a new city with more affordable property prices can be a crucial decision to ensure you have a better quality of life.
Better Amenities
The amenities available in your city directly impact your quality of life. It could be better infrastructure, like greater availability of public transport and more walkable and cyclable areas within the city, which change how you interact with the space and how often you can access different parts of the city.
Better healthcare, with more advanced treatment options, can help achieve peace of mind when it comes to worrying about the health of yourself and your family. More recreational spaces can be an important factor that positively impacts the lives of your younger family members, and better public schooling increases their chances of achieving long-term economic success. Also, better law enforcement means that you can sleep easier knowing your home and your loved ones are protected.
Opportunity For Growth
If the reason you don’t want to move to a new city is a fear of the unknown, consider the move as an act of personal growth, where you are inviting the challenges of a different environment head-on. Instead of viewing the move out of your city as a loss of lifestyle, people you are comfortable with, and culture you have acclimatized to, you should see it as an opportunity to foster new relationships alongside the ones you already have.
Once you have moved, you will have to navigate unfamiliar territory, make connections with people you do not know, and come to terms with the cultural reality of your new city, all of which will improve your adaptation skills. Instead of being rigid in your preferences and lifestyle, a move can help make you more malleable such that you will have the self-confidence to live anywhere in the future.
You Can Redefine Yourself
If you have lived in one city or lived there for many years, you likely have a connection to the people around you. While having an established community can be comforting, it leaves little room for reinvention. People already know you and have formed associations and references about your personality. Breaking out of this mold in an environment where everyone is predisposed to think of you in a certain way is difficult. It can be especially troublesome if you have lived in the same place since you were a child, where opinions formed about you then still affect how you are perceived now.
In a new city full of unknown people and spaces, while you lose out on established social connections, you gain the opportunity to have more active authorship over how you are perceived. When you interact with people, they will not know who you are, what you’re like, or what you do, which presents the perfect opportunity to redefine yourself.
Increase Your Social Network
You won’t suddenly lose the personal and business connections you formed when you move to a new city. This pessimistic thinking prevents people from taking advantage of their existing network when trying to create new connections in a different space. Moving to a new city is a way of broadening your network, where you can get to know professionals and opinion makers in two spaces and can leverage the relationships you have formed in each city to your advantage in the other.
When you move to a new city, an important thing to consider is who you know from your existing relationships that could be useful for networking purposes in your new city. Perhaps it is someone who has business in your new city or is close to someone well-established in the corporate space. The saying ‘we live in such a small world’ exists because it is true that often, even the most random person you meet can be connected to you through a mutual.
Conclusion
Shifting homes alone is daunting enough; moving to an entirely new city can be overwhelming. Leaving behind your roots, social connections, and a lifestyle you may be comfortable with can often act as a stagnating force, preventing us from moving even when it is in our best interests. Instead of considering your new city as an act of loss, where you’re losing friends and family, think of it as an adventure, where you get to meet new people and explore different spaces while maintaining the social connections from your previous home.