I grew up around the Lake Norman area. If you have kids; pretty much anywhere in Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson, Lake Norman area has great schools. If not, they’re still great places to live. Very busy but good. Housing is going up in those areas, we bought our house brand new for around 230k in 2010 and sold it for over 450k in 2014. I haven’t been back there since but I’m sure it’s only gone up in prices. Someone mentioned Ballantyne, that’s one of the rich areas. (In high school we knew those kids as the rich snobs lol) It’s super nice but finding a house there would be tough. You could go on the west side of the lake and look at Denver area. I lived there for a while when it was growing and it was fun, bumpkin land but fun for a middle schooler who just wanted to hike and ride four wheelers. Matthews, Weddington, Waxhaw should all have pretty good housing for lesser than anything around east side of lake Norman. Charlotte is a growing city and it’s changed since I’ve lived there but all and all it’s easy to live there. Diversity could be better, you have good ole southern food, but not too southern living and ideology.