Culturally, Long Island and Southern California probably aren't all that different, so no, I don't think there would be a culture shock. If you like cold weather and hate SoCo weather, you're probably going to enjoy Long Island all other things being equal. I'm guessing Long Island is more crowded than much of SoCo, except probably Los Angeles County. The island is largely built to capacity, given the suburban development model they largely use, so it's not likely to grow so quickly as SoCo is. Unless New York undergoes a surprise population boom in the next generation, it's a safe bet that if you have a nice house on Long Island, it won't be all that different in 25 years. Six kids is a lot for modern Long Island I think, so maybe finding a house with enough bedrooms to accomodate that many kids will be expensive. Small two-bedrooms go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. An upside is transportation can be better if you use the train, which runs pretty efficiently. Traffic sucks, but you're likely used to that. I'm not a parent myself, and generally only pay attention to school politics in NYC, so I don't really know what to say about the schools. I think they have a good reputation, but I haven't seen anything on paper about them. A prolem you might run into east of where you're working is that while it may be less crowded, it may not be less expensive for the most part because much of eastern Long Island is made up of summer colonies for the rich and famous. Obviously, nothing I say-sense will change the fact that the smartest thing for you to do would be to check out the area before moving if you can.
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