I do have to comment on the "avoiding the NE and SE " part of town. I live right by, not in, the Duckpond in NE Gainesville. We have not had a problem, regarding crime, and I have been here for 6 years. We are having a great revival of these neighborhoods because the houses have so much character and are a very reasonably priced.

Many business owners are opening business here, Satchels, 2nd Street Bakery, Budda Belly, The Jones. All these business owners are contributing to the revitilazation of this side of town. Nobody minds coming over to eat good food.

To tell peolpe to avoid it would be detrimental to the balance this community needs. Downtown area has lots to offer and we are tight knit communities that really look out for each other. The police respond to any concerns we ever have within five minutes.

Crime is every where. Yes, it may be concetrated in certain areas of town more than others.But, that doesn't mean it is going to affect you if you don't live here. Look at what happend to the woman in Haile, just using it as a reference. It was in the SW. "Safe" part of town. G'ville Sun had an article the other day about a girl who had someone jump out at her whild jogging. Didn't happen in the NE or SE.

People who live in the NE especially, are very proud of our nieghboorhoods and many people over here are not poor because we are not paying out the nose for our housing.

Don't have much to say about the schooling as I plan to home school. But, there are other options such as going out of your zone. I know of people who do it.

All this is said with a very gracious attitude don't take any of it as a lash out. Just very proud of NE Gainesville and feel the need to defend it and to help bring more families to our area to build it up even more so that it won't have the stigma that it seems to continues to carry.

Try Brookside Apts in Jonesville, the school is newberry that's the only drawback.

But the Apt's are really nice and only 5 years old now.
We lived there for 4 years and moved out to High Spring last Sept, the drawback for that is we are now spending 600 a month on gas to go into town.

Try to stay west of 34th St,

These are west of the interstate
Broadmoor 250K to 400K****Hamilton Heights 200K to 500K.

Fletcher's Mill ** South Point these are $$$ but all in the Hidden Oak school area.

O2B-Kids is about the only one that might be open at 6am...try the KidWorks in town of tioga that's a really nice area but very$$$$$$$$$

Good Luck

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Heddy:
To tell peolpe to avoid it would be detrimental to the balance this community needs. Downtown area has lots to offer and we are tight knit communities that really look out for each other. The police respond to any concerns we ever have within five minutes.
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Work in probation/parole and you will see that there is MUCH crime in the downtown area (although I was talking about NORTHEAST, not where you are) and SOUTHEAST (also a different area). Don't listen to me; the area crime statistics will show where crime is!

I still have a federal officer of a husband who works at the courthouse and he has crime stories from that area that SHOULD keep people out of the downtown area. While I was on the job (on foot), drug sellers used to approach ME and try to sell me the crack from their hands (some were riding bikes). Many of my felony offenders hung out in the park downtown so they were close to a free meal or bed at St. Francis House. The needles and empty liquor/beer bottles that are found there STILL are constant. Even now when I got to the federal courthouse in the early evenings with my children, I am often approached by drunk and/or high men who are asking for money. THIS mother would not want to settle in that area, even if children were not involved.

Revitalization is wonderful, but the "nervous" mom would be foolish to come here and immediately move to that area with young children when she does not know the area, much less the city of Gainesville. As for Duck Pond, of course the police respond quickly. For one, their headquarters is close by and another reason is the same reason their documented response times are so fast for Haile as well; money does talk here and everywhere in society. It doesn't hurt that a city commissioner plus others of stature live in Duck Pond.

A good example of the discrepancy between Duck Pond/Haile and other Gainesville areas is the violent rape that took place off Tower Road near 8th Ave a few years back; the victim was a 20-something Black female. A man had scaled her apt building and entered thru the patio door. She was severely beaten. If you didn't hear about it (or much about it) that's because the response to her and that rape was NOTHING like it was to the recent Haile rape.

I particularly don't care about response times; I want to know the stats of where crime is the highest and I want to avoid those areas....

My next-door neighbor just moved to my street from a beautiful home she restored in the Dock Pond. She said her garage was always being broken into and her tools stolen. She did not experience any violence-just plenty of theft. I used to visit another friend who lived there and she never had any issues. Personally, I love the charm of this neighborhood. I also love Roper Park (located in the neighborhood) and have taken my kids there plenty of times and never had any issues. The park is usually full of young/yuppie parents and people walking heir dogs.

quote:

If you didn't hear about it (or much about it) that's because the response to her and that rape was NOTHING like it was to the recent Haile rape.

So, what ever happened with this case? Did they catch the guy? And, you're right, I don't remember this one.

FLNonny:
While I can tell that you are viewing this from your job in the law enforcement area and you are completely entitled to your opinion, I feel as that you are stating anyone who would live in this side of town are putting themselves and their children in obvious harm.
Not everyone can make enough money to buy into the more well to-do places. I moved here because I had no where else to go when my ex-h left me. My family is here and it is where I could afford to purchase my home. And I don't believe myself or my children live in a dangerous place.
There are a few small areas I would not take my children to and mostly we just drive by those places.
I have been to the downtown courthouse many times with and without my children and have never been approached by anyone I didn't know.

I am glad that you have settled into a place where you and your family feels safe. I am not saying that you should change what you think or feel about "my side of town" but I don't like the way in which, to me, you are completely categorizing the NE and SE. Unless I am reading it wrong, you make it look like we should all be driving bullet proof cars, have bars on our windows and never take our children out to play, even in their own back yard. It just isn't that way. Not in every area of NE & SE.

I'll have to chime in since we lived in the NE (and not in the very nice Duckpond part) for 5 years. While there is some crime, we LOVED it. We were right around the corner from the Ymca..so were well into the NE neighborhoods. My street was awesome. Lots of young families and older people...we did have issues with people stealing a few things out of our carport..but we never felt unsafe. In fact, after we bought our house in the NW, we really missed our other place (we only moved to buy a house). We were able to walk everywhere over there...to Roper Park, Publix, and we even walked to the Downtown Library. I do agree that there is crime over there...but...it was more in the lower income apartments and pretty much stayed over there. We were able to rent a 3 bedroom house with a huge bonus room for less than 700/month!
Wanted to add...while we were there, there was a huge movement by the neighborhood itself to get a crime watch started...we had neighborhood block parties and had the Gainesville Police come with the K-9 units for the kids...we talked with the officers and everyone got to know each other....specifically so that everyone got to know each other and watched out for each other. We were living over there during the hurricanes and our side of the street was without power for 8 days....we had neighbors running electrical cords across the street so that we could run fans and inviting us into each others houses to eat or make food or to even just cool off for a little while. I don't know if that would happen in my current neighborhood...even though it's considered a "nicer" neighborhood....not try to sound argumentative...but we lived there for quite some time....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bishop96,

It is nice to see everyone expressing so much pride in their neighborhoods. Nervous Mom, I think this demonstrates what a great town you are moving to. I have always loved the community feel that Gainesville has. I moved back here from Tampa two years ago and continue to be impressed with the passion that people feel/express for their town and neighborhoods. No matter where you choose to live, you will be a part of this community (hopefully as a Fl Gator) and that is a wonderful thing!

Well, put LEW.

Thank you LEW. I was beginning to wonder if we had made the right decision. I worry about my kids so much and reading these crime riddled stories wasn't what I wanted from my questions. We are Gator fans and we can't wait to get outta this Bulldog state! But thank you all for taking the time to answer my questions and give your opinions about your areas.

My daughter goes to O2B and there drop off starts at 6:30am. I do not know if they provide trans to school or not. They are a great center, we love it!