need info on neighborhoods close to the University

[Dulcinea]

My nephew emailed me and said he is considering a position that has been offered to him near the University of Cincinnati (he is a hotel manager). He wants to know if there are any neighborhoods that are good for families with small children (he has two daughters, one 2 years and one ~7 months) nearby. Schools are not an issue since he expects he will move again before they are of school age, but they are concerned with cost of living and quality of living.

I know that most of you are more familiar with this area than I am and would like to have your thoughts on it.

[Anton von Stockhoff]

Northside is close, my old neighborhood of Monfort Heights/Mt Airy are not too far either. With the highway system there with 275/71/74/75, really any neighborhood isn't that far away...I could get from Monfort Hts to Kenwood in 20 minutes, to Clifton in 10 minutes.

[cincygreg]

Hyde park and Mt Adams are both fairly close.

Dont know too much about St Bernard, but it's not that far away either.

GL is corect, because of the highways it's pretty easy to get there from anywhere.

[Dulcinea]

Yes, I know OF these neighborhoods. I am looking for information on the quality of the neighborhoods. If you had friends or family with small children, would you recommend they move there? Are there small parks where children can play? Are the people friendly? Are there pockets of sex offenders and serial rapists in those neighborhoods?

[gae]

I can only really speak of Northside, but like all other neighborhoods close to UC, there are good parts and bad parts.

If Trav's daughter decided to move to Cincinnati, I'd recommend our neighborhood. From our house, the neighborhood library is a short walk (well, maybe not so much with small children) and they have many, many preschool programs. From what I've seen, the new places on Hamilton are very child friendly, but The Big S can probably speak to that better than I can. Other than to vote, I haven't been there, but there is a Rec center on Chase that seems to have a lot of activities for children.

The neighborhood pharmacy (Schaepers at Hamilton and Chase) happily delivers prescriptions for free and has more than once overnighted Rx's to Trav when he's gone.

Pockets of rapists and murders? Yep. But they're everywhere.

As far as cost, I think Northside is much more affordable than the Oakley/Hyde Park/Norwood area.

My biggest grump is that the only grocery store within reasonable walking distance is a Sav-A-Lot; not much of a selection of fresh produce and way too much junk food for my taste.

I think it will depend on what your nephew wants. Oakley/Hyde Park/Norwood are more upscale, but I don't like walking around there because there's too much traffic and I don't find the area pedestrian friendly. (Daughter Erin used to live about .5 mile from Rookwood Pavillion and wouldn't consider walking there because crossing Madison was akin to being a pedestrian in Florida.)

I liked living in Clifton because we could walk to Graeters, but it was very expensive.

[Anton von Stockhoff]

I wouldn't recommend ANY Cincinnati neighborhood to anyone for any reason... [img]graemlins/sun.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/island.gif[/img]