July 8, 200717 yr Well overall Columbus is a great, exciting city and I think it offers top notch retail, atleast compared to Cincinnati. The good public school system requirement is probably going to limit your parents to the suburbs. New Albany is a fast growing community with an attempt at a village feel... I don't think you can get a house for 200k though. The best community that comes to mind is Worthington. They have great schools and a nice old business district. Dublin, Hilliard, and Upper Arlington have good schools--Its hard to say that they're close to retail because they're such large municipalities that it really depends on what part you're in. If I was in their situation and had to choose personally, I'd go with Upper Arlington, that's just me.
July 14, 200717 yr Gahanna. Affordable housing, a great high school (I went there, though has 2,000+ students), wonderful concert and marching band programs, a 'downtown' that is being revamped, and Easton is next door.
July 18, 200717 yr I think Grandview is probably the best bet (although the housing prices might be going up)... Worthington is a close second; I suppose, though, it all depends on where Bob Evans HQ is. Grandview is an "in-burb" --- It sits just a couple minutes from Downtown, yet is completely isolated from the crap that goes on in the inner city. Not only that, it has a really nice street (grandview ave) with small shops, a local movie theatre, nice restaurants and a couple grocery stores. Upper Arlington is pretty much the same deal, but Grandview is cheaper I think. Grandview has a certain charm to it too (maybe just because I grew up there)... As far as schools go - Grandview doesn't have a huge population, so I imagine the schools would be moderately sized. Worthington has a couple pretty large High Schools I think (maybe only 1 super big one). I know I lived in that area for a little bit when I was in middle school and my middle school had well over 1000 people, so the High School has to have a lot more than that (and that was over 15 years ago - probably grown even more since then). Upper Arlington has a decent school system, but you might have to deal with ridiculously wealthy and snobby kids... =/ Here's some links for grandview- http://www.grandviewheights.org/ And UrbanOhio has a little photo section for Grandview too - http://www.urbanohio.com/GrandviewHeights.htm
August 7, 200717 yr Well, grove city is lacking in the charm department that's for sure. But, I suppose if it fits their needs, then so be it =)
August 9, 200717 yr And Drew Carey is buying a house there. I'd be easily sold with the nearby Chipotle, personally.
August 13, 200717 yr Grandview is an "in-burb" --- It sits just a couple minutes from Downtown, yet is completely isolated from the crap that goes on in the inner city. I think you wanted SuburbanOhio.com . Downtown is safe and I can easily say that as a resident. There are ways to get an education, but it'll be probably pricier schools. I'm not familiar with schools in the city and how they are in German Village or Victorian Village, both areas worth looking into but rather pricey. An urban neighborhood, even a couple of suburbs like Bexley and Grandview have a more urban layout due to the grid pattern. The residential area of Town Franklin in SE Downtown has some nice homes, but the one's I've seen are over $300,000. There's Harrison West just west of Victorian Village and up north of campus is Clintonville which is pseudo-urban. Upper Arlington doesn't really have a downtown like the other streetcar suburbs, at least to my knowledge since I'm not too familiar with the area. There's also Merion Village, which is an up and coming neighborhood. What do they prefer though, urban places where there are walkable neighborhoods or do they want to drive everywhere?
December 9, 200717 yr While Stringtown is suburban hell, Downtown Grove City does have its charm (can't beat Plank's on a Tuesday!). BTW, where is your family moving from?
December 11, 200717 yr How about Pickerington? It would be an easy commute, and the schools/marching bands are pretty well respected. Houses are not too expensive either.
December 11, 200717 yr This is a neat site I came across. It has suburbs listed on the left and urban suburbs like Grandview, Bexley, and a lesser extent Worthington (which is probably as far north as you'd want to go) seem to have quite a few homes in the price range you mentioned, it's just a matter of finding the ones available. Upper Arlington has a surprising amount in that range too, and to update what I said earlier, yes it does have a downtown. Check out photo threads here for pics of these neighborhoods and compare them to the generic sprawl that is plentiful. I'm sure you'll find that it's worth investigating these suburbs (yes, I'll disclose that I included a few of my threads). Bexley http://urbanohio.com/gallery/index.php?album=Central+Ohio%2FColumbus%2FSuburbs%2FBexley http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=13564.0 Grandview http://urbanohio.com/gallery/index.php?album=Central+Ohio%2FColumbus%2FSuburbs%2FGrandview+Heights http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3728.0 Upper Arlington http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=9150.0 http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=14296.0 http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=14548.0 Worthington http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=13557.0 http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=14683.0
December 11, 200717 yr I have to say i am VERY let down by the responses to this post. IS this urban ohio.com or some site dedicated to unneeded sprawling suburbs? Most of the responses to his post mention (other than Grandview) places way outside of 270 and in the exurbs. You can have a good school, neighborhood, safety and community/retail without being outside of 270 or even outside of the columbus city limits. I think a lot of the responses here are from people not from Columbus and thus they are just mentioning places they have heard of. For communities that are GREAT inside Columbus... (for a family) Look into Clintonville/beechwold/sharon heights These neighborhoods are just north of Ohio State and SO close to all of the great things in the central city of columbus. They are within the columbus city limits, but have their own community feel (which almost all of columbus' neighborhoods do a great job at.) The homes are older, renovated with nice yards, yet there's sidewalks and a lot of retail/restaurants/local markets along High ST. The Columbus schools (in these neighborhoods) are better than the others. However, I would recommend that your sister enters the Columbus Alternative High School program. The high school is always ranked on par with the suburban schools. It is a magnet school so you have to enter a lottery. If you cannot enter CAHS then she would attend Whestone High School, also, one of the better neighborhood high schools. ALSO NW Columbus It is kind of a bland name, but the neighborhoods just on the other side of the river from Clintonville/Beechwold is called "nw columbus." It is tucked in between the nice suburbs of Arlington and Dublin. Centennial High School is the local columbus school here and is also good. Now all of the high schools in these areas are diverse. They are majority white, but there are some lower income students, yet they still excel at academics. The neighborhoods i mentioned are all safe and have lots of character. NW columbus would have more homes in your price range. Homes in Clintonville/beechwold/and sharon heights are all above 250,000 for more than 3 bedrooms. I hope many read this and realize that you do not have live in some sprawl burb outside of 270 to have a nice community. Actually, by living in a place like "new albany" you may end up having great schools, but no sidewalks, community, and wasting gas to get from point A to point B. To clarify on the status of the Columbus City schools. The neighborhoods that are around downtown, short north/german village, that are so rich and nice actually do not have very good local city schools. This is because they just gentrified (in recent years) and families have yet to repopulate these areas and when they do they use private schools or make use of Columbus City Schools open enrollement. Yes, you can live ANYWHERE In columbus city school district and bus your kids to any of the schools in the district (provided room.) The neighborhoods that lie just outside of the original urban core have the better city schools they are: Clintonville Beechwold NW columbus Olentangy Rd corridor Eastmoor Berwick Far east side Far west side sections of Sharon Woods/Northland
December 13, 200717 yr I won't say that the Columbus School District is bad but my parents have looked at the State of Ohio's scores for the area and there are districts that just rank better If you look at the district as whole, yes the scores are not the best in the metro. But when looking at the largest district in the state, it is best to look at the individual schools. If you look the Columbus Alternative High School ranks just with many of the best suburban high schools. Also, you have to realize not all of the columbus city limits is "urban." Columbus is 222 sq. miles. A lot of these areas I mentioned are very suburban in nature and nice. Also, many "newer" sections of Columbus city limits have parts that attend suburban schools. Most of these areas are located just inside or outside of I 270. Columbus city limits is almost developed in rings. The most inner ring is 19th century. Then there is a ring of development for nearly every decade until today. All within the city. Now I can understand if your parents do decide to live in a further out 'burb. However, I wanted to give a better, overall, description of the city and metro for others who read these posts.
December 13, 200717 yr Jenison, Michigan...a SW suburb of Grand Rapids Columbus Alive just did a profile on a guy who moved to Columbus from Grand Rapids http://www.columbusalive.com/?sec=search&story=columbusalive/2007/1206/n-mixologist.html
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