Walkable neighborhoods ITP with access to good diverse schools?? (Atlanta: to rent, public schools)

[Redlionjr]

Me and the Wife are still toying with the idea of moving back to Atlanta. When we lived there we resides on the cusp of the perimeter in Chamblee. Wasn’t walkable but was convenient since we were no more than 15 mins to 25 mins away from all the interesting areas of Atlanta.

This time around if we decide to move back we’ll be bringing a 4 year old this time. So access to a good diverse school(public/charter/private) is important. We’ve also realized how dull and boring staying in a suburb is especially for our career that involve networking/media/social events since moving back to Houston. So we ruled out moving to burbs further away from a cities core(Decatur might be an exception since it’s closer).

If we decide to move we’ll be looking to rent for the first year so we’re not concerned with price range. Just an area with diversity aka a significant amount of black people to go along with other groups in the area and one that’s not considered lower class.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Redlionjr

Me and the Wife are still toying with the idea of moving back to Atlanta. When we lived there we resides on the cusp of the perimeter in Chamblee. Wasn’t walkable but was convenient since we were no more than 15 mins to 25 mins away from all the interesting areas of Atlanta.

This time around if we decide to move back we’ll be bringing a 4 year old this time. So access to a good diverse school(public/charter/private) is important. We’ve also realized how dull and boring staying in a suburb is especially for our career that involve networking/media/social events since moving back to Houston. So we ruled out moving to burbs further away from a cities core(Decatur might be an exception since it’s closer).

If we decide to move we’ll be looking to rent for the first year so we’re not concerned with price range. Just an area with diversity aka a significant amount of black people to go along with other groups in the area and one that’s not considered lower class.

The City of Decatur proper ticks off the boxes of being a walkable ITP neighborhood that is served by a really good (if not excellent) public school system in the small Decatur City Schools system.

Though, the problem with the area inside of the City of Decatur proper (which is only about a 4.25 square mile area) is that it may not be as diverse as you might like.

What at one time may have been either a majority-black or very near majority-black post-suburban municipal jurisdiction and school system is now overwhelmingly white because of gentrification.

Though it should be noted that black residents still make up about 19% of the student population of the Decatur City Schools system and about 21% of the city's entire population as a whole.

It should also be noted that black residents still make up about 55% of the entire population of the large urban county (the roughly 757,000-resident DeKalb County) that the City of Decatur proper serves as the seat of county government to.

While not as highly-rated as the City of Decatur school system, the rapidly-improving Jackson cluster and the highly-regarded Grady cluster of the Atlanta Public Schools system features many walkable neighborhoods and access to schools with diverse student bodies (many with large black populations) that you desire.

An ITP area like Chamblee (where you stayed in years past before moving to Houston) also continues to become more walkable (particularly in the area immediately around the Chamblee MARTA Station) with the diversity and good (urban/post-suburban) schools that you are looking for, but probably with still not quite enough of the walkability you are looking for.

An ITP area like Brookhaven also has some walkable areas (particularly in the small village area rising up along Dresden Drive and in the Town Brookhaven mixed-use development) in an area served by schools (in the extremely diverse Cross Keys cluster) that is improving and that is highly thought of many areas residents but that still has some work to do to continue to improve.

Greater Buckhead (including Buckhead Village, Buckhead Heights and Lindbergh) has some walkable elements to it in areas that are served by a very diverse improving above-average cluster of schools in the North Atlanta cluster of the Atlanta Public Schools system.

If you are willing to look in areas not too far outside of the I-285 Perimeter, a closer-in suburban community like the City of Marietta proper has the amount of walkability you desire (in and around an increasingly popular and extremely active town square that anchors a walkable large and growing downtown village area) in a very diverse school system (Marietta City Schools system) that is extremely highly thought of by locals and that will continue to improve as more young professionals with children move into the area.

A closer-in OTP area like the City of Norcross also offers the walkability you desire (in the historic downtown village area of Norcross proper) in an extremely diverse above-average area of schools (in the Norcross High School-anchored cluster of the Gwinnett County Public Schools system).

[bu2]

I would guess you probably wouldn't recognize much of Chamblee or Brookhaven if you moved more than 5 years ago. The Chamblee area has good public charters, but you have to win in the lottery for slots.

As for Cross Keys, I wouldn't call 90+% Hispanic "extremely diverse." But I guess it depends on your definition of "diverse." That is a word that seems to have very different meanings for different people.

You'll find Born2Roll very knowledgeable on anything he posts on.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by bu2

As for Cross Keys, I wouldn't call 90+% Hispanic "extremely diverse." But I guess it depends on your definition of "diverse." That is a word that seems to have very different meanings for different people.

Yep.

As of October 1st 2019, Hispanic (Latino) students made up more than 90% of the student body at Cross Keys High School.

More than 4.8% of the students at Cross Keys H.S. were Asian, and more than 3.9% of the students at Cross Keys H.S. were black.

Because they numbered fewer than 15, white students did not show up in the enrollment race/ethnicity statistics at Cross Keys H.S. for the 2019 fall semester... Meaning that white students are basically reported as being 0% of the student body at Cross Keys H.S.

[red92s]

You didn't really specify in what you are interested in having walkability to, but somewhere in the Burgess Peterson Elementary zone (East Atlanta, Reynoldstown) might be a good option. It's the green peninsula in the southeastern portion of the city on the map below.

https://apsinsights.org/enrollment-map/