Moving to Duluth? (North Druid Hills, Druid Hills, Buford: apartment complexes, violent crime, houses)

[NewbietoGA]

We moved to the North Druid Hills area in May from out of state, and have had a rough experience - car break-in, car getting hit overnight and left leaving us hundreds in repairs, shooting just 30 feet from our door.

We are looking at a house in Duluth in between Sugarloaf Pkwy and Pleasant Hill Rd (pretty close to Duluth Hwy). Is this a safe area? This house in particular is zoned for Harris Elementary. Is this a decent school?

[ATLForr]

North Druid Hills is a really safe area so I’m surprised that you have had that experience. Harris elementary is not bad and the area is pretty safe, but it is no safer than North Druid Hills. There may be rare break ins and shootings are extremely rare, it almost doesn’t happen.

[sedimenjerry]

I look at Duluth Hwy as a decent area that's kinda near the dividing line of areas to avoid and areas that are safe. The closer to Sugarloaf Pkwy and farther from Pleasant Hill the better. So like near Harris Elem along Duluth Hwy I think would be just fine. Duluth has really improved their downtown area and the area around Peachtree Industrial and Buford Hwy is a lot more residential and I think safer than closer to Satellite and I-85 which is more commercial with stores and also warehouses/industrial type businesses.
And I think being in a house is better in this case. It's really some of the apartment complexes that have had problems around Pleasant Hill and Boggs Rd near 85.

Looks like the elementary school is fine. Guess it feeds into Duluth High which is a good school. It's not the top tier in Gwinnett but it's not to be avoided either. If it were me, I'd try to go at least a little further into the Peachtree Ridge HS zone around Sugarloaf Pkwy and Old Peachtree Rd. If my 86 and 87 year grandparents are fine living just off Old Peachtree, you'll be fine.

[ShenardL]

Anything north / west of I-85 should be fine. You'll be near the Koreatown part of Duluth which is fine and also close to downtown Duluth. Below I-85 around Cruse Road/Club Drive is a bit more sketchy but you shouldn't really experience any shootings or break-ins there.

[bellhead]

All I can say from driving around Duluth for my son's soccer is.

There is a lot of money being put into the downtown development & a lot of new development downtown. A lot of really good food options.

[ATLTJL]

It's pretty safe, but I'll echo that the closer to Sugarloaf to the north and PIB to the west, the better.

Duluth police are extremely responsive and don't tolerate BS. The force is extremely well-funded, there's even a mounted division you see at festivals sometimes. Pretty impressive for a town of less than 30,000 people. When I walk my dog late at night, if I see a pair of headlights coming down the road, there's a fairly decent chance it's a police cruiser just doing rounds.

In the 11 years I've lived here, the only problem I've ever had is I had a cheap Halloween decoration stolen from the front yard. Sometimes on Nextdoor, people will complain there have been car break-ins, but it's almost always just people who leave their cars in their driveways with the doors unlocked. So many people nowadays have Ring and Nest cams, any time there is an incident, there's someone posting video of it.

So I'd say it's pretty darn safe, and extremely safe from violent crime. That doesn't mean it CAN'T happen, just that it's rare, and the perps generally get caught.

[BobbyJayATL]

What neighborhood?

Just looking at the current Harris zone, Cardinal Lake is okay I think (older, still seems okay when I drive through - was definitely a great place to be when I was growing up in the area 20+ years ago).

I'd be a little more wary about the rest of the zone.

More generally re: Duluth, the city limits is very solid pretty much everywhere with some minor exceptions (I'd avoid anything along Davenport north/west of its split with Pittard, and basically everything in the city limit that is east of and can be accessed directly from Buford highway).