Kuna, Meridian or Garden City? (Boise, Nampa: fit in, houses, neighborhoods)

[lvt]

Hello,

I'd like to have your opinions about Kuna, Meridian and Garden City.
I am Japanese and married to a Caucasian for 10 years, we have a son who'll be 4 years old in a month.
We are relocating to Boise area and cannot decide which area to live..
So far I found out Meridian is better than other cities. But we are open to other areas.
I concern the safety, and not racism but prefer less Spanish people in the community.. We are originally from Orange County, CA and currently living in Las Vegas. Regarding the school, any school is considered better than ones in Las Vegas.. What I'm afraid is "Can I or we fit in the neighborhood?" Our son looks so Asian which he is (but when we goes to Japan, he looks more half Caucasian..) Poor my husband, he finally got used to go out with his son without me. he always get challenged by strangers.. since our son does not even look like him except the hair color...

Thank you,

[MomsTn]

Boise isn't like California.
It's very family oriented, and you will fit in just fine.
Kuna was a very small farming community, but, has just exploded in growth, within the last 10 years, as also Meridian has grown.
Two very good communities.
My children went to school in both school systems, and they were both good.
Now, you want to avoid Garden City.
Don't live there.

Originally Posted by lvt

Hello,

I'd like to have your opinions about Kuna, Meridian and Garden City.
I am Japanese and married to a Caucasian for 10 years, we have a son who'll be 4 years old in a month.
We are relocating to Boise area and cannot decide which area to live..
So far I found out Meridian is better than other cities. But we are open to other areas.
I concern the safety, and not racism but prefer less Spanish people in the community.. We are originally from Orange County, CA and currently living in Las Vegas. Regarding the school, any school is considered better than ones in Las Vegas.. What I'm afraid is "Can I or we fit in the neighborhood?" Our son looks so Asian which he is (but when we goes to Japan, he looks more half Caucasian..) Poor my husband, he finally got used to go out with his son without me. he always get challenged by strangers.. since our son does not even look like him except the hair color...

Thank you,

[lvt]

Dear IdahoReturn,

Thank you for the comment! I simply cannot wait to move up to Boise. I will cut out Garden City... sorry no offence people who lives there..

Anyway, thank you!!!

[markpemble]

Wait... Garden city is alright, Commuting into Boise from Meridian and especially Kuna might get a little hairy at times.

[shryburke]

the main advantage, maybe the only advantage that Garden City may have is the proximity to Boise. It's nestled within Boise, so it has fairly quick access to most of Boise (downtown, west boise, foothills, Boise River, greenbelt, mall, etc.), other than that its not the nicest place to live. Meridian is biggest, having around 50,000 and it is booming, so the school systems are trying to keep up, as well as services. It is a fairly safe, nice place to live, although traffic problems will no doubt arise at times, it is in the middle of Boise and Nampa/Caldwell, so there's ALOT of traffic moving through and in. Kuna is south of Boise/Meridian area, a little out of the way of alot of the traffic and commotion, but it is much smaller than Meridian, and so much less supported (services/schools, etc.), not to mention much less scenic. If money is the motivator to not considering Boise itself, Boise is still cheaper than most cities its size and relatively safe. Meridian is also closer to the rising gang activities primarily concentrated in Nampa and Caldwell, which is a concern for me personally. Overall though, I would take Meridian first, Kuna second and Garden City in a distant 3rd. As far as race relations, the majority of people are very tolerant in this area. Good luck!

[jufrbo]

There are some really nice large houses along the river in Garden City just stay away from chinden blvd and surrounding neighborhoods

[fabforever]

I taught at Kuna High and Kuna has a very bad Meth problem. If you have young kids, I would stay away from Kuna. It is not something people really discuss in the town but believe me, a lot of my students were tested on a weekly basis for meth use and they were all monitored by a juvenile officer. When I first started teaching there I could not believe how many young kids were using drugs. The schools are ok, however since Kuna is still a small town with very little businesses, the school district doesn’t have enough money to spend on students; therefore there is a lack of books and qualified teachers.

[MomsTn]

When we lived in Kuna, it was a really nice area.
We lived in Desert View, but, it didn't take long before the subdivision was getting pretty run down.
The nice neighbors started to move and the really weird ones moved in.
The house next door had police visiting all the time.
We were told that the Mom and Dad were on drugs.
It was just a mess.... we couldn't run fast enough out of that subdivision.

I drove over there a year and a half ago, to check out our old house, and it was unrecognizable.
We sold that house in the 90's, so, I'd say within the last 10 to 12 years that area has deteriorated a lot.

Originally Posted by fabforever

I taught at Kuna High and Kuna has a very bad Meth problem. If you have young kids, I would stay away from Kuna. It is not something people really discuss in the town but believe me, a lot of my students were tested on a weekly basis for meth use and they were all monitored by a juvenile officer. When I first started teaching there I could not believe how many young kids were using drugs. The schools are ok, however since Kuna is still a small town with very little businesses, the school district doesn’t have enough money to spend on students; therefore there is a lack of books and qualified teachers.

[fabforever]

IdahoReturn,

Since Kuna is cheaper than Boise, there are very large houses being built there, however Kuna does not have the infrastructure to deal with such a large population growth. The High school is already trying to pass a bond to expand despite being a brand new high school and the drug problem has gotten worse in the past 4 years. The kids constantly complained that Kuna had no entertainment (gym, public pool, after school programs and etc) therefore they were bored and always getting into trouble. Meth parties were so common that the SRO had a list of houses to 'visit' every week, most of the time kids had such parties after school while their parents were still at work. I also witnessed a lot of serious violent behavior at the school and because there is no alternative school in Kuna, instead of expelling such violent students, they were allowed to come back to school after a few days of suspension. I was told it was better to have them in school than creating trouble on the streets. But these are things you only find out if you are part of the Kuna school system, ofcourse Kuna Schools don't admit to having such problems. I must say I was scared of teaching there and I left as soon as my contract was over, it was a very unpleasant experience.

[MomsTn]

Not sure why you directed this at me.
We no longer live in Kuna.
We bought a house in Meridian after we sold the house in Kuna.
At the time that we lived in Kuna, I was homeschooling.
My kids never went to Kuna High School, so, I really couldn't tell you much about it.

I hate to burst anyones bubble, but, there is a meth problem all over the United States. Not just in Idaho.

In fact, there was a drug problem when I was a kid. The drug of choice for teens at that time was LSD.
I chose NOT to be one of those teens to do drugs.

Kids doing drugs is a matter of choice. You can blame it on lack of resources or no public pool or whatever reason you want to use.
But, kids that do drugs, do them because they want to.
They choose to do them. No one held a gun to their head, and no one forced them to use them.
It's all a choice.
People need to stop blaming everything else for reasons why kids do drugs.
They do drugs because they want to.
You could have all the nice pools, resources and activities in the world, but, kids will still take drugs.
It's their choice.
A bad choice, but, still they choose to do it.

Originally Posted by fabforever

IdahoReturn,

Since Kuna is cheaper than Boise, there are very large houses being built there, however Kuna does not have the infrastructure to deal with such a large population growth. The High school is already trying to pass a bond to expand despite being a brand new high school and the drug problem has gotten worse in the past 4 years. The kids constantly complained that Kuna had no entertainment (gym, public pool, after school programs and etc) therefore they were bored and always getting into trouble. Meth parties were so common that the SRO had a list of houses to 'visit' every week, most of the time kids had such parties after school while their parents were still at work. I also witnessed a lot of serious violent behavior at the school and because there is no alternative school in Kuna, instead of expelling such violent students, they were allowed to come back to school after a few days of suspension. I was told it was better to have them in school than creating trouble on the streets. But these are things you only find out if you are part of the Kuna school system, ofcourse Kuna Schools don't admit to having such problems. I must say I was scared of teaching there and I left as soon as my contract was over, it was a very unpleasant experience.