Summerville Neighborhoods (Charleston: appointed, sex offender, crime)

[new guy in town]

Great post and good luck with your hunting for the home you want.
I've lived in Summerville for the past 4 years and I love it. I think it still has a small town atmosphere as it is growing, but going at a good pace. It is no where as congested traffic wise as Mt. Pleasant is (around town). But your commute to downtown Charleston, if you go that way is tough at times, either on I-26 or Dorchester Rd. Wescott people will take Dorchester Rd and its slow moving in the morning.
But I thinks its all worth it. My wife's a teacher in Dorchester 2 district and its the place for the kids. For me Summerville and Goose Creek are the places to live as they're still reasonable on home prices and not like the outragous Mt. Pleasant prices.
Good luck with everything!

[jamgoldberg]

We relocated to the Pawley's Island, SC area, from Keene, New Hampshire back in August 2006. My husband was unable to find work up there, so we are now relocating to the Charleston area, where my husband now has employment. We have been searching in Summerville or Goose Creek. We are leaning toward Summerville, because we have heard that the schools are good there. We would like to enroll our soon to be 2nd grader and a preschooler in a Montessori school, but there are only one's in Charleston. We would like to know what is the best elementary school in the area, in case the Montessori thing doesn't work out.

[eastusa]

Beech Hill Elementary is a wonderful elementary school.....IMO

[FrozenAngel]

I am planning a visit the end of the month to look at the Summerville area. I was disturbed to see this forum stats says there is 201 registered sex offenders in Summerville. Does anyone have a concern about this? Can residents tell me if there is much news or problems?

[scjj]

Originally Posted by FrozenAngel

I am planning a visit the end of the month to look at the Summerville area. I was disturbed to see this forum stats says there is 201 registered sex offenders in Summerville. Does anyone have a concern about this? Can residents tell me if there is much news or problems?

No there is not any news or problems. You need to take those stats with a grain of salt, not everyone of them are child molesters or predators and if you look at each one individually you will see that over a 1/3 of them have moved out of state. It is not something they take lightly around here and they do make routine visits to make sure they are living where they say they are.

[outofsc]

I think the high number of registered sex offenders is a little concerning for sure. But, so is the uncontrolled growth here in Summerville. Town Council is very quickly stripping this town of its identity and we're soon to become another cookie cutter, overgrown, southern town that lost it's charm because of poor planning. Check out www.plandorchester.com for more info. Lots of people are moving in to S'ville b/c they think it's a quaint, safe town. While it is nice and pleasant for the most part - crime is rather high. I googled crime stats for Summerville and saw where we ranked a 5 out of 10 for violent crime and a 6 out 10 for property crime. That's pretty high! Sorry, I don't have the website handy but will post it if I find it again. I just looked at it last week.

[scjj]

Originally Posted by outofsc

I think the high number of registered sex offenders is a little concerning for sure. But, so is the uncontrolled growth here in Summerville. Town Council is very quickly stripping this town of its identity and we're soon to become another cookie cutter, overgrown, southern town that lost it's charm because of poor planning. Check out www.plandorchester.com for more info. Lots of people are moving in to S'ville b/c they think it's a quaint, safe town. While it is nice and pleasant for the most part - crime is rather high. I googled crime stats for Summerville and saw where we ranked a 5 out of 10 for violent crime and a 6 out 10 for property crime. That's pretty high! Sorry, I don't have the website handy but will post it if I find it again. I just looked at it last week.

Hmmm, interesting. I guess it depends on whose site you go to for the info because Sperling's lists the crime as a 3 for property crime and a 4 for violent (most of which are domestic usually). Please do post the site because every site I go to shows the crime below the national level. Still, much safer then let's say, oh Pittsburgh. The growth issue is a complicated one because we need the revenue from development to build the needed infrastructure to keep the taxes down for the rest of us, yet it is because of the development that we need the infrastructure in the first place. It's kind of a catch 22. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I think they are doing the right thing by placing the burden on the developers and the new home buyers to pay for these things. The growth isn't going to stop, people are going to continue to want to live here because it is such a desirable area. All this quick growth hit them out of left field and they have never had to deal with this kind of management before.

[outofsc]

Actually - it's not safer than the small towns surrounding Pittsburgh. Safer than downtown Pittsburgh but only by a little... Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed I know that lot's of places have drug problems, etc. but Summerville High School is a very scary place. It's too large and so many kids get overlooked! They do have police in the schools but that doesn't stop the kids from selling crack on campus! Just ask any teenage babysitter about the drug problem in her school or worse - ask her about the crack or meth house in her middle class or upscale neighborhood. Summerville has a lot of positive qualities but without intervention, it could become a huge mess. Instead of turning a blind eye, the citizens need to take action to preserve the best of Summerville.

[USCJoe]

The sex offender stats mentioned byfrozenangel as found on this forum site is interesting as the stats mention only one sex offender for the town of Mt. Pleasant. It might be best to go directly to the State sex offender web site for the latest "official" statistics.

[scjj]

You have to remember Summerville is divided by three counties, parts of North Charleston (not so good parts) being one, Berkeley County and Dorchester. When you put in individual zip codes for each area you get different results. Unfortunately, we pick up the not so good parts of North Charleston's numbers even though it is not really considered Summerville, it's within Dorchester County, so we get the calls.

My daughter went to Summerville High School, graduated last year. She was never scared. Loved it there in fact. Never once heard her mention the things you are talking about. Sure, I guess if you hang around with the wrong crowd you'll experience it more. Every high school has it. Let's face it, high school in any town in this day and age can be a scary place. There are no drug free high schools anywhere, not even private schools. It all comes down to being an involved parent. Plus Summerville High won't be so large when the new high school opens and takes 1,500 of those kids away.

You make it sound like every neighborhood in Summerville is infested with crack dens and meth cookers. That is so far from the truth. Summerville is a very family oriented town which is why so many people find it appealing. I'm not saying there aren't issues out there, but you make it sound so dismal everywhere. Good luck trying to find a place that doesn't have problems. Even the Amish aren't safe. Perhaps your views are a bit tainted since your name reflects that you want out of SC?