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Old 04-13-2013, 12:07 AM
 
6 posts, read 53,862 times
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My wife and I are moving to Cleveland this summer. I will be starting a PhD program at Case and she is looking for teaching jobs (she is a special education teacher). I lived in Cleveland for two years--from fall 2010-spring 2012--when I was doing my Masters, but I spent a lot of my weekends out of town and rarely roamed far from the University Circle bubble, so my knowledge of much of the Greater Cleveland area is quite limited.

We're looking for a safe but still relatively affordable area to rent an apartment. I lived in a duplex with roommates in Cleveland Heights (Derbyshire near Cedar / Coventry) so I know that area well. I know to avoid East Cleveland at all costs, and I know that Shaker Heights is great as long as you stay North of Van Aken. But there are other areas reasonably close to the University Circle area that I don't know a whole lot about. I'm seeing a lot of nice looking apartment options in Warrensville Heights, Bedford Heights, and Euclid. But when I try to look up crime data (and skim through posts on this forum) I get mixed opinions. The city-data crime maps seem to show these three areas as having a relatively higher amount of crime (moreso than, say, Independence or Shaker Heights). But the crime map on Trulia, which charts the exact locations of crimes, makes me think that this information might be somewhat skewed by crime concentrated in very particular spots of these regions. Would you agree?

For example: city-data lists Warrensville Heights as a high crime area. But the crime map on Trulia shows no crime at all near Highland Heights or near where I-271 and I-480 converge; instead, it shows an enormous amount of crime concentrated on the Western border of Warrensville Heights as it approaches Lee Rd. Does this mean that the rest of Warrensville Heights is actually safe, as long as I stay out of that particular area? Or should I just avoid Warrensville Heights altogether? Same question goes for Euclid: there seems to be a fair amount of crime here (statistically), but the Western edge borders East Cleveland, with tons of crime, while the Eastern Edge (near the I-90 / I-271 split) bordering Eastlake shows up with no crime at all. Again, if I find a decent looking apartment in the Eastern half of Euclid, am I alright, or should I just avoid it entirely?

Any advice, in general, about safe and inexpensive areas within 10-15 miles of University Circle would be much appreciated. I'm also looking around in Lakewood, Richmond Heights, Eastlake, South Euclid / Lyndhurst, etc. Anything to look out for or be wary of in those areas?

Thanks!
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Old 04-13-2013, 07:31 AM
 
79 posts, read 234,608 times
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Warrensville Heights and most of Highland Hills aren't SUPER bad but they're worse than Cleveland Heights (For the most part). Bedford and Bedford Heights are both semi-decent suburbs on the steady decline. Neither are overly dangerous but there are places to avoid (ie. Trinity Towers in Bedford Heights). Richmond Heights gets lumped somewhere Bedford and Bedford Heights on a safety scale. All of these cities mostly black at this point with whites scattered throughout and trace amounts of other ethnicities.

The area around Case is usually pretty safe, same thing with Little Italy although the prices may be high. Lyndhurst and Eastlake are quiet suburb communities to my knowledge but I don't know much about them to be honest.

Now Lakewood would the "hip" suburb of cleveland, theres crime but not to an extreme. People there to decently friendly also but know Lakewood is not far from some shady parts of cleveland and precautions should be practiced.

Other affordable and decently safe suburbs are Parma, Parma Heights, North Olmsted, Rocky River, Fairview and the West Park area.

If you have any question feel free to ask them
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Old 04-13-2013, 09:50 AM
 
6 posts, read 12,354 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ThatGuyFromOC View Post
Warrensville Heights and most of Highland Hills aren't SUPER bad but they're worse than Cleveland Heights (For the most part). Bedford and Bedford Heights are both semi-decent suburbs on the steady decline. Neither are overly dangerous but there are places to avoid (ie. Trinity Towers in Bedford Heights). Richmond Heights gets lumped somewhere Bedford and Bedford Heights on a safety scale. All of these cities mostly black at this point with whites scattered throughout and trace amounts of other ethnicities.

The area around Case is usually pretty safe, same thing with Little Italy although the prices may be high. Lyndhurst and Eastlake are quiet suburb communities to my knowledge but I don't know much about them to be honest.

Now Lakewood would the "hip" suburb of cleveland, theres crime but not to an extreme. People there to decently friendly also but know Lakewood is not far from some shady parts of cleveland and precautions should be practiced.

Other affordable and decently safe suburbs are Parma, Parma Heights, North Olmsted, Rocky River, Fairview and the West Park area.

If you have any question feel free to ask them
I would rank Lakewood as extremely safe and knock Parma down to the crime bin. There's some lowly people living there.
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Old 04-13-2013, 06:41 PM
 
Location: Madison, WI
103 posts, read 209,075 times
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The main complaint people are going to have about Warrensville Heights, or Euclid, or Bedford is probably schools, but if you don't have kids it's not an issue for you. Because of that, resale value would be a major concern for people moving to that area, but since you're looking at apartments you don't need to worry about that either.

Of the places you listed, I think Warrensville Heights is significantly rougher on the whole than Bedford or Euclid. It's not that crime-ridden and certainly not bad enough to avoid traveling through but I'm not sure I'd line up to move there. I haven't been through the eastern end of it though so perhaps that section really is a lot better. The others should be fine for the most part. Euclid is a little more street-by-street with some places still very nice and some sketchy. Other suburbs that are similar would be: Maple Heights, Garfield Heights, Richmond Heights, and Bedford Heights. Richmond Heights is a little nicer than the others I listed.

I'd also be a bit turned off by the commute from some of these places to University Circle every day. Other than Euclid and maybe Richmond Heights, traffic can be rough on the surface streets through the Heights and the highway system doesn't really go southeast from University Circle without driving to downtown first.
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Old 04-13-2013, 10:15 PM
 
37 posts, read 57,633 times
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Base on a 15 min. commute to work. Lyndhurst would be the area to look into. You would be close to work, its a clean area, safe, plenty of stores, good school, a diverse area still more whites but that o.k. best of all you can get to work without going to the freeway. Richmond area is good also.
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Old 04-15-2013, 08:00 AM
 
Location: Beachwood, OH
1,135 posts, read 1,825,007 times
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What's your budget?
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Old 04-15-2013, 05:28 PM
 
6 posts, read 53,862 times
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Our budget is in the $650-$800 range, possibly willing to go slightly higher for the rigiht place. That range will vary based on (a) what utilities are included in rent and (b) how close we are to the Circle (and therefore how much we'll need to budget for gas). We also have a small dog so we're accounting for pet friendly apartments plus the usual $25-40 / mo extra rent. We would prefer to rent a two bedroom place.

I've found dozens of places that fit this criteria on places like apartmentguide, rent.com, the Cleveland.com classifides, etc. and I'm in the process of setting up appointments to view apartments a couple weekends from now.

Quite a few of the places that "look good" online that meet our budget and criteria are in Euclid along Lakeshore (toward the east end by Willowick / Eastlake), and there's also a few in Bedford Heights and on the Southeastern edge of Warrensville Heights (close to the I-271 / I-480 intersection). Most of them are large complexes with controlled access, etc. so it seems pretty safe, but I want to make sure since we would really prefer to not have to keep moving around year after year if we don't have to.

Also, anyone know anything about the Richmond Park apartments near the airport in Richmond Heights? The reviews online for apartment complexes are always horrible (because who bothers to write a positive review? only people with bad experiences tend to take the time to do that), so I take it with a grain of salt, but the reviews for this one seem especially bad. On the other hand, lots of what I see online (pictures, amenities, price range, etc) make it look like a great place. So I thought I'd see if anyone has any inside info on that.

Thanks again for all the help!
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Old 04-18-2013, 07:12 PM
 
Location: maple heights ohio
7 posts, read 18,283 times
Reputation: 13
Thumbs down ignorant comment

Quote:
Originally Posted by 330tothe216 View Post
I would rank Lakewood as extremely safe and knock Parma down to the crime bin. There's some lowly people living there.
their are lowly people everywhere but that's not a good choice of words to use
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Old 04-20-2013, 01:06 PM
 
34 posts, read 129,981 times
Reputation: 45
Quote:
Originally Posted by 330tothe216 View Post
I would rank Lakewood as extremely safe and knock Parma down to the crime bin. There's some lowly people living there.
I would say Parma is only about as dangerous as Lakewood. I lived in Parma for many years with no issues, there's no doubt at all that it is definitely in decline, but the only "crime" area is near Brookpark road where it borders Cleveland and along Chevy boulevard. Places like Maple Heights, Warrensville Heights, Euclid, and Bedford are much less safe than Parma.
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Old 04-20-2013, 11:59 PM
 
Location: Cleveland
3,412 posts, read 5,084,360 times
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Possibly look into the Larchmere area. The area is a "hipper" part of Cleveland near the Shaker border, and about 10 minutes from UC. You could rent a floor of a duplex for around $500 in that area.
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