Cleveland Heights - Good spot for married couple in early 30s?

[CALarrick]

Im also a little mystified by the 'Heights-bashing' rife on this thread. I browsed this and other threads on City-Data before we moved here in March and was stunned by the negativity. We are in Cleveland Heights now, and love our neighborhood and town.

I do wonder about the crime-fear that came up in this thread over and over -- by the very statistics reported on this site (and elsewhere) Shaker Heights and (especially) Cleveland Heights are *very* safe. I've certainly seen nothing to make me question that. There are neighborhoods with more rentals etc. that are slightly shabby, but really no parts of town that seem bad or menacing the way some on this thread (including those defending other parts of town) portray them. Crime can happen anywhere, so it is important to pay attention to statistics not anecdotes.

Honestly, except for less-than-enthusiastic word of mouth about the schools, we'd be buying here with no hesitation (we rented for a year to scout the area, since we weren't familiar with the metro area at all). Even so, we very well might - with hopes of sticking with public school unless our own actual experiences are bad - but are considering Shaker Heights as well for better schools. Though frankly the fact that other negativity on this site is so overblown makes me really doubt the take on the schools of posters here, as well. (Only taking heed of actual conversations with other professional people who actually live in Cleveland Heights, who seem fairly split about the adequacy of the schools.)

There are *very* few places around here that have any real neighborhood vibrancy (walkable/bicyclable blocks, proximity to neighbors, 'eyes on the street' per Jane Jacobs) and most of those places seem to be in Cleveland Heights and, to a lesser extent, Shaker. In fact, these are the neighborhoods that the whole metro area needs to prize and preserve if greater Cleveland is going to have a prayer of appealing to people (like us) from 'real cities' or to slow the brain-drain of native born talent.


Miguel, I'd be interested to hear more about your experiences growing up there? Do you think the town is better/worse/about the same now as it was when you were growing up?