Any 'urban' "hip' towns on the outskirts of Columbus? Great schools, walkable downtowns? (Cincinnati: houses, neighborhoods)

[NicoleWh]

Hi, my husband and I and our 3 kids are thinking of relocating to the Columbus area. We currently live in Whitefish Bay, WI. TOP schools, we can walk anywhere, to the mall, coffee shop, library, ice cream shop. My husband can scoot to downtown Milwaukee easily. We are hoping to find a similar community near/right on the border of Columbus with excellent public schools. Are target home price ranges from $250,000 to $350,000. Anyone no of anything like this? I keep finding great homes around Columbus with great schools, but they are all in gated communities or just too rural and feel isolated. Any advice or info will be greatly appreciated!!

[Dewddd]

Grandview Heights and Upper Arlington are two inner suburbs very close to downtown. They both have great schools and are very walkable and would fit well into your price range. I would also add Worthington, and maybe Bexley as well.

[NicoleWh]

Originally Posted by Dewddd

Grandview Heights and Upper Arlington are two inner suburbs very close to downtown. They both have great schools and are very walkable and would fit well into your price range. I would also add Worthington, and maybe Bexley as well.

Thank you! That's extremely helpful. I will look into those.

[Supergrrl7]

Yes, Old Worthington.

We have several ice cream options, pubs, bars, a toy store, a candy store, lots of parks, an amazing farmer's market (year round), good schools, a great community center, a community pool and a nationally ranked library. It is really an amazing town which is both walkable and affordable. Very Norman Rockwell, in a good way --a community where it is easy to know lots of people, but big enough to have lots of amenities. One of our favorite things is the summer Sunday music on the town green. We get ice cream and walk down to the free music with many of our neighbors most weeks. I would like a few more restaurants within walking distance, but I think in the next few years that is going to improve too.

Old Worthington is located inside 270, with easy access to both 315 and 71 south, which is very helpful if you commute downtown. My husband leaves his office in the Arena district at about 5:35 and is home by 6:00. We are also very convenient to 270N so you can get anywhere from Dublin to Polaris very quickly. Do you know where you will be working?

Feel free to send me a PM if you want more info about which neighborhoods you should be looking in. There are 3 or 4 elementary schools in the walkable area and they all have different vibes. It also really depends on what kind of house you want to buy and the size of yard you want.

I also really like Grandview but it has a slightly more urban/different feel to it (smaller houses, smaller yards, smaller school district with less options and less diversity but closer to downtown). I wouldn't really consider much of Upper Arlington to be particularly walkable unless you live in a few neighborhood.

[NicoleWh]

Originally Posted by Supergrrl7

Yes, Old Worthington.

We have several ice cream options, pubs, bars, a toy store, a candy store, lots of parks, an amazing farmer's market (year round), good schools, a great community center, a community pool and a nationally ranked library. It is really an amazing town which is both walkable and affordable. Very Norman Rockwell, in a good way --a community where it is easy to know lots of people, but big enough to have lots of amenities. One of our favorite things is the summer Sunday music on the town green. We get ice cream and walk down to the free music with many of our neighbors most weeks. I would like a few more restaurants within walking distance, but I think in the next few years that is going to improve too.

Old Worthington is located inside 270, with easy access to both 315 and 71 south, which is very helpful if you commute downtown. My husband leaves his office in the Arena district at about 5:35 and is home by 6:00. We are also very convenient to 270N so you can get anywhere from Dublin to Polaris very quickly. Do you know where you will be working?

Feel free to send me a PM if you want more info about which neighborhoods you should be looking in. There are 3 or 4 elementary schools in the walkable area and they all have different vibes. It also really depends on what kind of house you want to buy and the size of yard you want.

I also really like Grandview but it has a slightly more urban/different feel to it (smaller houses, smaller yards, smaller school district with less options and less diversity but closer to downtown). I wouldn't really consider much of Upper Arlington to be particularly walkable unless you live in a few neighborhood.

That sounds very nice. My husband works from home, so we don't have to worry about traveling to work. He does however love to ride his scooter, so major highways would not be what we want to get to any businesses. Are these things in downtown Worthington? It sounds nice. We have a girl who will be in high school in a couple years, so good schools are a must. We have smaller houses/smaller yards, but it's an expensive area....you trade that for the schools and closeness to downtown...we're hoping to find a bigger house for our money...I'm going to go look up those places you suggested! Thanks!

[Zen_master]

Originally Posted by NicoleWh

Hi, my husband and I and our 3 kids are thinking of relocating to the Columbus area. We currently live in Whitefish Bay, WI. TOP schools, we can walk anywhere, to the mall, coffee shop, library, ice cream shop. My husband can scoot to downtown Milwaukee easily. We are hoping to find a similar community near/right on the border of Columbus with excellent public schools. Are target home price ranges from $250,000 to $350,000. Anyone no of anything like this? I keep finding great homes around Columbus with great schools, but they are all in gated communities or just too rural and feel isolated. Any advice or info will be greatly appreciated!!

I'd say Grandview is probably comparable to what you're accustomed to. Gahanna is one not yet mentioned that I'll throw out there. They've recently gentrified their Olde Gahanna 'downtown' area and added a lot of trails to make it increasingly walkable. Easton Mall is the premier mall in the Columbus metro area and it is one exit north of Gahanna on I-270 and with I-670 finding its terminus at Granville St which is the main thoroughfare in Gahanna that makes Gahanna approximately 15 minutes from anywhere in the Columbus metro area barring rush hour traffic or a road construction delay.

[Natural510]

Hiya Nicole,
Instead of copy & pasting this thread to each Ohio city forum, you should've posted this to the main Ohio forum, whereupon an All-Star cast of boosters for each of the 3C's engage in a Royal-Rumble style death match, armed with nothing but whiskey and PCP*. After about 24 hours of beating each other to a bloody pulp, the last man standing mandates you move to his "hip" town on the outskirts of his "growing/revitalizing/on-the-upswing" C-city, lest you incur the wrath of Chicago ramblings by andrew61 (and you DEFINITELY do not want that experience).

For this grudge match, I nominate: motorman, TomJones123, jbcmh81, Cleverfield & bjimmy24.

Gentlemen, commence boostering!




*Shameless Carlin reference

[NicoleWh]

Originally Posted by Natural510

Hiya Nicole,
Instead of copy & pasting this thread to each Ohio city forum, you should've posted this to the main Ohio forum, whereupon an All-Star cast of boosters for each of the 3C's engage in a Royal-Rumble style death match, armed with nothing but whiskey and PCP*. After about 24 hours of beating each other to a bloody pulp, the last man standing mandates you move to his "hip" town on the outskirts of his "growing/revitalizing/on-the-upswing" C-city, lest you incur the wrath of Chicago ramblings by andrew61 (and you DEFINITELY do not want that experience).

For this grudge match, I nominate: motorman, TomJones123, jbcmh81, Cleverfield & bjimmy24.

Gentlemen, commence boostering!




*Shameless Carlin reference

Thank you for that advice, lol! You are the first person that hasn't seem 'annoyed' that I've 'multi-posted'. I've never posted to a forum before, so I didn't think of that! I feel excessive to do it know though, now that I've posted all over! It really is hard to pick a city to live by when I've never even been to Ohio....all 3 look promising in their own ways. What makes it hard is that we are so used to the urban feel of our town, and the fact that it has some of the best schools in the state, it's hard to compare, but I've had some good suggestions so far!

[motorman]

Originally Posted by Natural510

Hiya Nicole,
Instead of copy & pasting this thread to each Ohio city forum, you should've posted this to the main Ohio forum, whereupon an All-Star cast of boosters for each of the 3C's engage in a Royal-Rumble style death match, armed with nothing but whiskey and PCP*. After about 24 hours of beating each other to a bloody pulp, the last man standing mandates you move to his "hip" town on the outskirts of his "growing/revitalizing/on-the-upswing" C-city, lest you incur the wrath of Chicago ramblings by andrew61 (and you DEFINITELY do not want that experience).

For this grudge match, I nominate: motorman, TomJones123, jbcmh81, Cleverfield & bjimmy24.

Gentlemen, commence boostering!*Shameless Carlin reference

HAHAHA! Right now, back in the locker room, both TJ123 and I are suiting up to deliver our usual 1-2 knock-down punches, but why bother? After all, Old Worthington and Gahanna sound like just the communities to direct the discriminating couple--places that even two Queen City scrappers like ourselves might adjust to if we could just break our urban shackles and jump over the fence into the utopias of the right suburbie-suburbs. (especially a Columbus suburb!)

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by Natural510

For this grudge match, I nominate: motorman, TomJones123, jbcmh81, Cleverfield & bjimmy24.

Gentlemen, commence boostering!

ROFLMAO!!

As much as I would love to get this rumble rocking, I could never recommend any of Cincinnati's suburbs that fit this description because there aren't any.