Thoughts on Canal Winchester Ohio (Columbus, Lancaster: for sale, apartments, condos)

[Lycan]

Hi Im thinking about moving to Ohio in the next couple of years and while searching around I came across Canal Winchester and it really stuck on me, what with all the nice affordable housing and charming village. Im just curious what others point of view on the town is. And hopefully you could answer some of my questions.

1. Is it a well maintained town? Like is it clean and when it snows? how well are the streets and sidewalks plowed/shoveled?

2. How friendly are the people in the town and surrounding areas?

3. Why are the houses so cheap? Is it hard to find a job in the area or are the jobs just low paying?

4. Are there any parks or nices places to go for a walk where I wont be tempted to spend an entire paycheck?(Hint: in the town) Also are there alot of activities in the town or surronding area?

5. And also do you get many storms around this area? Like Tornados, floods, anything. I know about the snow and am ok with that since I live in MA and the weather is pretty bad here to.

[MontanaXVI]

CW isn't a bad place to live, it is actually expanding quite rapidly with Lancaster from the East growing larger towards Columbus and the S-SE side of Columbus including Groveport as well as the Obetz area growing towards CW and Lancaster.

The biggest problem is that while there are some nice areas in the far outskirts of Canal towards Circleville etc. where you are really kind of away from the sprawl in a very rural setting still, the majority of what is considered Canal is lower income East side Columbus sprawling into the Canal area, along with a mix of some of the Groveport sprawl.

Neither east side or Groveport are what you might call ghetto, but what once was open land (read farm and fields) in Groveport was all turned into subdivisions with the subprime boom of the last few years, now a lot of those homes that were purchased by low/middle to lower income families who couldn't really afford the homes are getting hit by the ARM crisis and the homes are up for sale all over the place.

The East side is mainly established neighborhoods but again lower income and declining property values have contributed to a further decline of the area, and all this is spreading into the Canal area which just 10 years ago was very sparse and littered with a ton of farm land and fields.

[spikesangel]

Actually, CW is a nice area. I have lived in CW for a little over 7 years. Most of the houses here (if I am not mistaken) are single family homes. Nice houses but they mostly look the same (I know cause I live in one).
To answer your questions:

1. Is it a well maintained town? Like is it clean and when it snows? how well are the streets and sidewalks plowed/shoveled?
- Hehe...it is a well maintained town...and is quite clean. However, expect to be shoveling your own sidewalk/driveway. As for the roads being salted, don't ever expect it. I have lived here for a little over 7 years and have yet to see my neighborhood (or even my street) salted or plowed.

2. How friendly are the people in the town and surrounding areas?
- People are pretty friendly here.

3. Why are the houses so cheap? Is it hard to find a job in the area or are the jobs just low paying?
- Most people I know that live here commute to Columbus to work (about a 30 minute drive from CW). A possible reason as to why the houses are so cheap here...like I explained before, most of the houses here are single family homes. Another reason would be apartments/condos being built on a daily basis here or so it seems.


4. Are there any parks or nices places to go for a walk where I wont be tempted to spend an entire paycheck?(Hint: in the town) Also are there alot of activities in the town or surronding area?

- There are a few parks here as well as places to go for a walk where you won't be tempted to spend $$. In the neighborhood I live in, there's plenty of places to walk.
- There are a lot of activities in Columbus...Canal Winchester, not so much.


5. And also do you get many storms around this area? Like Tornados, floods, anything. I know about the snow and am ok with that since I live in MA and the weather is pretty bad here to.

- We get a decent amount of storms but for the most part, it isn't the storms you have to watch out for...it's other people's inability to drive during the bad weather.

[Lycan]

Thanks alot, I've been trying to find a place to choose from and have looked at alot of places but for some reason CW seems to stick with me. Also how bad is the traffic when you commute into Columbus from CW? Im expecting it to be bad since its a big city. Also when they do occationally plow, do they use sand or salt in Ohio?