Need Advice - East of Columbus Area (Newark, Westerville: neighborhoods, good schools)

[moving616]

Hello - Need help. My husband is accepting a job about an hour east of Columbus in Cambridge, OH. We know very little about the area and would love to get some advice from people on commutable communities. i.e. up to around 45-50 minutes from Cambridge. We are not interested in tiny towns but would like something larger that can offer... good schools, safety, neighborhoods for kids, good community sports, maybe some nightlife, a walmart (or not), and a more liberal than conservative mindset..... any advice pointing us toward some communities to look at would be awesome!

[Cartouche]

Hmm...you make me think of Pickerington first, although Reynoldsburg may possibly work? Maybe Gahanna.

What do you mean by "community" sports? The Pickerington schools tend to have a strong sports emphasis...but by far, the Buckeyes of OSU are the popular sports magnet in this city! I think no matter where you go here though, there are a TON of sports fans.

As for nightlife, there are many nice restaurants and bars scattered all over, but the more concentrated areas for that are probably in downtown Columbus.

I will say, I am more liberal-minded too, but I can't say for sure what the skew is per town...as I am a Realtor here I remain neutral about things where I think there's no real way to measure on behalf of someone else. It's a "client knows best" thing as I see it.

Am I hitting the right locations for you, or were you thinking of towns further east than these?

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

[CortlandGirl79]

I believe Cambridge is further east......isn't pickerington west?

[moving616]

That's exactly what we're looking for. Pickerington looks like it might be 45 minutes or so from Cambridge? As far as community sports... we're used to the kids being able to sign up for community rec (city sponsored) sports teams, i.e. soccer, tball, baseball, etc. When we say liberal, what we really mean is we don't want to get stuck in a stuffy conservative "what church do you go to" neighborhood. Not that we're against church, but you get the idea.

[moving616]

cambridge is an hour or so east of columbus. Pickerington appears to be on in the east "suburbs" of columbus.

[Cartouche]

Yes, exactly. Pickerington is to the southeast quadrant of the Columbus area. And there are at least 2 WalMarts in or near, as well as plenty of other shopping (Meijer is like a local pre-WalMart superstore, I find it less crowded...)

Have you checked out http://www.ci.pickerington.oh.us/ (City of Pickerington) or http://www.violet.oh.us/ (Violet Township) ? Might be of interest.

[LancasterNative]

Cambridge, a nice little county-seat town along I-70, is actually closer to Wheeling, WV than it is to Columbus! That being said, the presence of 70 makes commuting very easy among these places.

Your best bets for an area with nightlife would be Columbus or Wheeling. The eastern fringes/burbs of Columbus might be commutable within your desired radius (45-50 min. drive) while almost all of Wheeling would be within that distance.

As for "a more liberal than conservative mindset," Columbus is definitely the place to find that! It's a very "progressive" city, contrasting starkly with the surrounding counties and communities. For full discolure here, I'm contemplating a move to conservative Zanesville myself (next county over from Cambridge) but then, I'm a very conservative guy! The places you're most likely to find more liberal attitudes outside Columbus would be college towns like Gambier (near Mt. Vernon), Athens (Ohio U.) and Granville (next to Newark).

Speaking of which, Newark is the largest community in the region outside of Columbus. It has lots of bars--which I guess you could consider "nightlife" of a sort But it also has more of the amenities you'd expect to find in a larger city, w/o actually being a larger city.

If you prefer the atmosphere of a bigger metro area, you'd probably do best living in the eastern reaches of Columbus. Pataskala, Pickerington or Gahanna would offer you the quickest access to 70 and points east. I'd be very careful in Reynoldsburg though; it's gotten increasingly ghetto-fied in recent years

[streetcreed]

The eastside community of Berwick is located not far from downtown and near 70, it is liberal and is VERY divserse.

Pickerington, Reynoldsburg, Gahanna, are all east side Columbus suburbs that i would recommend, they are all actually in the columbus metro.

Many do not know but columbus city limits actually surrounds most of these suburbs (through annexation), so you can live in the columbus city limits on the far east side but attend suburban schools. The only reason some may not like the far east side is that it is a very mixed area, race wise.

The more traditional liberal areas of columbus are on the north side (clintonville, beechwold neighborhoods, Worthington, even Westerville increasingly. These areas would actually prob. fit you better, but they are not on the east side. So i would look into the east side areas that i mentioned above. I really wouldnt go further out than the east side suburbs if you want to be in a more cosmopolitan/open minded city, the further out you go the more rural it will get.

[moving616]

we actually were down to Columbus this week and found the drive to pickerington/reynoldsburg to be too far from the job... We found some awesome subdivisions in Heath... thoughts on that area anyone?

[spudskier]

Heath isn't bad, like any other outlying community. Should be pretty friendly. Wish i could have mentioned the drive earlier but just found the web site. The drive to Cambridge is looooooooong, lot longer than you'd think. West Va might be a possibility, Zanesville another.