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Old 06-17-2016, 08:32 AM
 
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My fiancé and I might relocate from San Antonio to Mesquite,Tx for a job he will have in Seagoville. How safe is Mesquite to live in and what other surrounding cities are safe as well?
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Old 06-17-2016, 11:43 AM
 
Location: Richardson, TX
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Mesquite is not unsafe, it's a pretty normal middle-class community. It has average suburban houses, newer builds, and even some rural areas out along I-20. Part of the city now extends into Kaufman County due to annexations a few years back.

You can also consider Rowlett and Garland. Rowlett probably has the best reputation of the 3. There's also some smaller towns east of Seagoville along 175 like Crandall which are much more rural. There's also Forney and "Heartland" which is a master planned community just south of Forney in unincorporated Kaufman County. It all depends on what you're looking for, suburban/rural, whether you're renting or buying, budget, etc.

I would steer clear of Balch Springs, Pleasant Grove, the City of Dallas neighborhood that used to be "Kleberg" until the 1980s, and Seagoville itself. Seagoville is probably the best of those less expensive options but I've never been a big fan.

If I had a job in Mesquite those would be the areas I'd be looking in. Best of luck!
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Old 06-17-2016, 12:14 PM
 
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Thank you for the info, very helpful!
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Old 06-17-2016, 01:03 PM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
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Excellent advice above, especially the areas to avoid. Don't go southeast of Seagoville (Wilmer, Hutchins) either.

I'm assuming the job would be at the federal prison?
Personally, I'd look in Sunnyvale or east Dallas.
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Old 06-18-2016, 12:21 PM
 
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Better advice can be given if you provide your budget. Mesquite is a older burb and has a mix of everything. You want to look at homes in the Horn or Poteet high school boundaries. Forney, Rowlett, Rockwall, Sunnyvale or some parts of Garland would also be great choices. Providing a budget would give us the ability to narrow down your choices.
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Old 06-19-2016, 10:42 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristieP View Post
Excellent advice above, especially the areas to avoid. Don't go southeast of Seagoville (Wilmer, Hutchins) either.

I'm assuming the job would be at the federal prison?
Personally, I'd look in Sunnyvale or east Dallas.
Seagoville has been in Dallas ISD since 1964. AFAIK its schools are heavily white and Hispanic. I don't know their academic rankings.

Wilmer-Hutchins used to be far worse when it was a part of Wilmer-Hutchins ISD. The facilities are better now that Dallas ISD is in control (I don't know the specific academic reputation of the new Wilmer Hutchins schools under DISD)

The Wilmer Hutchins schools are majority black since they serve parts of South Dallas: they generally draw more students from South Dallas than from Wilmer and Hutchins
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Old 06-19-2016, 06:05 PM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
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"Better" is a relative term. Those schools were horrible when DISD took them over. Now, they are just bad.
Wilmer and Hutchins are extremely poor and fairly high crime areas. Best just to stay away from that part of town.
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Old 06-21-2016, 03:36 PM
 
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Originally Posted by ChristieP View Post
"Better" is a relative term. Those schools were horrible when DISD took them over. Now, they are just bad.
Wilmer and Hutchins are extremely poor and fairly high crime areas. Best just to stay away from that part of town.
Were the towns of Wilmer and Hutchins themselves ever high crime?

Again, much of WHISD was actually South Dallas, not Wilmer and Hutchins (those are almost-rural towns with almost nothing in them other than the Hutchins State Jail and a landfill). A 1996 Dallas Observer article pointed out that the housing stock in the WHISD part of South Dallas was better than most other parts

Last in the Class | Dallas Observer

Quote:
Minkah, who under the name Fred Bell helped organize black voters to take control of the district in the early 1980s, says the neighborhoods that make up Wilmer-Hutchins are better than many in southern Dallas. There's decent housing and a tolerable level of crime. But he has taken his six young children out of the schools.

"I know darn well we can run a school district," he says of the all-black school board. "But we haven't run that one."
Course this was 1996, 20 years ago...
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Old 06-21-2016, 06:53 PM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
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Exactly. That was 20 years ago. It's only gone downhill from there.

Short answer: NO WAY would I recommend a newcomer to DFW move to that area.
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Old 06-22-2016, 05:09 PM
 
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Originally Posted by ChristieP View Post
Exactly. That was 20 years ago. It's only gone downhill from there.

Short answer: NO WAY would I recommend a newcomer to DFW move to that area.
Out of curiosity have there been any articles about a rise in crime in the cities of Hutchins and Wilmer? (this may be a bit independent of say the situation at Wilmer-Hutchins schools, which are all in parts of the city of Dallas, with the elementary and high school near the Hutchins city limits)

I honestly wouldn't be surprised to hear that there had been a decline in that part of South Dallas up to 2005 and maybe a bit beyond (corresponding to the end of WHISD and when kids were bussed to faraway schools until 2011 or so) - but it would be interesting to see a graph of crime rates/etc

I do agree that there are better parts of DFW, though. Especially if they have kids - Even if say Wilmer and Hutchins don't have crime, there's not much in them. (I hear people who want rural living just go on to Ferris, which is only a little bit further away)

BTW here's a 20 year old description of the parts of WHISD: Last in the Class | Dallas Observer!

Quote:
Despite its urban demographics and location just a few minutes from downtown Dallas, much of the school district has an incongruous rural feel. Within Dallas city limits, pig farms sit cheek by jowl with burglar-barred houses in sprawling subdivisions built 25 or 30 years ago. The shops along Hutchins' Main Street--the W&W Grocery "Home of the King Burger," Linde's Hair Salon, and Evelyn's Flowers--give it a faded, smalltown feel. Nearby, Wilmer-Hutchins High sits on a two-lane macadam road.

For years, this corner of Dallas County has been ground zero for things nobody wants in their part of town. There's the Hutchins State Jail and the McCommas Bluff landfill, a mountainous city dump fed by a stream of garbage trucks that grinds down Old South Central Expressway like so many worker ants.

It's hard to find a new house, store, or building anywhere in the district. People tend to blame that economic torpor on the abysmal state of the Wilmer-Hutchins schools.

Last edited by Vicman; 06-22-2016 at 05:18 PM..
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