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My family will be relocating next year from the mid-Atlantic area. We are thinking about North Carolina and Kentucky. We've been to Raleigh/Cary and loved it!! Will be going to Kentucky soon. But we'll also be visiting N.C. again and want to check out the GREENSBORO area! It sounds lovely! The neighborhoods I've found on REALTOR.COM that interest us are in Jamestown and some areas in zip 27407 - Adams Farm, etc. My only concern is the crime levels in some of the Greenboro zips seem a bit high compared to Raleigh and Lexington and Louisville. Is Greensboro considered a safe city in general? Is the U. of N.C. campus area crime-ridden? (our teen will be old enough to attend college after our move). On a more pleasant note, how is the shopping??! Restaurants? Other amenities?? Any information would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!!!
I prefer NW Greensboro and Guilford County to other parts of the city/county. Adams Farm is a large subdivision in the SW part of town - and there are some OK places in Jamestown, but both places have some rough neighborhoods within proximity of those areas (i.e., High Point and the areas near the Four Seasons Mall and HP Road). I would choose Adams Farm over Jamestown if given an option between the two. Adams Farm doesn't border a bad neighborhood or anything like that, but High Point Road is an ugly road and is one of the main roads that leads towards that area. Jamestown is too close to some dumpy areas of High Point for my taste.
My impression of GSO (having lived in this area for 7 yrs) is that much of the serious crime is limited to certain parts of the city. There are a lot of safe neighorhoods within the city limits and elsewhere in the county.
UNCG isn't too far from a seedy part of town, but I don't consider the campus to be "crime-ridden". I've been on campus numerous times for business (including at night) and have never felt unsafe. UNCG has about 15,000 students, so there aren't too many isolated places on campus. There have been some publicized crimes there over the years (rapes in nearby neighborhoods a few yrs ago), but I doubt that any campus anywhere has been crime-free. It's probably about as safe as UNC-CH, NCSU, or any other large campus.
Shopping, amenties are plentiful in GSO. Overall, it's a nice place to live and raise a family, which is the main reason why my wife and I decided to stay in the area (I've had a few opportnities elsewhere the past few yrs).
JAS - Do you know anything about the neighborhoods around the Guilford County Military Park? I believe it's in the NW area of Greensboro. Any idea about the safety/crime of this area?
I agree with what JAS has said. I would add Pleasant Garden to the list of nice, pleasant, safe places to live.
Areas within Greensboro that I personally like (and would enjoy living in, if I couldn't live in the country - which hopefully we will one day) are neighborhoods on W. Market St. (the area near the Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church - I love the houses there & the beautiful trees) and W. Friendly Ave. (Starmount, etc.).
There are plenty of restaurants and places to shop. The mall, Friendly Shopping Center (on Green Valley Rd. and Friendly Ave.), etc.
Stores include Hecht's (which will be Macy's by September - we have 2 in Greensboro), Dillard's, Belk (also 2), Old Navy (2 or more), Ann Taylor, Ann Taylor Loft, Victoria's Secret (of course; at least 2), Gap, Banana Republic, Express, JC Penney, Sears, Gap Kids, Talbot's, Stein Mart (on Battleground Ave.), and many others.
SMW,
As far as I know, the area around Guilford Military Park is not a high crime area. Though JAS is probably better able to help you.
To JAS - Thank you so much for all of that info!! If you don't mind, I had a few more questions!! When you mentioned the NW part of the area, did you mean up around Summerfield? We have an ADC map and I also see some ZIPS in that direction - 27358, 27409, 27410, 27455,etc. Were these the areas you had in mind? If I have zip codes I'm able to look up houses on REALTOR.COM! You also mentioned bad areas around Four Seasons Mall - is that the main mall in the area? Do you feel safe shopping there? I noticed a lot of shopping areas on the map on West Wendover - how is that area? ( P.S -When I used the term "crime-ridden" about UNC I didn't mean for it to sound that harsh!! I had already used the term "crime levels" and was trying not to repeat myself!!! ) Thank you again for all of your help - we really appreciate it!!
To Niki - Thanks so much for your post!! I saw Pleasant Garden on the map - love the name!! I'll check that on REALTOR.COM! Sounds like there is a lot of good shopping in the area! Thanks again for your help!!
crime isn't an issue in Gso any more than it is in any other medium-sized metro area. There are poor areas that you don't want to walk around in at night, period.
Greensboro is still a much more traditional southern area, unlike the Triangle which has seen a huge influx of outsiders, and Asheville, which is known for its leftist leanings.
There is a lot of exurbia here, and I include the NW--Oakridge, Summerfield, SW (Adams Farm, Jamestown) in that description. Now that the downtown is revitalizing, the most "real" place to move is into an older neighborhood, with 5 miles downtown. That includes Starmount, Hamilton Lakes, Fisher Park, College Park, Sunset Hills, Guilford College area. These areas are more expensive but most feed into the better public schools.
If you don't mind the exurban feeling then move on out, way out--NW, SW.
Historically, the West side of town is white, the East side of town is black, from way back in Jim Crow days. Thankfully that's changing over time, and there are more and more people intermingling in the housing market.
Be very careful school-wise, if you have kids. The quality within the countywide system varies dramatically and real estate agents are not allowed by law to give you opinions about the schools. You have to go visit the schools, ask questions and observe. Almost all the schools are overcrowded.
Also, if you're not used to it already, there is real culture shock for a Northeasterner moving into the Bible Belt. Evangelical Christians right and left . Politeness is refreshing though. If you're not religious and you'll need to build a social circle through your other interests, people tend to socialize here within their church circle.
JAS - Do you know anything about the neighborhoods around the Guilford County Military Park? I believe it's in the NW area of Greensboro. Any idea about the safety/crime of this area?
I've lived in an apartment complex adjacent to the Military Park for about 3 weeks or so. It seems like a very nice area to me, I really don't think you're going to have any trouble. There are some bad areas of Greensboro, but it seems much safer than any other place I've lived.
Thank you both for your posts. You probably don't realize how helpful your contributions to these posts are for people who can't employ any of their own senses and judgment to an area yet so Thank You again!!
I'm glad to hear from someone who lives in the Military Park area. I'm considering buying a townhouse in the area. I don't have kids so schools are not an issue, but I'd still like to buy something that would appeal to someone else should I decide to sell or rent it out later on.
I hear a lot about the NC friendliness and friendly neighbors (which I actually have now as well.) Does that seem to be true for "city dwellers" and apartment/condo/townhouse dwellers? Do people reach out to neighbors there or do they keep to themselves? It's seems to be here that the higher the crime rate of an area is, the less friendly and helpful people are to each other, a sort of self-protection I suppose.
To exjerseyite - Thanks for your very informative post! We won't be dealing with the school issue as our teenager will be college-age when we move. I've read about how so many northerners have moved into Cary - outside of Raleigh - that it is dubbed "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees"!! Thanks again for all of your insights!
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Gso
Military Park area of Greensboro
