What DON'T you like about Huntsville/Decater areas? (Madison, Lincoln: insurance, credit)

[Keeper]

Please stay on topic. If you want to express your political views you need to do so in the political form, not here

[knightofeffect]

Yea, I agree that UAH is perfectly suited to meet the needs of Huntsville's inhabitants, in that it is sufficient. I just believe it has the opportunities and resources to become much more than what it is content with being.

This is a bit off topic for this thread, but I would suggest looking into the Monte Sano area for housing. I was reminded about it since its largest problem is an over-abundance of bugs, which also happends to be one thing I forgot to mention as a no-no of Huntsville.

Huntsville tends to have stifling humidity, but on Monte Sano, despite its ~1600ft altitude, has a noticable difference in temperature; sometimes as large as 7 degrees lower. It also has a very large chance to see snow when noone else in the Tennesse Valley does. As for the neighboorhood itself, it is very very unique; almost as if it has been frozen in the sixties. No commercial enterprise is allowed on the mountian itself, not even a gas station. Its community is pretty old and very tightly woven; it was originally found as a haven for the German engineers that came here in the 50s ( my grandfather was one of them ).

The state park on its top makes for great picknics, walks, hikes, and relaxing as well as its very friendly neighboorhood pool. Monte Sano offers a very SAFE, relaxing enviroment for any family with extremely nice neighboors and nicer climate. It also has a great location being about equadistant between Blossomwood and Hampton Cove.


Anyway, sorry for getting a little off topic, but I think it would be a shame for someone to move to Huntsville and not take a look at MonteSano.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by knightofeffect

2) Extreme Segregation
I was originally going to make several topics, but just lumped it all into this one. Schools, crime, collapsing communities; these are all huge issues that are faced on the NW and SW sides of Huntsville. There is no easy solution and no real hope in sight, but it is a continued strain on the already lagging school system. Schools in themselves are like night and day when it comes to their desirability, with the better becoming better and the worse becomming worse.

I visit HSV occasionally on business. Can someone expand on this? Where are the schools getting worse? Where are the schools getting better? Why? Where abouts is SW & NW Huntsville (approximately what intersections)? Where are the crime spots?

[Reactionary]

Charles - HSV can be 'unofficially' divided into quadrants roughly at Governors (E-W) and the Parkway (N-S).

This is a -GROSS- simplification, but the corridor West of the Parkway and East of AL53 (Patton / Ardmore Hwy) from Drake North to Bob Wade Lane is 'bad'. Add the area North of Oakwood and West of 72E to Moores Mill. Also add the apartments off Golf Rd.

The schools in these areas score 20s - 30s on NCLB, compared to 70s - 80s for schools like Mtn Gap or Madison City schools.

Crime is also higher in these areas. Perhaps not surprisingly, one can buy a house for as little as $25k (avg $50?) in some of these areas. Also not surprisingly, one can buy crack and rent hookers there too.

IIRC the highest crime area (property) is between Drake and Patton and Governors and Parkway (SW). Housing projects (most are West of and close to Parkway) and adjacent areas also have high crime rates.

[knightofeffect]

Hmmmm, lets see if I can expand on/give my interpretation of what Reactionary said. I have lived off of Weatherly in the SE, Monte Sano in the East outskirts, and most recently in the NW off of Jordan (by Chuck-E-Cheese for the locals), so I'll see if I can give some more detail on the general neighborhood situation.

In a very, very general sense West = bad, East = Good... North = Bad, South = Good. And for the most part adding the two regions together would get what you think, IE North + West = double BAD, North + East = Okay, and etc. Also the more you travel towards the fringes in these regions the more they tend to mellow out to "okay".

Now from some street specifics.

1. North of University is bad, not as bad when you get more north of University on Memorial Parkway and towards the east; however, north of University and west is pretty much all bad until you get around the Best Buy shopping area, then things magically take a much nicer turn until you reach the upper-class area of Providence. The closer you get on University to Memorial Parkway, the worse it becomes on the south side as you leave the proximity of the Univeristy. (Remember this is all on the west side of Memorial Parkway, east of it most everything is better).

2. West of Memorial Parkway is bad. The further west you travel on University the better the south side of it becomes (mostly because this is where the University resides). Pretty much from University to Drake (West Governors, Bob Wallace), enclosed by Jordan/Patton and Memorial Parkway, is not desirable on the west side. All you have to do is travel 1 mile east from the parkway on the same road though and you would find some nice charming neighborhoods (five points, piedmont, around Huntsville High). East of Pulaski Pike, west of Memorial Parkway there is a particularly bad stretch that reaches farther south and even a little east towards holmes and downtown.

For living in NW Huntsville, I have been pretty sheltered from most of what is further towards the north and west. I really don't know about the neighborhoods up around Maston Lake, Jordan, and Pulaski Pike north.

On to the high school situation in those areas:

1. NE/N goes to Lee; a school with a probably the most well rounded ethnic mix, but has recently hit some hard times with a crazy principle and a tentative building situation. I do believe it is considered a magnet school of arts and mathematics, but is still not on anyone's top school choices.

2. NNW/N goes to Johnson, by far the most predominantly black school. Don't really know too much about it except that at our football games there was a total of 2 white people on the other side and they were wearing South Pole...

3. NW/W goes to Butler, with a mix of 65% black, 28% white, 6% Latin, and 1% other. I know this because I attend there for part of my high school career. It was a decent school while I attend, but lacked many stand out teachers and had an overall rough attitude. Lately it has fallen on increasingly harder times, with most teachers going to Providence or Huntsville High as well as a sharp decline in attendance. Now even the school's future existence is brought into question every year.

4. W/SW/other Providence and New Century are the other two schools that round out the school situation in the North and West of Huntsville. I think New Century might have been consolidated in either Providence or Butler but I'm not too sure. Providence is a nearly new high school with a very interesting mix of students as they pulled from nearly every school in the West of Huntsville including New Century (a tech high school), as well as some kids from the upper-class Providence development. I left Huntsville shortly after its creation though, so I don’t know too much about how it has fared.

The worst thing that you can say about most of the other schools in and around Huntsville is that they are over crowded. Grissom, Bob Jones, Hazel Green, and Huntsville high are all experiencing growing pains as a result of newcomers trying to avoid the above-mentioned schools. Huntsville High in particular had an opportunity to help alleviate this issue when they built their new school, but that has come to be known as one of the worst architectural disasters in Huntsville as it could not adequately support its current known school size, let alone help the other over-crowed schools.

It would take forever to go over each individual middle and elementary school, but they essentially make up the high schools that they filter into with some being better and worse than the high school average.

As for crime, all the originally mentioned areas aren’t particularly good, but I would have to say the region from Jordan to Memorial Parkway along University and Governors, as well as little into downtown Holmes is the worst area for crime that I'd come in contact with. However, like I said, I have never dealt with the more extreme north and west areas of the city, so they might be worse crime wise.

Sorry for all the confusing "north by northwests" and so forth. Hopefully with a map you will be able to kind of see what I was talking about. If you have any more questions about a particular region, I would be more than happy to try and answer them.

[JakeWilliams]

Originally Posted by knightofeffect

4. W/SW/other Providence and New Century are the other two schools that round out the school situation in the North and West of Huntsville. I think New Century might have been consolidated in either Providence or Butler but I'm not too sure. Providence is a nearly new high school with a very interesting mix of students as they pulled from nearly every school in the West of Huntsville including New Century (a tech high school), as well as some kids from the upper-class Providence development. I left Huntsville shortly after its creation though, so I don’t know too much about how it has fared.

He meant Columbia High School, not Providence. Providence is K-8 that is 2-3 years old and they are already adding to it because the school system is afraid to fight the desegregation order. This is another topic that our local paper covered well. Columbia is inside Research Park and New Century is a wing of Columbia. They did pull students from Butler.

Jake Williams

[knightofeffect]

Thanks Jake, Columbia is indeed what I meant.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by acrossthepond

Termite contracts on your house are a necessity.

What is meant by this? Is this a regular service? Monthly? Annually? Some sort of spray? Do these guys also spray the grounds like lawns and yards to keep unwanted bugs away? Can a DIYer use a pump sprayer every couple of weeks instead?

[Charles]

Originally Posted by blondandfun

Also, I am very proud that I am completely in the private work force. No government contracts or any of that nonsense.

Having a government job with a security clearance has advantages.

Huntsville has a lot of aerospace/defense jobs which require a clearance - jobs that can't be off shored to say, this guy for example:



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[Charles]

Originally Posted by knightofeffect

Huntsville tends to have stifling humidity, but on Monte Sano, despite its ~1600ft altitude, has a noticable difference in temperature; sometimes as large as 7 degrees lower.

Adiabatic temperature differentials due to altitude alone vary from 3.5F to 5F (I think it depends on RH) per 1000 feet. So 7F sounds right.