Moving to Cedar Rapids, best nieghborhood or part of town?

[mustang84]

I live in the NW side of Cedar Rapids. There are some decent middle-income neighborhoods the further northwest you move away from the flood zone and Time Check neighborhood. Even Time Check had some nice housing stock before the flood, but now that part of town is basically abandoned. Ellis Park and the riverfront areas provide plenty of green space. Traffic also is pretty light in this part of town, except on Edgewood. Across the river even further NW are newer neighborhoods, and there are also some nice houses set in hilly terrain along Glass Rd.

The NE side is pretty decent from what I know. Be prepared for traffic on Collins, Blairs Ferry, and Boyson though...those areas have grown fast and the roads can barely handle the level of traffic, even on Sunday afternoons. It gets really bad around Lindale Mall on Collins Rd. The four-way stop at Boyson and Robins can be a nightmare at times.

The SW side is the cheaper side of town, depending on where you live. Avoid Raintree Apartments and that general area; I have a cousin who lives there and is getting out. They have had stabbings and home invasions in that complex. Most of the apartment stock around this area is fairly new, but cheap and poorly built...especially along 16th Ave. and some units right off Highway 30 by Williams Blvd. This side of town also has ADM (smelly corn processing plant), General Mills, and other industrial facilities. You start seeing better housing the closer you move toward Fairfax (suburb on Highway 151).

The income disparity on the SE side is very visible; some of the nicest and poorest neighborhoods in the city are in this quadrant. Generally the neighborhoods that directly ring the East and SE side of downtown are the ones you want to avoid, but as you head further out on Mt. Vernon Road and over by East Post Rd. the area becomes more wooded and the housing stock is much nicer.

Marion and Hiawatha are two suburbs that also have good neighborhoods.