Crime in Jacksonville? Also, Traffic? (Tallahassee, Pensacola: crime rate, income, to live in)

[Nikolai Rostov]

My wife and I are most likely moving to Jacksonville from Houston. Is the crime rate really as bad in Jacksonville as people say? Could I pick an area of the city to live in that wouldn't be dangerous? Is it bad enough to where I should just avoid the city entirely and pick somewhere else in Florida, like Pensacola or Tallahassee? Also, what's the traffic like? What does an average commute look like? Are there many toll roads?

[fsu813]

No, crime in Jacksonville is not prohibitively bad.

The general NW quadrant of Jacksonville is the hotbed for serious crime that I would certainly avoid, and the general SE quadrant of Jax has the least serious crime. However, there are good areas in the NW quadrant and sketchy areas in the SE quadrant as well.

Traffic is not an issue, unless you plan to commute from the suburbs into the city for work. Even then it's a bit slow and stop & go at times, but nothing like a real big city traffic jam. My commute is about 7 minutes because I live & work very close to one another. Some people choose to commute 45 minutes to & from work and home. The further out you live, the more traffic you'll have, generally, and longer commute times. No toll roads yet, though parts of suburban Jax will be getting tolled roads in the future.

Jacksonville is really several distinct towns wrapped into 1 large, spread out city. So you can find almost whatever lifestyle want here.

[912]

Originally Posted by Nikolai Rostov

My wife and I are most likely moving to Jacksonville from Houston. Is the crime rate really as bad in Jacksonville as people say? Could I pick an area of the city to live in that wouldn't be dangerous? Is it bad enough to where I should just avoid the city entirely and pick somewhere else in Florida, like Pensacola or Tallahassee? Also, what's the traffic like? What does an average commute look like? Are there many toll roads?

Houston is the #1 city in the country for jobs & income. Why the move?

[centauri]

Jacksonville is going down hill slowly for the past several years. The North and Westside seems to be the worst of the city, but Regency/ Arlington/ and Southside is getting pretty bad too. Jacksonville, is like everywhere else, you have your good and bad areas.

[mortpes]

See www.protectamerica.com/crime-rate/Fl/Jacksonville .

[abvavgjoe]

Originally Posted by centauri

...and Southside is getting pretty bad too. Jacksonville, is like everywhere else, you have your good and bad areas.

I agree with what you said, but Southside is getting bad? Really? I live there and I wasn't aware of that. It's not Beverly Hills, but I wouldn't call it bad at all.

[fsu813]

The vast majority of "the northside" isn't either. Specifically, the NW quadrant is where most serious crime occurs.

Overall, serious crime has been dropping consistantly in Jax for about 15-6 years, depending on how you measure it. It's not alarming in the least, unless you choose to live in a high-crime pocket.