moving to Mississippi (Jackson, Clinton, Pearl: apartments, condos, homes)

[usaguy11]

Hey everyone, I found out a month ago that my job is moving me to Jackson from the triangle area of NC. I am looking for a safe liberal area of Jackson. My price range is from 100,000 to 300,000. Also I am looking for a area with good schools and a art community. Are there any whole food stores or a Joe's and or a Wegmans. I've heard a lot of bad things about Mississippi when I tell people that i am moving there. I really doubt it is bad as they say it is. I am very excited about moving and calling Mississippi home.

[DiogenesofJackson]

A Mississippi liberal would probably seem pretty conservative to most out of staters.

You could probably try the Fondren area with its foo-foo stores, shoppes, and eateries, yet it's kind of expensive. Good luck finding housing there. You'll also find that most Jacksonians wall themselves off into enclaves of gated communities, usually located on the Northeast side bordering Ridgeland and near the Ross Barnett Reservoir.

As for schools, there's the segregationist academies--Jackson Prep (6-12) and Jackson Academy (K-12)--but these have lost their segregationist moorings and actually offer an outstanding curriculum and program. They're sports happy--but everyone in Mississippi is sports happy, or so it seems anyway.

St. Andrew's Episcopal is perhaps the best school in the state, but good luck affording their tuition. I think Murrah High in Jackson is a fine public school, but I'm sure others would disagree about that because it's part of the JPS system.

The best public schools would probably be Madison High, Madison Elem, Madison Middle, etc. followed by Ridgeland High and its feeder schools. Other schools in suburbia that aren't bad are Pearl and its feeder schools, Northwest Rankin and its feeders, along with Clinton schools. I think it's safe to say that you'd want to steer clear of Richland (not to be confused with Ridgeland) and Florence schools--these areas have some great cheap housing, but the schools generally suck.

As for other private schools in the area, First Pres is highly regarded as well as St. Joseph High in Madison, and there's a Catholic school in Jackson proper but I can't think of the name of it right now.

Load up on your hunting gear, your hunter's camo, and your deer stand if you're moving to Jackson and get ready to spend evenings at youth sports events because that's really all there is to do.

Every now and then there's some good cultural type fests to attend, like the Celtic Fest and the German Fest in Gluckstadt (the German fest was my all-time favorite, probably because I'm from Michigan and I like bratwurst, dammit).

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

Saint Richard, Saint Therese, and Sister Thea Bowman are Catholic elementary schools in Jackson.
BTW, most Jacksonians are black and don't live in gated communities.

[brickpatio]

For public schools, go to schooldigger.com. They rank every school in the state by test scores. The top rated schools are in Madison, feeding into Madison Central and Germantown High Schools...and in Rankin County near the Reservoir feeding into Northwest Rankin.

If you're doing private schools, that enables you to live in the historic and established neighborhoods in Jackson such as Belhaven, Fondren, Woodland Hills and Eastover. There are actually a good number of top private schools.

Ridgeland has some of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city as well as homes of every size, patio homes, condos, and apartments near the Reservoir. Ridgeland public schools rate fairly well but don't churn out the national merit scholars that Madison does. Clinton is fairly well rated and is a small college town but is not on the growing side of Jackson and is not liberal.

The most liberal neighborhood that is beautiful is Belhaven near downtown. It's relatively safe. Nearby Fondren has a great collection of local restaurants. Downtown has the art museum which is very active and very nice, as is the symphony, opera, and new stage theater in Belhaven. Millsaps College and Belhaven University offer wonderful speakers series and musical performances.

The Fresh Market and some of the nicest shopping such as Brooks Brothers is at the Renaissance in Ridgeland. The nicest suburban shopping is in Madison, which is Jackson's version of Cary, NC.

[usaguy11]

Thanks everyone for the comments, I didn't know that Mississippi public schools where so bad. My wife wanted to know if Madison and ridgeland had a lot new developments. To me Jackson seems like a small city because our suburbs have about 200,000 people.

[brickpatio]

Yes Madison is almost all new

[southernnaturelover]

Originally Posted by usaguy11

Hey everyone, I found out a month ago that my job is moving me to Jackson from the triangle area of NC. I am looking for a safe liberal area of Jackson. My price range is from 100,000 to 300,000. Also I am looking for a area with good schools and a art community. Are there any whole food stores or a Joe's and or a Wegmans. I've heard a lot of bad things about Mississippi when I tell people that i am moving there. I really doubt it is bad as they say it is. I am very excited about moving and calling Mississippi home.

Since you mentioned Wegmans I'm assuming your originally from the northeast? Anyways, if nothing in rural NC shocks you I doubt anything in MS would either.

[Lefleur]

There are no Whole Food's, Trader Joe's, or Wegman's in the Jackson area.

Madison is more akin to Cary but none of the area has the kind of originally out-of-state population you now find in the Triangle (in terms of all of folks being originally from another area). Depending on your perspective this is either good or bad ().

Jackson Public Schools are terrible -- that's the quantitative opinion of the federal and state government based upon test scores (I agree, btw). There are city school districts here (versus county like you'll find in Raleigh/Wake or Charlotte/Meck). FWIW, Jackson Public Schools demographics (from 2006, last I could find the data) are 97.51% African American, 1.83% White, 0.45% Hispanic, 0.18% Asian, and 0.03% Native American. To me, diversity is to have a broad spectrum of people of different backgrounds. 97% of any group, whatever it is, is not diverse to me, but that's my take on things. I also think it's important to mention because some folks don't want to put their child/ren in the position of being the only fill-in-the-blank in a school (whether that's white, black, Latino, Asian, what have you).

Not a single JPS high school was labeled "Star" or "High Performing" according to the last data available from the district (2010). One HS was labeled "Successful" while 5 HS were labeled "Academic Watch" and 2 HS were "At Risk of Failing." (10 elementary schools and 2 middle schools were also labeled "at risk of failing" by the way).

If you are moving from the Triangle, and have school-aged children, I would look in Madison. That said, I don't think you'll find the kind of liberalism you're looking for there, and I wouldn't say it's a particularly art-oriented community, but certainly it's possible.

Best of luck.

[brickpatio]

Whole Foods is locating at Highland Village.

[Lefleur]

Originally Posted by brickpatio

Whole Foods is locating at Highland Village.

Wow, that's great (and big) news. When are they opening, do you know?