Please Help Not sure where to look to move too (Columbus: house insurance, crime)

[capemom24]

Hi everyone

I currently live in MA(Cape Cod) to be exact. I'm hoping you nice people can be of help to us. We will be moving as soon as our house closes. We have chosen between south carolina and ohio to move too. I will be transfering with work and our company has locations in Akron, Avon, Middleburg Heights, North Canton, Warrensville Heights and Willoughby. I grew up in a small town(which is no longer small). We are looking for a small town that I could commute to work. One of our children Faith(3 yr old) who is in pre-school and gets services from the school. She is behind in her speech and fine motor skills but catching up every day(she was born 16 week early weighing just over 1 pound). So we really need a good school system. An area that has good weather(no tornadoes) a little land would be nice. I miss the small, save town with activities for kids. Cape Cod is a beautiful place but with taxes over 3,000 a year and house insurance over 1,800 and the costs of school going up(preschool is now going up to $180.00 a month for 2 and half hours 2 days a week, We also have a 19 month old son. I would greatly appreciate any help you nice people could give us. Thank You Have a great day.
Sharon

[scoob]

I would prefer the Youngstown ohio area. boardman austintown is wonderfull suburbs of the city. they both have a variety of shopping malls, route 224 has two hands full of shopping destination. this area is right between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, an hour both ways. 45 minutes from Akron, Canton. The cost of living here is extremely low.

[Emily E]

Hi CapeMom,

I live in Wooster, which is about 45 minutes/ 20+ miles from Akron/ North Canton. I work in Canton, Mansfield and Mount Vernon. It's very easy to commute with Route 30 and some other routes that are direct shots to these towns. Wooster was named by Ohio Magazine as Ohio's Hometown...

I moved here from Blacksburg Virginia about 3 years ago and we live a block from the college. This town is a great place to raise children... There are lots of activities for young children, lots of great parks that are close by... A brand new splash water park and our HUGE new library opens in 3 weeks! Yay!

Oh ya, the schools get an EXCELLENT rating by the state. The high school is neat and there is even an ice rink!

Wooster is growing at a good pace. We have adequate shopping for a small town and you can get from one side of town to the other in 15 minutes. We also have a strong downtown area with quaint restaurants and shops. The downtown area boasts large century homes and nice neighborhoods and the north end of town offers new developments, new shopping centers and the focus for growth in town. The area around the college is quite quaint with beautiful green space and cute houses! There are always people walking with their kids through town and people are friendly. We have a huge soccer complex and walking trails, two city pools... Hiking, biking, an art center. And of course the College of Wooster's beautiful campus and diverse community offerings like the Ohio Light Opera.

Other nearby towns that are a good for family raising are Orrville and Medina (a little more fast paced).

Good luck with your move!

[Orwelleaut]

NE Ohio is nice. We have rolling hills and scenery, few tornadoes, and beautiful weather most of the year. Our winters are a little colder than New England, but probably a little dryer as well. Our snow is mostly lake effect, and is not as severe as up in BUffalo. There is plenty of culture here with all of the colleges, but this area of Ohio is not pretentious or snobby. New Englanders settled this area originally, so I imagine a New Englander may like it here. We don't "pahk the cah" here, though, but have an accent mostly midwestern but with a strong Pennsylvania sound compared to folks from Michigan or Chicago.

[Naturgal]

Greetings everyone!

I know you're out there. Former Orrvillians who have left and now you want out the rat race. You think back to the good, simpler times you experienced here in Amish country. You miss the small hometown feel, the fall leaves, the farms, the countryside and the clip clop of Amish buggies. Well, come on back home to Orrville.

We are in the midst of a revitalization. Orrville is one of a handful of towns across Ohio that are part of the Ohio Main Street program. We have received grants to revitalize our downtown and improvements are evident everywhere. Our downtown is becoming quite quaint these days. If you are looking to open up a little store, come on back and open one downtown. We have plenty of industry and our own electric company too!

Contrary to some statistics you might come across, Orrville is virtually crime free. It is a very safe town. I am prone to take walks in the middle of the night and have never been accosted in any way. I don't know where they got their statistics from because I'm sure if any serious crime happened it would be the talk of the town. There are no such thing as home invasions here, no carjackings and no murder. I feel completely safe here in Orrville.

We have a beautiful park with a creek running through it that holds concerts in the summer and abound with ballfields. We have great schools, in fact they just built a new school. There is a boys and girls club that caters the youth. Your kids can even go there while they wait for you to get off work. This is a wonderful place to raise children.

You are just 20 minutes away from all the shopping in Wooster and close to Canton, Cleveland and Akron. Orrville is not a mecca for shopping but they like to keep it that way. I can sit on my front porch and watch Amish buggies clipclopping down the street. They come in to go to our grocery stores. A very short drive takes you right into the heart of Amish country and its breathtakingly beautiful.

Nearby Kidron is a mecca for the Amish and there you have Lehmans, the largest old fashioned hardware store in the world. They have been selling hard to get non electric items since the 50s. They started out catering to the Amish's needs. Refer to Lehmans.com to see what I'm talking about.

Kidron also has weekly livestock auctions and an outdoor flea market where Amish and "Englishers" mingle. All around the area you can get locally made Swiss cheese and bulk food stores abound. One of the simplest pleasures around here is to take a country drive and get lost in Amish country. Marvel at the beauty of the well kept farms, see beautiful draft horses and dairy cows in the pasture. You'll see the Amish working teams of horses in the field. Okay now your turn fellow Orrville residents, help me explain why living here is so great!

[centralohionative]

I agree with all of the posts above. Wooster, Orville, and many of the suburbs of Cleveland, Akron and other Northeastern Ohio cities have some of the best school systems in the country. I myself am partial to Mt Vernon because I'm from there. You have a small town feel and it's very safe and clean. It sits at the beginning of Amish country and is less than an hour from Columbus and a half hour from both Newark and Mansfield (which are medium cities that offer a lot of shopping).

Mt Vernon also has milder winters than northeast Ohio. It's surrounded by hills and has a nice historic district with brick streets and hitches for the buggies. Also, Kenyon College (an architectural gem) is only four miles away as well as Mount Vernon Nazarene Univ (a Christian college). So, their is some vibrancy to the town with the prescence of the colleges, but it's not too much.

Nearby are also two lakes (Knox Lake and Apple Valley Lake). You also will find several nice little villages near Mt Vernon such as Fredricktown, Danville, Centerburg and Millwood.

Also forgot to mention Mt Vernon does have a nice Hospital and most of your typical retail stores like WalMart. There's also some cute old shops in the old downtown.

As for good schools. Fredricktown (6miles from Mt Vernon) has outstanding schools. But really in Knox County you can't go wrong with any of the schools. Sorry for going on so much but I've traveled around a lot and lived other places inside and outside of Ohio and always find that my hometown of Mt Vernon was the best.

[gentlearts]

I am really only familiar with Akron, of the cities you mentioned. Taxes and property values will be more reasonable outside of Cuyahoga County. I believe all the cities you mention are in Cuyahoga Co. except akron and North Canton.
I don't know where in Akron your husband would be working, or what your price range is, but Stow, Hudson and Cuyahoga Falls are all suburbs of Akron with good school systems. Hudson would be the most expensive. The west Akron suburbs of Fairlawn, Revere and Bath are nice and also have excellent school systems.

[BearCreekLogHomes]

We are in Chatham Twp which is part of the Cloverleaf School District. The community if very family oriented (and since we have no extended family, that has been our sanity). The school district is one of the few rated Excellent by the state. It is rural, homes are available in every price range, and we have one of the lowest taxes of any county in Ohio.

[flinty]

I've been to Mount Vernon several times over the years. Last time was in June, 2010 and noticed that some of the eateries and shops downtown are gone. There used to be Ohio Restaurant, Mazza's, Gost's Clothing store...all gone. On the east end of town are the chain restaurants that abound all over the USA. Must be the weak economy. I always stop awhile in Fredericktown because it's peaceful and quiet there.

I was on my way back from Lancaster in Fairfield County. The weather was quite hot and muggy which irritated my sinus allergies. Downtown Lancaster is about as dead as can be. Locals shop at the Riverview Mall, which is air-conditioned. I went there too, mainly to get relief.
When departing, I took US 33 to Canal Winchester, where there's a restaurant called Shade's that had a quaint, historical ambience to it. Well, it's not like that anymore, it's a noisy sports bar. My sinus drainage was getting worse. After lunch I drove into Licking County to mosey around in Granville, one of Ohio's prettiest towns. Felt a little better there. Next, I took SR 661, a scenic pastoral highway through rolling hills. The farther away I got from metro Columbus the better my sinus felt. Read the previous papragraph regarding Mount Vernon. I finally ate a very good sandwich in Fredericktown at a nice store that specializes in cooking/baking supplies. The old hardware store that used to be across the street is gone. Can't compete with Home Depot, Lowe's and Menard's. It was late evening when I finally got home in Toledo.

[Peregrine]

THis post is from 2007.
I wonder where Sharon wound up?