Rustbelt city- erie? (North East: crime, buying a house, buying)

[Midwesterns45]

This fall I have been house hunting in Erie and I need to know an average priced stucco or small colonial house.

Where are the nicest areas of Erie located?
Pace of life/people in erie....
cost of living....
active city or is it still in its rustbelt days?

[Rtom45]

Cost of a 1500 sq ft Colonial in the Erie area will be about $160,000 to $200,000. City isn't really rustbelt, but there are fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs all the time. Erie has much more service industry type jobs now, and is trying to cash in on tourism. Cost of living is less than New Jersey, but the number of good paying jobs is also less.

[Ohiogirl81]

Where are the nicest areas of Erie located?
I guess that depends on your definition of "nice" -- you can have suburban, small town, urban or country living all within 20 minutes of downtown. If I were buying a house in the area? I'm an east-sider by birth with a hankering for a lake view, so I'd buy a house out on the ridge in Harborcreek, North East or Greenfield townships. Do you mean the nicest section of the city itself? That's pretty subjective, but probably the south central part of the city, on either side of the zoo.
Pace of life/people in erie....
Reasonable. Not too slow or fast. Unless you're talking politically, and then it's s-l-o-w.
cost of living....
Cheap.
active city or is it still in its rustbelt days?
Depends on who you ask. There is a lot going on in Erie, but there also are a lot of people still believing that "Oh, if we could only build this new highway, we'd get tons of well-paying industries to come in."

[Midwesterns45]

yeah i know its subjective but your an exeption here on city data...most people when they here nice think of suburban and free of crime....

i wish more people lived in urban locations are that are free of crime and have a good sense of community