Family looking for a walkable town/city - unfamiliar w/PA (Philadelphia: affordable house, find a job)

[StefferLang]

My husband, two young children (age 3 and 5) and I are natives of Connecticut who are now living in Brooklyn that wish to find an affordable house (up to $310,000) in Pennsylvania that will combine our love of both places. We are looking for a town/city with the following criteria:
·Walkable!!!! To be more specific – a place I can walk my son to school, get a coffee, do some window shopping, and get a few books from the library without stepping foot into a car.
·Safe
·Decent school system
·Residents that are down to earth, not pretentious or snobby. Some diversity.
·If in a town, within 1 hour commute of a city (for work and pleasure) hopefully with some form of public transportation
·Clean air, open spaces, hiking trails
·Have some activity…events, restaurants, museums
My husband is currently working with a Technology company and would be looking for a job within the same field. Does any area of Pennsylvania have more of a technology “center” then other areas?

[BackToTheCityMouse]

There are sub forums for the major metro areas in Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh and Philly, plus a couple of other areas fairly close to the NJ state line) where locals who post there may be able to suggest something.

[ScranBarre]

Welcome in advance to Pennsylvania! Unfortunately, though, you're really going to have a tough time "nailing" all of those criteria. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, for example, would fit a lot of your criteria (nice affordable housing, down-to-earth people, good schools, etc.) except for the fact that there is nearly no I/T industry here. I should know because my father is an I/T project manager and has been laid off time after time over the years while struggling to find comparable positions in the region. His current position pays $20,000 less than his prior one (it's very humbling when you're my father's age and realize you're taking such a huge pay cut). I just received my degree myself yesterday and will be moving away later this week to embark upon a new career because professional white-collar opportunity is so limited here due to people who choose to instead cling to dying blue-collar manufacturing roots.

Philadelphia has a healthier I/T job sector, but finding a nice home in a walkable town with great schools for $300,000 is going to be very difficult (finding "down-to-earth" people in many of those sorts of places will also be tough, as there CAN be an air of snobbery in some "Main Line" suburban towns to the west of Philadelphia). If you manage to find a job and some cool digs in the city in a neighborhood like Manayunk or Roxborough, for example, you'd more than likely be shelling out cash to send your children to private schools.

Pittsburgh is like a larger version of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre---down-to-earth people, affordable housing, walkable atmosphere, etc.---but it also has a dearth of I/T opportunity.

Your top two bets would probably be the Lehigh Valley (see that sub-forum for specifics) or Harrisburg, our state capital. The Lehigh Valley boasts a convenient location to Central NJ for more "tech" opportunities, but housing prices are over-inflated (and may collapse soon). Harrisburg's city proper is mostly uninhabitable except for the Midtown/Downtown area, and most younger families who find work there move to the West Shore to live in places like Camp Hill or Wormleysburg or move to Hershey, east of town. Carlisle, a medium-sized college town, would be an ideal place to look into for a great walkable lifestyle IF you could find employment in Harrisburg.

Best of luck!

[StefferLang]

Thanks for the information...lots to think over. Congrats on your degree!

[AlexisT]

As someone who recently moved from the NY area to Harrisburg: probably not quite your cup of tea. Schools on the West Shore are excellent but it's sprawl and big-box malls; completely unwalkable. Harrisburg proper has potential, with nice buildings and a downtown, but the schools are awful--2nd worst in the state according to one ranking. It's also not really a "city" the way a New Yorker would think of one--the nearest is Baltimore (70 miles or so).

Philly has better job opportunities and even the pricey suburbs aren't as bad as New York. You need to go to very select towns on the Main Line to see anything approaching a NYC suburbs level of snobbery and affluence. I have a good friend in Bala Cynwyd (which is in Lower Merion, one of the most upscale areas) and she says it's nowhere near as bad as similar suburbs on Long Island. $310K would be a tight budget in the nicer burbs, but really not impossible.

[ki0eh]

In the western suburbs of Harrisburg, Camp Hill Borough has no school buses - everyone walks (or gets dropped off if they whine hard enough ) http://www.camphillborough.com/ Plus they have a nice library and coffee shops and the like. Some locals consider this community "snooty" but I'm sure it doesn't register on a Connecticut scale.

On the east side of Harrisburg, Hummelstown Borough has locally owned shops, building a new library, with new sidewalks to the well rated Lower Dauphin schools. Borough of Hummelstown --

Hershey (not incorporated as such, see Derry Township... Where It’s Just Sweeter! : Derry Township PA ) has a nice library adjacent to the commonly well regarded school campus, and now a public bus to Harrisburg. Some restaurants in town, Hershey Theatre - Located in Hershey, PA , not much shopping. Can still take a long walk to Official Website For Hersheypark, Located In Hershey, PA

For hiking trails in the greater Harrisburg area, see SATC - Hiking Southcentral Pennsylvania for a start.

[pabound2008]

Originally Posted by ki0eh

In the western suburbs of Harrisburg, Camp Hill Borough has no school buses - everyone walks (or gets dropped off if they whine hard enough ) http://www.camphillborough.com/ Plus they have a nice library and coffee shops and the like. Some locals consider this community "snooty" but I'm sure it doesn't register on a Connecticut scale.

As someone that just moved to the Harrisburg area from CT, I can tell you that in general people here are much more down to earth than in CT. It's taking some getting used to that people actually speak to you when you take your kids out for a walk. There were lots of things I loved about CT but the general standoffishness of people was not one of them.

I second the suggestions of Camp Hill, Hershey or Hummelstown. All 3 were at the top of our list. We ended up settling in the Hampden Township area (Camp Hill/Mechanicsburg) mainly due to the school reputation and it's where we found a house that was perfect for our family. I haven't tried public transportation here yet so I have no opinion but it's not going to be near as robust as what you are used to living in NYC.

We spent a lot of time on this website: http://paayp.emetric.net/
The website shows the school standardized ratings by individual schools, school districts and by county. We have a child that will need IEP/special ed support so we spent a lot of time narrowing districts that had favorable IEP scores. It has the data for the whole state, so that might help if you are looking at jobs in many places. Standardized scores have their downfalls but it was somewhere to start for us.

[pittsburgh-guy]

You should definitely check out West View or Perrysville, PA. They're two attached boroughs only a 15 minute bus ride north of Pittsburgh.

·Walkable - Yes, if you find a house near the business district. I can say, however, that everything is very close by and walkable by possibly a stretch

·Safe - From what I've seen, yes. I live 5 minutes away and have never heard of any problems.
·Decent school system. Yes North Hills School District is the public district, and it has a very good reputation (i'm saying this even though I went to its primary rival high school, North Allegheny)
·Residents that are down to earth, not pretentious or snobby. Yes Some diversity. Yes
·Commute of a city. Like I said, 15 min bus ride to downtown Pgh. Can't beat it. Busses are very inexpensive right now, but fares will probably go up soon (still will be much cheaper than driving/mass transit in other cities)
·Clean air: yes. open spaces, hiking trails. Maybe not in West View/Perrysville, but definitely accessible.
·Have some activity…events, restaurants, museums . Ditto last answer. West View does have some restaurants, though.
Technology. I don't know about Philly, but Pittsburgh is very good in this area.

There are other Pittsburgh suburbs worth looking at as well, so I would definitely consider making a trip out to the burgh to have a look around. It really is a great city.

I'll post back if i find out any more info.

[thesixth]

In Philadelphia suburbs, try West Chester or Media for nice walkable downtowns.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by pittsburgh-guy

You should definitely check out West View or Perrysville, PA. They're two attached boroughs only a 15 minute bus ride north of Pittsburgh.

They won't like that area at all. They're looking to buy a 300k house. Houses that expensive don't even exist there. If they do, they are few and far between. Furthermore, the shopping area is really lacking for what she's hoping to find. There's not much "window" shopping to be done in West View. I agree that the school district is good, but it's fairly run down area.




To the OP, Pittsburgh is a technology city these days. I think you'd be happy in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Bloomfield, Oakmont, Sewickley (a little pretentious), Mt. Lebanon. Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Bloomfield are within the city limits so being able to walk your child to school will depend entirely on which schooling alternative you choose.