Thinking about moving to PA, but don't know where to live.

[ninaxela]

Originally Posted by greg42

*snip*

I thought Bellevue was pretty stable, but a couple others disagreed recently suggesting it was slightly on a downward trajectory. But perhaps the main reason for the cheap houses is the Northgate school district.Most families with school-aged children aren't looking for that one. Also when you see big old houses think OLD and hasn't had much if any kind of renovation work done.

Did you check West View? The town is a little smaller but still has one, easy bus service to city, and a good school district (North Hills). Probably costs more than Bellevue but should still be something in your range probably. Did we establish your price range? Oh yeah, I see, it is the 100k. There should be some, maybe not very many.

*snip*

What do you mean about the schools? The only thing I really know about the district is that their website leaves much to be desired. (Though I'm used to a website that gives you every little piece of information possible to provide, so my standards are pretty high. ) I've heard that "_______ school district is better than Northgate", but nothing really specific about Northgate itself.

And yes, I've looked at West View on multiple sites. I found a few houses within my range, but they were all iffy looking at best. I'll still consider it, but as of right now I don't think it's too likely that it'll be my town of choice.

Originally Posted by Hopes

All of the areas recommended in this thread are safe, even Sharpsburg. There are no streets to avoid.


Pittsburgh real estate is reasonable overall. Are you coming from a high cost of living area?

Oh, phew. That's good to know.

As for the cost of living here, you can certainly find a cheap house. However, although they aren't all complete dumps, they are not nearly as nice as the ones I've been seeing up in the Pittsburgh area, and the neighborhoods they are in aren't nearly as safe...or desirable in any way, really.

[greg42]

There's an older thread that might shed a bit more light on Northgate schools among other things about that area. One of our regular posters grew up there and graduated from Northgate High, but it was around 10 years ago. The gist seems to be that elementary does average, high school perhaps worse than average for the area, something like that. It's a small district that hasn't had any benefit from new development like neighboring Avonworth or North Hills districts. Here have a look: Bellevue-what's the scoop?

[ninaxela]

Originally Posted by greg42

There's an older thread that might shed a bit more light on Northgate schools among other things about that area. One of our regular posters grew up there and graduated from Northgate High, but it was around 10 years ago. The gist seems to be that elementary does average, high school perhaps worse than average for the area, something like that. It's a small district that hasn't had any benefit from new development like neighboring Avonworth or North Hills districts. Here have a look: Bellevue-what's the scoop?

Wow, that sounds...quite negative. I'm a bit surprised. I was reading about it on Great Schools, and it didn't seem to be that terrible of a school compared to the other schools that are usually referred to as "bad schools". Definitely nothing stellar, but the average PSSA scores weren't bad compared to the state averages (especially when it comes to the gap between the white and minority students; it was refreshing to see that it wasn't such a huge difference like I saw in a lot of other schools), and the list of AP exams was all right (it was from '08, though, so I'm not sure how accurate that is now). I don't usually trust GreatSchools fully, but in my experience it's usually been good for getting a basic idea of what a school is like. Maybe people are giving it more negative attention since it's so close to a really good school district? The reverse happens a lot here. There's a tech school, and the academics are definitely nothing to brag about. However, since it's better than the failing public schools, people praise it like it's the Harvard of high schools.

[BrianTH]

Yeah, people here have pretty high expectations when it comes to a "good" school district. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it does mean some of our schools districts which are only considered mediocre here would count as pretty desirable in some other areas.

By the way, I don't think anyone has ever asked us directly about places of worship, but people do tend to talk about their places of worship in normal conversation, so some people might guess you aren't affiliated with a place of worship if you never talk about it. But given the general live and let live attitude, they probably wouldn't be inclined to actually say anything about it.

[safak]

yes but it depends how her daughter lives out her atheism.

There are a ton of agnostics. and probably atheists too. And she will be perfectly fine with those beliefs here if she doesn't harp on it herself.

But if she goes around telling people how dumb they are for being catholics for this reason and that, or how (whatever) religion is false because (whatever)..she is asking for trouble wherever she goes.

I was raised Catholic, am not anymore..have pursued knowledge about many religions, even many most people have never heard of.
Can go on for hours on things that just are not possible, and silly to believe in with just about every single one of them.

But it would annoy a lot of people if I did. it would be extremely rude of me if i did. And a lot of friends I have would probably not like me if I did. I won't even do it with strangers over the internet.

[BrianTH]

Yep, prostelytizing is likely to be viewed as rude, including by atheists.

[ninaxela]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Yeah, people here have pretty high expectations when it comes to a "good" school district. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it does mean some of our schools districts which are only considered mediocre here would count as pretty desirable in some other areas.

All right. I'm going to keep that in mind when researching schools now!

Originally Posted by safak

yes but it depends how her daughter lives out her atheism.

There are a ton of agnostics. and probably atheists too. And she will be perfectly fine with those beliefs here if she doesn't harp on it herself.

But if she goes around telling people how dumb they are for being catholics for this reason and that, or how (whatever) religion is false because (whatever)..she is asking for trouble wherever she goes.

Well, yeah. If she was some sort of militant atheist I wouldn't have even bothered to ask about it because I know she'd get trouble for it. She's not, though. She hates those kinds of atheists just as much as we (the rest of us in the family are Christian) do.

[mountainlove]

Another thing you may be thinking technology-wise, is Quaker Valley School District. About 15-20 minutes from Downtown, has direct bus line service, and all kids the from grades 7-12 have their own laptop computer to work. A bit of a techie-heaven. May be able to find something in Leetsdale for your price, but that is almost out to the Beaver County line and there isn't too much going on for the kids.

From all of the discussion on here, I've heard some great recommendations and I would really recommend looking into Greenfield - particularly into the parts of Greenfield that feed Allderdice High School.

Allderdice truly is the top city high school, and there is no comparison. Kids would be in a safe area of the city, with access to walking around downtown Squirrel Hill (read - city teenagers paradise where you can hang out safely and have fun), as well as a short drive over the back side of the hill to the mall down at the Water Front.

Just do it.

[Billy53]

I will also give a thumps up to Sharpsburg, I live in the city but work in Aspinwall which is next to Sharpsburg and it seems very nice with easy acess to shopping and the city if your in to museums, sports, casino etc... It is a tiny bit run down but a great location! Rt 28 the main source in and out of that area is going through major construction and will be a great roadway in the future.