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I live in Memphis right now, but for personal reasons having to do with family I am moving to the Raleigh/ Durham area.
I currently live in a "transitional" inner city racially mixed neighborhood by choice. I would like to do the same when I move up there. I am coming up in about 2 weeks to look around and would like to have some idea of where to look.
The problem is that the PR sites for the cities tend to play up the "good" areas, so I am at a bit of a loss.
Here is the wish list, if you will.
Inner city
I do not want a war zone, but do not mind marginalized areas.
I do not mind heavy racial imbalance.
As I bike and bus most places, it would be ideal if not very far by either from shopping (groceries, wal-mart, like that)
Ideal is an area in the beginning of transition upwards, but NOT gentrification.
I can manage in Spanish, so the neighborhood can lean that way if needed.
Like I said, I am just researching now, but will be up there soon to scope it out and would like to have some idea of where to go, zip codes to check classifieds and craigslist for, etc.
I love the city (grew up on a farm, have been running ever since).
I know that whatever neighborhood I live in, I will contribute and interact with my neighbors. If so, why not where that contribution will do the most good?
No matter how hard I try, I just cannnot imagine Jesus driving a Lexus and living in the Suburbs.
check out downtown raleigh on hargett, martin, bloodworth street, etc. there's some significant (but slow, further to the southeast) gentrification going on, but you've got $40,000 houses a block from $400,000 houses. Those areas are downtown, near all of the new bars and restaurants. there are houses that have been fixed up fairly nicely, too, in the $80-130k range.
My brother (in his mid-thirties) just bought a small, older, bungalow style home in Durham in an area called "Old West Durham". It used to be an old mill village. It really sounds quite similar to what you are looking for. It's a fairly active neighborhood from what I understand and is very diverse ranging from single grad students to elderly people to hispanic and AA families. The neighborhood prides themsleves in diversity. He bought the house because he saw it as a good investment, very close to downtown Durham (right by 9th street), has a more urban/city feel, a little "grittier" than most of the other urban areas, lots of neat bars/restaurants, he is also big into biking to work. It is exactly as you describe as in an "upwards transition" and I think the house was pretty inexpensive (less than 200K).
I can try to find out more about it if you like. It seemed t be a neat little area perfect for the right type of people.
Two areas worth looking at in Durham are east of roxboro, north of holloway, which is north east of downtown, and south of downtown along Fayetteville St, near NC central. You can use the google maps feature on Raleigh Real Estate Cary Apex Agent Chapel Hill Coldwell Banker HPW to look at all the houses in these areas. Definitely some cool old bungalows out there for a song (30-70K), no clue of their condition but there's likely some real diamonds in the rough.
I don't do the racial demographic thing, but here's your transit option. Here's a link to the Capitol Area Transit (CAT) bus map. Let it load, as it is a big file.
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