How is federal way or Renton Area (Seattle, Kent: apartment, high crime)

[twelker]

Trying to narrow our search for relocation. Have looked at just about all the areas around Seattle. This has been a pain in you know what!!.... it looks like we are looking at the Federal way or maybe Renton. What do you guys think of these areas.... I am trying to stay in the 1,200-1,400 range. Need a two bed room with 1.5 bath we also have a 60 lb dog and a bob tail cat.

[mkarch]

Parts are nice, parts are trashy, parts are in the bottom 25% of areas... it really depends on where. For instance, Federal Way by the sound is fairly nice, as is Renton bordering on Issaquah.

Federal Way near the freeway/highways and Renton - especially near Seattle border - is a high crime area.

[NWbyNW]

It is eh. Renton becomes industrial warehouses and Kent through Auburn is all warehouses and straight wide avenues. It used to be farmland... but not anymore. I would not place it high on my list of places to live.

Thought Renton does have some nice areas including the new waterfront and shopping district to the north end of the city. They are working on downtown too, with a new transit center.

Kent is cleaning up and fixing their downtown and adding many new shops. Street racing is a problem here.

Federal Way is also very meh. It is nothing but sprawl, large avenues, hard to get to the other side, parking lots. They are fixing things up and trying to form a city core around the lackluster Commons Mall.

Crime in south Seattle and south of the limits are far worse then the rest of the metro area. But still, compared to other places in the nation, the crime isn't as bad. Property stinks, yes. But it's not a murder... Gangs are a growing concern in the south Seattle metro through Renton, Skyway, Aurburn, Kent, and Fed Way.

[Ira500]

Both Federal Way and Renton have beautiful, very nice parts, OK parts, and not so nice parts. Closer to the water is the nicer part of Federal Way, around Dash Point. I'm not familiar enough with Federal Way to point out the particularly bad areas, but there's no downtown area, there are lots of chain stores and restaurants, and there's lots of traffic.
I live in Renton. Renton doesn't actually share a border with Seattle, there's unincorporated King County in between. Parts of the western Renton Highlands are run down and scuzzy. There are some apartment buildings near the downtown Fred Meyer store, and they should be avoided. They've built a bunch of nice apartment buildings in downtown Renton. The worst part of downtown Renton appears to be the Transit Center. It's a great place to catch a bus, but seems to attract ne'er do wells after dark, so I'm not sure I'd want to live right there. Kennydale is awfully nice, with lake views. The Landing is a fairly new shopping center and apartment buildings, and it's nice. Parts of the Cascade neighborhood are a little run down, but other parts are nice, and nearby Fairwood is pleasant. Renton is mostly OK.