What Is Harrisonburg Like (Virginia Beach, Norfolk: real estate, apartment, rent)

[greenhornetnc]

MY FAMILY IS INTERESTED IN MOVING TO AROUND HARRISONBURG. wE LIKE NATURAL BRIDGE AREA AND GROTTOES AREA. ANYBODY HAVE ANY OTHER IDEAS . WHAT IS HARRISONBURG LIKE AS FAR AS CRIME, RENT, KIDS ACTIVITIES, SCENARY?

[vasinger]

Harrisonburg is a nice place for a small family. Its a college town. The crime is pretty low and its a place you can be "safe" at night. Most of the scenery around is pretty spectacular. You're near "Weyer's Cave" which is actually better than Luray, IMO. Harrisonburg is not as expensive as other areas of Virginia. It does have a lot more mexican immigrants coming. But they need jobs too!

Overall, its a pretty nice place. They got a large Menonite population too to keep things in line. Plus dowtown area has a good music scene, coffee shops, and even vegetarian diners.

[chris72]

Harrisonburg is a small college town, I was out in Bridgewater for about a year there, having moved from Southern Ohio. It is a lot different from what I am used to, but was a nice way to get a feel for Western Virginia. The metropolitain area, or the Shenandoah Valley, from what I've heard is 6 times the size of the city itself, or Rockingham County. The city itself is close to 50,000. The college, James Madison University, sort of dominates the town and there is a small downtown. The downtown area is sort of small, like maybe 5 city blocks or so, but that is typical in that area of Virginia, with the exception of Roanoke. Neaby cities include Staunton and Waynesboro. The setting itself isn't that bad; you have one Interstate going through the city and a lot of new real estate, figure in about 15 to 20 years the town could push out towards the state park, which is the last thing you see before you go into West Virginia.

If you go east you'll find Charlottesville, north Winchester, which isn't a bad palce to stay at if you're commuting into DC. Crime is very, very nice out there, then again it isn't that bad where I'm at now, which is Chesapeake. Rent is high in proportion to what you're earning, but then again that's just Virginia in general. Expect to pay at least $600 for an apartment, close to $200,000 for a new house, of which many are being constructed. There have been talks about pushing the area into being more cosmopolitain, like Charlottesville is; widening the Interstate, bringing more entertainment and hospitality into the region, so on and so forth, but so far the only thing that has panned out is the move of the regional hospital to a location close to the mall, and I think that was only because the hospital and the University were growing into each other and one or the other had to leave. The University has been aggressively pursuing the rest of downtown with success so it isn't too hard to figure out why the hospital moved. Some feel that the University is on their own tangent though, and is uninterested in how the community itself feels about it's real estate plans. At the same time though they had rebuilt the high school elsewhere, which looks very nice.

Harrisonburg is a place where the suburbs are seperated visually by mountains, or farms, or other landmarks or whatever, so it feels a lot more rural than what it is really is. If you're looking for something more metropolitain, you may be interested in areas like Virginia Beach/Norfolk or Northern Virginia. Racially, Hispanics are the second largest minority in that area of the state, and are gaining quickly in Northern Virginia as well, so the place does have some diversity, if that is of importance. Other than that there's a gang task force and other ideas about how to deal with it's uncontrolled growth ...

[extraordinairee]

Chris72. You gave the best description of a town yet! You were VERY thorough, down to the ethnic breakdown. We are considering moving to Virginia and your description really helped.