Olympia areas that are considered "family friendly"?

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by DBM

Ultra --
Seriously, you've never thought of Oly in those terms? Your post and Chris' definitely give that impression, particularly your comment about Olympia being a magnet for "lifestyles" not conducive to family life. Chris' second post confirms my initial impression, though yours does not. I actually agree with your general point about the port protests -- what a waste of resources.

That being said, it really doesn't impact whether Olympia is a family-friendly city. The neighborhoods are good, the schools are good, the infrastructure is good, and there are a plethora of kid-centered activities.

My philosophy is live and let live and it has served me well.

I enjoyed reading your posts and I don't think Olympia is a bad place. If I remember correctly, most of the people arrested do not live in Olympia and that is the reason for my magnet comment.

I'm probably overly sensitive to the whole port thing, but... it seems whenever I talk to family and friends living out of state the first topic of conversation is always a news story they saw or read showing Olympia as anything but harmonious.

My choice is to shop locally and lately it is becoming harder to do. Large national department stores have left Olympia and "My" Safeway closed this year. I've heard that my bank is considering relocating to Lacey or Dupont.

Maybe, I'm just getting older, but given the option, I would prefer living in a community with less controversy and more of a can-do spirit.

[Ultrarunner]

OLYMPIA — The Army Corps of Engineers began dredging a Port of Olympia shipping channel this week. Within hours, five people had taken steps in hopes of stopping the work.

It is the first dredge of Olympia shipping channels in 30 years, port spokeswoman Patti Grant said. The aim of the dredge is to ensure safe navigation and maintain the channel's 30-foot depth, Brewster said.

[chris]

Yep, Olympia - nice on the surface, not so nice for families (they might have to take down that "All American City" sign on the highway). I was just scratching the surface with my generalizations without any elaboration. Of course you can find a few nice neighborhoods, but that's not going to somehow shield your family and kids from the abundance of convicted sexual predators and drug use that exists in the area.

I mean, what kind of 17 year old uses methadone and says, "it's no big deal"... This was the response I got from one of the kids in the area. This was just *one* case mind you.

That's when I started noticing that drugs were a problem, and that Olympia is where all addicts/problem people/sexual predators are managed for the area. Finding homeless people in my bushes in the backyard, seeing drunks/addicts falling down passed out in the street, my wife being hassled at an ATM downtown by a homeless person, and general acceptability of drugs as normal, all fueled what I found to be an easy decision.

The last straw for me in Olympia was when a neighbor three houses down was arrested for sexual misconduct with a child. This is West Olympia mind you, in what I considered to be a decent neighborhood (from all appearances).

Sooooo when I started looking for a new community, my priorities were:

1: No registered sexual predators within 5 miles of my house (right now there are none within 10 miles).
2: No evidence of sexual predators in the school system (WA has had 125 cases of sexual misconduct by teachers in 5 years which I find incredibly disturbing).
3: Little or no obvious drug use by teenagers in the community (I'm a father, and I know kids are going to party, but when meth is commonplace for young people, that's not exactly what I want for my kids - might as well live in Federal Way or Kent).

If others want to label my preferences towards a political idealogy, I could care less. These are my priorities and concerns. I don't feel I'm exagerating at all.

In summary, the areas *around* Olympia aren't that bad. In those communities, I've experienced more concern by parents about important issues. However, I'm not going to keep inching out away from city problems every few years, I concluded finding an area where problems were manageable, was better. I miss Olympia conveniences, I don't miss the social issues.

[ramoush]

I am looking to relocate to washington and would like to know the names of cities within a 25 mile radius of olympia.

Thank you

[DBM]

Ramoush,

"Cities" within 25 miles? I guess that depends on your definition of "city." Tacoma is about 30 miles, and that's definitely a city. Lacey and Tumwater are small cities, but they are contiguous to Olympia, so I'm not sure if they're part of your question. Outside of those three, you're generally talking about "towns."

Using Puget Sound as my start point and working around clockwise, here's a list of towns. Look at the main page of this website to look up info on each:

Steilacoom*
Dupont*
Yelm*
Rainier
Tenino
Centralia*
Chehalis*
Littlerock
Rochester
Oakville
Elma
Shelton*

I used asterisks to indicate towns that are big enough to have a "downtown" of any sort (my interpretation, others may differ). Good luck.