Wausau WI vs. Marshfield WI...HELP! - BEST TOWN for kids/family

[famlife]

LMAO i'm surprised there was even one drive by shooting in wausau. must've been a fluke. me and my husband were born and raised in Flint, MI and Wausau seems like the safest place on earth to us lol i mean things happen, as they do everywhere, but unless you are looking high and low for trouble, i highly doubt trouble will come looking for you in Wausau, WI. the only slight concern i have is the amount of drunk drivers, but that's more north of Wausau, IMO.

another thing i wanted to mention to the poster, is that Wausau has some super nice parks, even close to downtown. SUPER nice. the one near downtown , i think it's called Oak Island? has a little skate park that your kids may be interested in if he does like snowboarding. not to mention the ski hill, Granite Peak (formerly Rib Mtn). also, i'm not sure about Marshfield, but Wausau has a nice indoor/outdoor shopping area downtown incl a mall (great idea to put the mall downtown in a walking/shopping area) i LOVE the downtown of Wausau. I used to live in the landmark building downtown and could look out my window and watch concerts and events in the square, and i always knew the time from the sign on the grand theater ;-)
seriously, Wausau is the only place I've lived since Flint that has felt like home. we're considering moving back in the fall. :-) it's between MI, WI and CO. WI seems to have the most perks for us.. it's not easy to find a safe, clean, friendly city that is so affordable and offers so much!

sorry for the tangent lol good luck with your decision!

[Wisco_#1]

^Its not saying much to say Flint was more dangerous....Flints an armpit. The crime talk is a comparison of the two locations. Its wisconsin, your biggest threat is a drunk driver blindsiding you. Don't let the "north of wausau" post fool you. This state is prime for drunk idiots. Hope you like drinking! Otherwise you'll want to get out (like me)

[RolandeMusic]

Now, I know everyones else's saying "A drive-by in Wausau! What" and all that, but from my experience that makes sense. My uncle was living there back in 01' with his wife and 2 kids and they decided to move to Merrill. There were hmong gangs (Yea I know, Im from Metcalfe Park in Milwaukee"Worst zip code in WI", I thought they were crazy), but a couple times the SWAT team even ran through their yard chasing down people and they decided to move after that. Everytime I've been to Marshfield I've got more of a nice small time vibe; so, just because something had to happen bad enough for my uncle to move, if I was choosing I'd go with Marshfield.

[bananamana]

I'm from Stratford and just had a huge discussion with a couple friends about this a couple of days ago. Based on that, I would say that all three of us would recommend Wausau hands down. Here are our reasons.

Marshfield, although nice on paper, has very, very little for kids and teens to do outside of church groups and school organizations. Growing up, I went to movies almost every weekend because it was one of the only things that was open to me. Drugs and alcohol tended to sway some of the people in my age group, but I can't say that that wouldn't occur anywhere else; I just feel like it was more readily available because people were constantly looking for something interesting to do. A lot of the time, I would find myself as a teenager prowling Walmart with friends or sitting at Perkins because those were the only places to do something after 8pm on the weekends (no joke, the two cafes both close before 8).

Wausau, by contrast, frequently has concerts, small festivals, and more of a scene for younger people. Once I and my friends got a little older, we would escape to Wausau for the day because you could always find something to do. If you're in the central Wisconsin area anyway, you'll probably find yourself shopping in the Rib Mountain area or downtown. If your kids wanted to go shopping or participate in something that you didn't feel like attending, Wausau also has a public bus system that can reliably get you anywhere in the "metro". The university in Wausau and the events sponsered by it are also in the downtown area, as opposed to the one in Marshfield (far outskirts, residential area) so anything going on there is also more practical to attend.

As far as schools go, it's about a push. I would say that the best school in the area (or the one that a lot of people around me always wanted to attend) was DC Everest in the Schofield/Rothschild/Weston area, but really, all the big schools (Marshfield, Wausau East and West, and DC Everest) have similar populations and similar student make-ups.

As far as Asian gangs and drive-by shootings go, I don't think you have anything to worry about. All my life I heard people talk about the Asian gangs of Wausau; then I would talk to my Hmong friends and they would tell me it's just some crazy grandma who counted more than three Asian kids together on a street at night. The types of crimes that you would associate with gangs like tagging, theft, drug transactions and assaults don't occur in high enough numbers (as in, barely at all) among that age group to support it. If there are gangs, they aren't very strong ones. Just check waow.com for updates on the greater area's crime.

So, with that being said, I would throw my support behind Wausau without a doubt. It has everything that Marshfield has and more and better.

[wiliving]

As someone who lives in Marshfield and is looking to move, I would say go with Wausau. They offer more things to do and you will spend time driving there on the weekends anyways because Marshfield has nothing I have children and the schools are great but that's about the only perk here. Just my two cents, good luck with your decision!

[crazycatlady1956]

I have lived in the centeral wi area almost my entire life marshfeild is smaller but still has all the things you need as far as snowboarding I don't know about. smaller towns outside of marshfeild are mostly farming marshfeild has a great hospital Wisconsin rapids is about 40 miles from marshfeild and had a skateboard park also a great school Wausau is a bit larger not sying anything bad about the school just my kids didn't like it it ws to big as they were use to small schools hope this helps you good luck and welcome to our area