Possible move to Springfield....

[Highfive94]

I live in springfield, and i can say you shouldnt judge a book by its cover. Im in my teenage years and i havent had any problems. The east side is where more black families live, but theres nothing wrong with that. Im white and the east side IS NOT "ghetto", i think you have to be a really stuck up, simple and small minded person to think that. I go to southeast high school, and the things people say about that school is stupid. Im not ghetto and i fit in just fine. I love my school, I feel positive energy there and the teachers are the best. I was nervous about going to southeast because of the hard time everyone gives it but now that i've been there half of my freshman year i couldnt be happier to go there. Personly I think the springfield community gives Springfield High School and SHG to much credit, my friend goes to SHS and she hates it there, shes waiting for her parents to let her switch schools and come to southeast. I'm not going to say anything bad about the other high schools, because unless you've went there i dont think you have a right to judge, im just saying the community could be more supportive about LHS and SSHS instead of praising SHS and SHG. I think that like ALL schools there may be problems, but your not going to get jumped or stabbed walking the halls at southeast, let alone any other high schools in Springfield.

[STLCityMike]

After college, I moved to Springfield Il, and lived there for just over a year or so, and had a great time. I think a lot of how one views a place is determined by their perspective. For example, I moved to Springfield from a very small homogenized farm town outside of Quincy, IL with a population of less than 500. To the residents of my hometown, Quincy, IL was a big city, and some of my neighbors would not even drive in Quincy! Suffice to say, Springfield (a little more than twice the size of Quincy) was a large city to me. Living there I experienced many new things - including the 'east side'. In my experiece at that time, it was the hood! Please note in no way am I picking on Springfield. I loved living there - even the nightlife. I enjoyed going to the lake in the summer, walking in Washington Park, visting the zoo, watching the minor league baseball games, and taking occasional day trips to nearby cities (Peoria, St. Louis, etc). I even saw my first tornado there, and drove up veteran's parkway north to watch it circle in the distance around the city. A very amazing experience.

I have since left Springfield, and lived for several years in Wilmington, DE and finally St. Louis, MO. I have spent time in cities of all sizes, including NYC. From a current perspective, Springfield is a smaller - and yes very nice - city. The areas I thought were a little rough around the edges are not nearly as bad as what I have seen in other cities, and I would feel a lot safer there now that I would have back then.

Of course, I also understand that things can change over time. I do find myelf traveling through Springfield on occasion, and one some of those occasions, I take the time to get off of the highway, and drive around a bit to [SIZE=2][SIZE=2]reminisce. There have been some neat additions, and there are some things missing as well.[/SIZE][/SIZE]
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[/SIZE][/SIZE]I do not have children. Schools have never been a consideration in any of my moves. I would suspect that perspective plays a large part in the views of schools / discticts as well.