Please help, family in need of relocation advice! (Indianapolis, Fort Wayne: best suburbs, apartments)

[mdiaz1017]

So, my husband has a job opportunity in Indiana/Michigan-a district manager, so he would be traveling quite a bit, although we would do best living in the Indianapolis area. We are both born and raised in Texas, but have spent 1 year in the Birmingham, Alabama area for the past year for my husband's work.

We have 5 children, ages 5-10. Three of them are in gifted programs at school, and all of them are very active in youth sports-baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball.

So, here are my question in no particular order:

Best suburbs for schools-high rated with smaller class size (we have class sizes well into the mid-twenties here in Alabama and it is just too much)?

Best suburbs for youth sports?

3 of my children and myself have bad asthma & allergies-we have suffered terribly in Alabama, and I have heard that the Indianapolis area is very polluted-what do you think?

Good pediatricians & other doctors offices/hospitals/dentists/orthodontists are important-with 5 kids somebody is always needing to go to the doc?

Husband will be traveling a lot, while I know no place is totally crime free, a safe suburb is incredibly important?

Also, we are a bi-racial couple-I am white and my husband is Hispanic (professional and college educated)...we have had lots of trouble in Alabama with the new immigration law here. How do you guys feel about mixed marriages and Hispanics in general?

We have a couple of other job options at this time-San Diego, and Minneapolis area. However, Indianapolis looks better on paper because the cost of living is significantly lower than SD,CA, and quite a bit lower than Minneapolis...

[jjot]

Best suburbs for schools-high rated with smaller class size (we have class sizes well into the mid-twenties here in Alabama and it is just too much)?
Depends whether you want to live on the North/South/East or West side of Indy. Most of the "high rated" public schools are pretty much all located on the north side. They include Carmel, Zionsville, Noblesville, Fishers, etc. On the south side both Center Grove and Greenwood are high rated.

Best suburbs for youth sports? See the list above. Carmel, Noblesville, Fishers and Center Grove to name a few.

3 of my children and myself have bad asthma & allergies-we have suffered terribly in Alabama, and I have heard that the Indianapolis area is very polluted-what do you think? I don't know how bad the pollution actually is here but we moved to Indy almost two years ago and the pollen count, etc is much higher and my allergies are more noticeable.

You mentioned nice areas to live with low crime, diversity, etc. I would recommend you check out the city of Noblesville as well as the Lawrence and Center Grove areas.

We have a couple of other job options at this time-San Diego, and Minneapolis area. However, Indianapolis looks better on paper because the cost of living is significantly lower than SD,CA, and quite a bit lower than Minneapolis..We lived in Minnesota for a long time (including Minneapolis) before we moved to Indy. (loved it by the way) A $180-200k home in Indy would generally cost you 300-400k in Minneapolis. Having said that, if you don't mind winter and snow, it's an awesome state to live in.

[domergurl]

I'm not sure why you would live in Indianapolis when part of his territory is Michigan ... does his territory cover all of Indiana and Michigan? Just wondering. If he needs to be near an airport, I understand.

Asthma ... find a good allergist ... allergies here are horrific for some. Just being honest. It's not about pollution either ... it's about pollen and mold.

youth sports in Carmel, Fishers and Zionsville is NUTS. Again, being honest, if your kids aren't playing travel by they are 7 ... they are behind. Noblesville and Westfield aren't as fanatical. Kids playing multiple sports is rare once they are 11-12.

As far as school systems will smaller class sizes and diversity... Carmel, nope, Fishers, nope, Zionsville, yes on smaller classes, nope on diversity. Noblesville, yes, Westfield, yes.

As much as we'd love to have your family here in the Hoosier state, please don't make this decision based solely on cost of living.

[missik999]

Check out Westfield, I highly recommend it and believe that it would meet your needs. Take a look at the Grand Sports Park Campus which is now under construction. There is no other sports complex like this anywhere in the country

[domergurl]

I will also throw in the White River Twp area of Greenwood, on the south side of Indy. The school system, Center Grove, is highly competitive academically with the north suburban schools and their youth sports programs are very good too.

[kellyami]

Carmel and Fishers areas have great schools. They are quite wealthy so they spend the money for the kids to have the best. They are huge on sports and extra curriculars such as band. Both of the high schools have GREAT bands. Both cities are very nice and little crime. Apartments in both places are priced affordably. Housing is usually a bit more expensive than other areas though.

I have asthma and allergies. It gets pretty bad here when the weather is really hot, like it is now. But when we are having normal summer temperatures, it's not too bad. We bought an air purifier, which helped a lot.

There is always something to do here and we have a lot of suburbs off of Indy. I do not recommend Lawrence. It used to be a very nice area, but the last 5 years it is full of crime. There may be a few areas more north that are still nice, but I know down on 56th street there have been several shootings and I personally would not feel safe living past 82nd/86th Street.

Generally, north of Indy is considered 'wealthy' and safe. Noblesville is a decent area as well, though some people consider it the 'hilly billy' area. It IS still a nice area.

Zionsville is on the west side and is another decent area. Low crime. As well as Westfield.

[mdiaz1017]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond and offer helpful advice.

I was hoping to receive a bit of response towards the bi-racial marriage issue and overall feelings regarding Hispanics.

It isn't so much that we are looking for diversity, would say we are looking for open-minded and accepting people. Currently as I mentioned we live in a suburb of Birmingham-my husband even when wearing his work clothes (suit, or shirt and tie) is still asked to present ID when purchasing bread and milk at the grocery store to prove his citizenship, and he has to carry his birth certificate with him at all times to prevent him from being thrown into immigration jail if he happens to get pulled over, among daily harassment from locals regarding his ethnicity. When I enrolled our children in school here they wanted to place them all in ESL classes simply because of our last name and the fact that they have brown skin-didn't matter that English is their only language. I had to fight to get them put into the gifted classes, where they are the only Hispanic children participating in the district (the school just couldn't fathom a Hispanic child being gifted). So, if professional Hispanic people are not accepted in your area, or bi-racial couples/children are not accepted in your area then please let us know!

We have had our fair share of hill billy's here in Alabama, and would like to get away from that demographic, so if an area is hill billy, we don't want to live there!

Of course cost of living is a factor in determining what job my husband accepts-and it would be foolish not to take that into consideration, considering the cost of raising a large family...there are of course other important pieces of the puzzle to take into consideration as well-such as career advancement, education, activities, health care, and so on.

Again thanks for the help!

[msamhunter]

Sounds like hubby will be a road warrior. If that is the case and his territory is ALL of Indiana and ALL of Michigan including the U.P., Indianapolis isn't the place to reside. For a territory that large, your best bet would be Northern Indiana between Michiana and Fort Wayne which will give you nice distances between your home office, Metro Detroit, Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Da Region and Indianapolis. You'll thank me when hubby is in the midst of a Northern Michigan winter and the extra time it will take esp. if he's not used to driving in it in general let alone Northern Michigan.

If you still choose to stay in and around Indianapolis, in the end there all pretty much the same. Larger class sizes will be Carmel (States largest high school by enrollment), Warren (States 2nd largest high school by enrollment), North Central, Wayne (Ben Davis). Next tier would include Fishers, Pike, etc. You may want to look at Lawrence. Yes, I know the poster who said lawrence this and that, but in all honesty, it's typical Hamilton County garb about living south of 465 and the imminent danger and it's only a matter of time before your on a slab at the morgue. Lawrence 56th and up is safe, and you would like the area. Great recreational area around the Fort with some fine golfing, walkability and Lawrence city festivities are usually right around in that area as the municipal building is off of post rd, just south of 59th including Lawrence PD. In general Marion County is more diverse than any other county (yes including the fabled Hamilton) and Lawrence is very diverse but you wouldn't go wrong in the donut counties either.

If your'e looking for youth sports, I can't tell you how the donut counties are but Marion County is usually set up in two fashions. Township level and Travel. Depending on the township rules, for instance Franklin Township, usually if you play travel, you have to play youth league (intra-township only). You can play youth league without going out for travel since travel is competitive and youth league is the typical everyone receives a trophy. I would imagine the donut counties follow somewhat of a similar format since when my kids were in travel, they played teams from as far as Richmond and as close as the other donut counties.

All of the hospital networks have great doctors and for children, the most severe cases usually defer to Riley even though there are some that defer to Payton Manning Childrens, but for the most part the de facto is Riley which is a great hospital. It's only been recently have hospitals encroached on others territories but for the most part, networks tends to be geographic here with two level I trauma centers in Wishard and Methodist downtown and not sure if St. Vincent's on 86th is a certified trauma center or not.

Personally, I would opt for Marion county, Washington Township if I had to live north or Franklin Township if I had to live south with school age children. If I were to choose the suburbs, probably Noblesville or Zionsville north of the city as they tend to have a little bit more character than Carmel for me anyway which is nothing more than a suburbanized urban and Fishers is just well status quo suburbia. South would be White River, Northern Greenwood and the Clark-Pleasant township area between Greenwood and Whiteland is growing and actually becoming quite diverse with a mixture of black, a lot of Indian and Asian.

[mike0618]

Sounds like staying near i69 for you guys. Noblesville or north.

[domergurl]

The reason we aren't addressing the fact that your husband is hispanic is because it's not an issue ... we aren't avoiding it at all.

I wouldn't call Noblesville hillbilly at all.