Moving from Cincinnati to Quad Cities area!! (Davenport, Dubuque: for sale, real estate)

[AndersonOH]

Me and my husband are moving from Anderson Township in Cincinnati, OH to take jobs in the Quad Cities. We have 2 daughters ages "11 and 15" and a new baby on the way!!. We would like to know what the area is like and where the safest places/best schools are... We are not sure how crime is in the area.

Thanks!

[irongrl]

If you are choosing the Iowa side of the QC, then I would suggest Bettendorf. If you are looking at the Illinois side, I would suggest Moline. Both Bettendorf and Moline have good school systems. You can't go wrong with either one. As far as crime, there are a few areas of Davenport and Rock Island that could be considered higher crime areas, although nothing compared to some other parts of the country. If you read the Quad City Times regularly you can get a feel for the few areas where crimes do occur. I would suggest reading it online if you haven't already.
Good luck with your move! The Quad Cities is a wonderful community and I would love to move back there!

[stewartfan44]

This will sound corny as hell, but for the last few years, our family has vacationed in the Quad-Cities. Yeah, I'm strange in that I like to go where everyone else isn't. I'm from southern Indiana and we've ventured outside of the QC several times when we stay there and we've just fallen in love with the area. We'd move there in a heartbeat if we both had jobs to go to!

[DRCinIA]

We lived in Bettendorf for 8 years and loved it. Crime was low, and both Bettendorf and Pleasant Valley school districts are excellent. If we are transferred back to the Quad Cities, I'll move back to Bettendorf. You couldn't pay me to live in Davenport, Moline or Rock Island. Le Claire and Eldrige are a little further out, but worth checking out also.

[Ohiowa]

So I can speak from experience (about 6 months in):

We live in Davenport - which we really like. We live in an older but well kept neighborhood on the SE side of Davenport called McClellan Heights -- think Hyde Park / Mount Lookout (from your Cincinnati perspective). Our young kids go to Catholic school in Davenport, and being from Cincinnati, I'm guessing there's a better than 50% chance you're Catholic.

I only speak from experience, living on the Iowa side, but we like it very much. Have met and integrated pretty quickly with parents of my kids classmates. Took a few months to make friends, but it's definitely happening.

I don't know why Davenport (or the QC for that matter) get a bad rap. Davenport is a city of 100,000 residents. You have all kinds, but definitely some neighborhoods are better than others. I would look at McClellan Heights (but nothing is ever for sale) or directly north either just east or west off Jersey Ridge Rd up to 53rd Street.

Decent stuff to do, and decent roadtrip potential. Chicago (2.5-3 hours away), Dubuque (1 hour away, which we love), and Iowa city (about an hour). I use the QC airport alot for my job -- good service to major hubs. Minor league baseball is great, and some festivals we're looking forward to.

On where to live, think of it this way:
Bettendorf = Mason or parts of West Chester (lots of McMansions, some real mansions, and a few older sections of town that the rest of the young money looks down on). For any entertainment or shopping or decent restaurants, you're driving to Davenport. Kind of sterile if you ask me, but to each his own.

Davenport = medium sized diverse city with all the shopping/restaurants/culture. Lots of good parks and walkable older neighborhoods. I've NEVER FELT UNSAFE in Davenport. A good rule of thumb is East is better real estate ($) than west, North is newer, south is older. Our kids go to Catholic School, so I can't comment on the schools. But I've heard Central-North-West (in that order). Lot of beautiful homes -- older and newer. But the school district scares some narrow minded people for whatever reason.

Moline = medium-small city with a good retail / industrial base. Think a notch above Hamilton/Middletown, Ohio. This is the home of John Deere and the sports arena in the area.

Rock Island = A little rougher and alot more diverse. Best days probably behind them.

Welcome to the QC, I'm sure you will like it.

And to the person who said they couldn't pay them to live in Davenport, I feel sorry for you. I've met a few of you who are terrified to drive on the other side of I-74. You're all narrow minded and insane.

[DRCinIA]

Bettendorf, Pleasant Valley, North Scott far better school districts, not narrow minded. Davenport is great if you put your kids in private school.

[QuadCityImages]

Davenport has perfectly good schools, but unfortunately narrow minded people have convinced the masses that they aren't. I graduated from Davenport Central, and was well prepared for college, where I graduated with honors. In addition to my academic preparation, which allowed me to have 11 credit hours of college classes by the time I left high school, I also was exposed to people from different backgrounds and socioeconomic classes than the upper-middle class white people that dominate the schools mentioned above. If you never plan to leave suburbia, I suppose PV gives you a good education, but if you ever plan to enter the real world, I'd pick Central.