Moving to Garden City - neighborhood and preschool advice (Wichita: apartment complex, rental)

[YolandalehOnTheWay]

Hello! My family (myself, husband and two children, age 1.5 and 4.5) is planning a move to Garden City, Kansas from Columbus, Ohio later this fall (November). I am seeking first person information and advice regarding two topics:

1. Neighborhood to buy a home (also open to renting as this will be only a two year deal for us, but have not found many homes available for rent). Our top priority is finding a neighborhood with young families and small children who know each other and spend time playing outside together. We are looking for a close community that is a safe place for children to grow and explore. Secondary priorities include a price range of 200-275k and a love for older houses and mature trees. Knowing that not all priorities can always line up...

2. Finding a preschool for 4.5 yo son. I've done some preliminary online searches and found really slim information online. It appears there are both public (at elementary school) and private options; can someone tell me if there is a qualitative difference in their programming? Where can I find a reliable list of preschools? Is there a chance they will have a mid-year opening? Ideally, I'm looking for a play-based program or potential Montessori.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!! Thank you in advance!

[empires228]

It sounds like you'd be happiest in Holcomb as it is a smaller town and a younger community overall. Even the GCTelegram ran a report on Holcomb's enrollment numbers where the superintendent flat out admitted that people move out there to put their kids in school and move back to GC when they graduate. There's less traffic, and your children will always be able to walk to school no matter what part of town you live in.

The private catholic schools in Garden City are less than stellar. They're ran out of Dodge City and they don't have adequate funding to have as many schools open throughout SWKS as they do... The education stops at 6th grade and we lost our regional catholic college in Dodge City due to mismanagement of funds and recruiting around 20 years ago. It also doesn't help that a lot of parents don't have to pay to send their kids to the catholic schools if they meet certain qualifications, and if kids want to do music or anything, I can't recommend the catholic schools in the least. USD 457 isn't terrible. I would live near Florence or Gennie Wilson, but don't expect many kids in the neighborhood. I attended the largest elementary school in town as a child and there were only 6 other kids my age within a five block radius. 10 in a 11 block radius. Most of my classmates lived in The Trails income based apartment complex and the still half developed 20 years later Pheasant Valley subdivision across the street from it. I would have recommended Pheasant Valley a few years ago, but the developer never finished the project and they've lost their HOA services and pool and such. The houses are still very nice, but there's no added benefits of living there anymore unless you like nosey neighbors.

[YolandalehOnTheWay]

Thank you so much for your response! Garden City will be by far the smallest city we've ever lived in, so we didn't even consider looking around in even tinier towns! You gave us some very helpful information, especially regarding the various neighborhoods and local school district. We will be living there during my son's kindergarden year, so it's interesting to note that people have actually moved away from GC to get to a better district. Thank you again.

[empires228]

I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you. I've been very busy and will provide more answers later today.

[AnywhereElse]

If you are moving to KS, with the thought that this will be like "Mayberry", that would not be the right approach. "Safe" these days is hard to come by. Look carefully at the crime rate in this C-D link: //www.city-data.com/city/Garden-City-Kansas.html

Here is an older thread: //www.city-data.com/forum/kansa...n-city-ks.html and //www.city-data.com/forum/kansa...-anything.html and //www.city-data.com/forum/kansa...ding-nice.html

I would not move there if they offered me the whole city. If you are in a desperate situation and needing a job, you wouldn't have a choice but I would definitely rent and not buy until you become familiar with the city.

[YolandalehOnTheWay]

AnywhereElse: Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my post. You can rest assured that we are not moving to Kansas with illusions that it (or anywhere else) shares characteristics with a fifty year old fictional television show!

Thank you for linking me to the link with crime information. After reading it closely, I noted that five of the eight areas where they measure crime (robberies, arson, auto theft, theft, burglaries) have decreased by more than 50% over the past 12 years. The other areas (assaults, rapes and murders) have stayed exactly the same. Another chart comparing overall crime showed that Garden City experienced a slightly overall higher rate than the national average in the past 5 years.

I enjoyed reading the other links you provided. They helped me learn about various state and national parks within a driveable distance and gave some opinions regarding which neighborhoods to consider and which to avoid. Regarding the flight of white people from Garden City (or Kansas in general), the color of the people we will find when moving to Garden City is not concerning to us.

I have lived in Portland, Maine; Troy, Ohio; Muncie, Indiana; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Columbus, Ohio; and Dallas, Texas. In each place I've lived, I've been able to find kind and friendly people along with safe places to be. I am confident that we will find that in Garden City, as well.

Do you live in Garden City? Have you had some personal experiences there? My goal in writing this post is to interact with people who live in Garden City currently or have had some recent experiences there. That information is so valuable to us until we have the chance to go there and check it out ourselves. So much of the links was written by individuals who live elsewhere or folks who moved away from Garden City decades ago; those opinions are not as useful to us.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by YolandalehOnTheWay

AnywhereElse: Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my post. You can rest assured that we are not moving to Kansas with illusions that it (or anywhere else) shares characteristics with a fifty year old fictional television show!

Thank you for linking me to the link with crime information. After reading it closely, I noted that five of the eight areas where they measure crime (robberies, arson, auto theft, theft, burglaries) have decreased by more than 50% over the past 12 years. The other areas (assaults, rapes and murders) have stayed exactly the same. Another chart comparing overall crime showed that Garden City experienced a slightly overall higher rate than the national average in the past 5 years.

I enjoyed reading the other links you provided. They helped me learn about various state and national parks within a driveable distance and gave some opinions regarding which neighborhoods to consider and which to avoid. Regarding the flight of white people from Garden City (or Kansas in general), the color of the people we will find when moving to Garden City is not concerning to us.

I have lived in Portland, Maine; Troy, Ohio; Muncie, Indiana; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Columbus, Ohio; and Dallas, Texas. In each place I've lived, I've been able to find kind and friendly people along with safe places to be. I am confident that we will find that in Garden City, as well.

Do you live in Garden City? Have you had some personal experiences there? My goal in writing this post is to interact with people who live in Garden City currently or have had some recent experiences there. That information is so valuable to us until we have the chance to go there and check it out ourselves. So much of the links was written by individuals who live elsewhere or folks who moved away from Garden City decades ago; those opinions are not as useful to us.

I lived in Garden City full time for 19 years and still visit my family quite frequently... There are only two members in the KS Forum who can adequately give you a true opinion of Garden City, and I haven't heard from High Plains Guy in AGES. Crime really isn't an issue unless you live in the trailer parks, or in the south part of town (South of Fulton). Crime is concentrated to a few areas and the crime that happens outside of that is caused by people being stupid (such as advertising that they're leaving town and not hiring a house sitter or having a neighbor check in) or just at random. Crime is significantly down from where it was 20 years ago as the massive wave of immigrants who came over in the 80's has become more americanized, and now that the county has recovered from the ConAgra packing plant fire disaster that left 2,000 people out of work.

There are some gems of state parks nearby. The Sandsage Bison preserve south of GC is great, Scott Lake State Park is great, Monument Rocks is fantastic, Cedar Bluff has some pretty areas, Clark County State Fishing Lake is gorgeous, Arkalon Park in Liberal is beautiful too.

Originally Posted by Gembul

many low-cost housing in there

That's very subjective haha. Garden City and Dodge City suffer from a large housing shortage, so rents are high and so are home prices. In some cases, you can get nearly twice the house in Wichita/Topeka for the same price, and any decent rental is going to cost you. You should see some of the newer homes on the market and what the developers are asking for them...