Scranton Area (Dickson City: low crime, house, school districts)

[chazmaz54]

I have lived in a bordering suburb of scranton for about 4 months now. I know a lot of people check here before relocating, so I thought I'd share my experiences to possibly help others.

Of course we all have different values. I have some friends who value things like vibrant night lifes, progressive attitudes, trendy lifestyles, which for me (the father of a young family) I could care less about.

So here were my values when shopping around for where I was going to raise my family:

1) Northeastern United States (born and raised in the northeast and I am not willing to go any further away from my extended family).

2) Affordable housing - Scranton was recently ranked as one of America's most affordable cities. Personally I could say given my non-lucrative profession, I couldn’t afford half the house that I have anywhere else in the northeast.

3) Good schools – many towns surrounding Scranton have schools ranked very highly in the websites I checked.

4) Low Crime – Even the *city* of Scranton has a crime index of 3 out of 10 on Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed. How many cities can claim that? Yeah yeah yeah they probably “fudge the numbers” is what some would say. But you know what? I am yet to live somewhere where that same claim isn’t made.

5) Convenient to stuff - hospitals, an airport, malls, minor league baseball (a great activity if you have boys), golf, and if there’s a chain restaurant or store that nearby Dickson City does not have, then I haven’t found it. (Oh wait – we couldn’t find a Babie’s- r – us yesterday so I guess we’ll have to drive a half hour to wilkes-barre for that one.)

Of course again I’m speaking of the suburbs of Scranton. Personally I wouldn’t live *in* any city. But I do like to live close enough to leach off their conveniences ;-) So I care about some of the things people here complain about happening in Scranton about as much as someone living in Scarsdale cares what happens in the south Bronx. (Except I live much closer to my respective city than residents of scarsdale live to NYC.)

So if there’s a city that meets my above criteria better than Scranton, please do *not* tell me what it is because I’ve already moved here! Just kidding, you can tell me. But obviously I’m very satisfied with the region I have decided to raise my family. I hope this information is helpful to someone.

[Mr Yuk]

Originally Posted by chazmaz54

3) Good schools – many towns surrounding Scranton have schools ranked very highly in the websites I checked.

Scranton schools are just as good as the surrounding school districts. I went to a "highly regarded" school district outside of Scranton, and my kids go to Scranton schools, so I can make an accurate comparison.

[chazmaz54]

excellent point! I forgot that. In fact, scranton city schools have surpassed some of their traditionally highly ranked suburban counterparts in some rankings.

[SteelCityRising]

It's so refreshing to find someone else who doesn't think the Scranton Area is a total dump! I tip my hat to you, sir!

[WatsonWest]

I never thought that I would live in a city. I grew up in a rural setting & wasn't interested in having very close neighbors. I must say that I really like most of my current neighbors & I live in Scranton myself. We (my 3 girls & husband & I) live in a quiet area of West Scranton.

There are definitely some things that I don't like about the Scranton school district, but overall it's good. I am currently having a tough time with my oldest, who is a senior, and have nothing but help from her principal to get her through to graduation. Not a lot of principals would be willing to bend over backwards to get a student out of trouble & back on track.

Overall I'm very happy with our decision to move to our current location & plan on staying in my home until I change my mind (or my kids grow up.)

[chazmaz54]

after all the looking around (and living in some supposedly great areas) I find it easy to say positive things about the scranton area.

I also want to apologize if my original post implied that the city itself was so crappy in comparison to our suburban paradise ;-)
I actually don't know squat about the city of scranton (hopefully I will get to know it over the years). The point I was really trying to get across is that the negative stuff that we expect in any city doesn't really have anything to do with the suburbs (I was NOT saying that clarks summit is scarsdale and scranton is the south bronx ~ not that all of the south bronx is even bad, just doesn't look so nice from what i can see off the cross bronx).

From what I do know, I think scranton city seems like a fine place to raise a family. Seriously how many *cities* in the northeastern united states can you have "overall good schools"?