Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You could use the Redfin real estate search engine for houses close to the high schools where you would want your kids to attend. I would bet there would be many kids in a mature neighborhood near a high school.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
9,775 posts, read 15,776,851 times
Reputation: 10880
Hi,
I live in Southern Village which is family central in Chapel Hill. If you come visit, you will see kids all over in my neighborhood - biking, skateboarding, walking, playing tennis, swimming, etc. There is a "village" of shops in the neighborhood as well as an elementary school. There are other big family-oriented neighborhoods in Chapel Hill such as Lake Hogan Farms and Meadowmont.
There is a good feeling of community spirit, but the university definitely dominates the town. And most people have ties to UNC - they are either alumni, staff, grad/med student, etc.
I have a 20, 16, and 14 year old and have been here since they were 10, 6, and 4. As for what to do for kids: fall and spring were definitely soccer games on the weekends. The fields are spread out throughout the town. My kids all did Scouts - Girl and Boy/Cub Scouts. In summer, they did swim team at our neighborhood pool. There is a nice library that has the typical kid events like storytimes and such. Carrboro and Chapel Hill both have a Parks and Rec Department. My kids have done piano and and other classes/camps there. And there are a few public pools in addition to the private ones. There are some parks and playgrounds. Nothing special that will "wow" you, but the typical ones you will see in a town. There are no waterparks and few spraygrounds. The whole region is mysteriously devoid of them, save maybe a couple. There are some dance centers, martial arts, gymnastics places, etc. around town for kids.
They can do sports in middle school once they are in 7th grade. As the kids get older, if they want to go to the mall, they do need to go to Durham to Southpoint. I drove my teen there more times than I would have liked. When they are in high school, Franklin Street can be a destination for them - dinner, ice cream/coffee, walk around, etc. There is also a bowling alley and a few movie theatres in town. And my kids have also gone to watch some UNC sporting events.
The bigger town events are the holiday parade in Chapel Hill, Fall Festival (Festifall), July 4th fireworks which used to be at the UNC stadium but have been in Southern Village Community Park for the last couple of years. Carrboro does a music festival of some kind, a July 4th day and probably a few others I cannot think of off the top of my head.
I came from a big metro area, so I find it a bit too low-key and somewhat boring here for my tastes. And any "big" things kids want to do involve driving to Durham or Raleigh - things like a trampoline place, laser tag, fun parks/arcades, concerts, Durham Bulls, state fair, shopping malls and even most big box stores, etc. It can be a bit of a schlep as there is little in the way of public transportation, although one year they ran a bus to the State Fair which was great! (Chapel Hill has a bus system but it's not really that convenient for many destinations.) Cary would certainly be more centrally located for things to do.
Where are you coming from? It might be helpful to give you a better gauge base on that.
When most of us think of "Chapel Hill/Carrboro", we think of Franklin St around the university, or the "hip" west end of the street into Carrboro. These will obviously be saturated with college kids and student apartments. But there are lots of suburbs in CH farther out. If you look at a map of the whole area by family size, or other factors, you'll see that the northern and southern parts of town are where the families are.
Go down to the second map with the drop-down menu and pick "Average Family size" or some other designation you think will show you what you want, and you'll see that the heaviest concentration of larger households is Northwest of Chapel Hill proper. I have friends who just built a house off Hwy 86 north and their street is almost nothing but families.
Speaking of data, this website shows age distribution down to the block group level (roughly one or two subdivisions) https://censusreporter.org/profiles/...p-4-orange-nc/
I'd look for lots of 10-19s, but few 20-29s... as some undergrads are in the 10-19 bracket. Examples include Hogan/Winmore (link above), where 40% of the population is <20. Core of Southern Village is lower at 30%, but there's also a pretty substantial apartment complex in there: https://censusreporter.org/profiles/...p-3-orange-nc/
Do note that this draws from surveys with small sample sizes and the Census Bureau fuzzes the data with "differential privacy," so you can get some pretty curious findings. For instance, I have some doubts about the finding that 49.5% of women living in Carrboro High's block group are divorcees... and yeah, the margin of error on that is +/-39.8%. (So it could be 89.3%!) The MOEs are under the "Show data" link below each table.
Last edited by paytonc; 05-16-2022 at 09:26 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
