Family friendly neighborhoods in southern Hillsborough county? (Tampa, Brandon: homes, safe neighborhood)

[baconr]

My wife and I are looking for neighborhoods that would be ideal for raising a family (We have two 6 month old boys). Our location has been narrowed to southern Hillsborough county as I work in Bradenton just off I-75 and SR64, and my wife works in Ybor City. We currently live in Brandon. It's a nice area, but it's too congested for the lifestyle we would like to create for our family. Additionally, my commute time is about 45 minutes while my wife's is just over 15.

We have reconnoitered the area to find potential locations - Panther Trace, Summerfield, South Fork, , Apollo Beach (Mira Bay, Harbour Isles, Covington), and Cypress Creek in Sun City. I'm sure there are many other areas. They all have their pros and cons, but I thought I'd solicit the advice from those who may have done the same research.

One final note: My "ideal" location would be a tree-lined safe neighborhood that is well established with good schools, convenient access to shopping, park areas for our kids to play...You know, the utopian world we would all love to live in.

[algia]

Your "idea" can only be found in South Tampa, and that will make "your" commute longer, and your wife's even shorter.

The best thing to do, is to go to greatschools.net, and get school ratings, that will give you an idea as to where to start looking, and where the good schools are=more family oriented place. I doubt the schools are any good in Apollo beach...that's not "your idea" in the least IMO. Also check demographics wherever you're looking for homes to see if the majority is made up of people in your age group, and not older people with no kids. Unfortunately there are a lot of nice areas in a good school districts that have more retirees than school age kids.

[DUNNDFRNT]

I think your problem would be the "well established" part and also what your interpretation of good schools is, seems to me that Apollo beach would work, if you were happy with the schools in Brandon, then you would be happy with AB schools. "Well established" and that part of Hillsborough dont go together as that area was heavily developed during the boom, for people who were priced out of other areas. When I say priced out, i mean they werent going to get the value for their dollar that they wanted in other areas.