Possibly moving to the Temple/Belton/Killeen area. Need input! (Harker Heights: for rent, houses)

[APM92]

I'm thinking about moving to Temple within the next few months. I moved from west Texas when I was a kid but all of my family is still in Texas. One of my friends is moving to Harker Heights/Killeen and I'm thinking about going also. I've been looking at places in Temple because I'm considering attending the college there. Just wondering if I could get some input from those of you that live in the area. I'm in my early 20s and enjoy going out every now and again but I'm not huge on going out every night so I wouldn't say the bar scene is a must have. I don't want to live in a huge city that's why I'm looking at Temple, it would eb the largest town I've ever lived in so needless to say I enjoy smaller cities versus large cities. What are some parts of town to avoid? Is finding a job fairly easy? I found a few houses for rent and they are on these streets: Passo Del Oro, N Main St, Zenith Ave, and S 13th. Are any of those places that I should be avoiding? I obviously do not want to put myself in a bad part of town but I'm also bring my dogs and cat with me and I don't want to see them disappear (The town I'm in right now has an issue with people stealing dogs right from people's backyards). I know I have a lot of questions, I just want to make sure I'm making the right move. Thanks!

[metroxian]

Temple is divided somewhat into a quad. There's east and west of N/S Main, north and south of Central and/or Adams. East of Main is even numbered streets, west of Main is odd numbered (north/south bound). North of Central/Adams avenues (east/west bound) are alphabetical. The south avenues are lettered, Ave A, B, C... The north avenues are actual words Adams, Barton, Calhoun... At some point that original naming convention plays out and streets take on random names. Then there's another area west of I-35, not discussed here.

In a very general sense, I wouldn't recommend anything in Temple east of S 31st St (unless south of the 363 loop - aka Tx 36, or US190), or north unless way north. I haven't often been up there so I couldn't tell where I'd draw that line but it would have something to do with the railroad. Temple is a busy railroad RE-direction town.

I think you'd be satisfied with the Zenith area (far north), and/or Paseo Del Oro which is way down south (outside the original naming convention above) and is the growing and more active area of town with more commercial interests than further north. This would be the more convenient location to Temple College.

To help you get a visual, you might use a google map to look up the streets the drag the 'street view' avatar to that area and have a look around.

[APM92]

Temp43K Thank you so much for all of the information, that really helped me a lot! And lucky for me the Zenith house and Pasa Del Oro house were my favorites!