Hopefully you will be in the new place for a while, and the next move will see you with bigger kids with lots of friends so that you can relax and supervise :D

I loved the analysis in “Dangerous Neighborhoods,” too. See, I lived in a neighborhood where the rent was cheap and it was just a few miles to work. Getting burglarized, finding strange drunk men on my front porch, having shootings (including two murders) happen several times in a year within two blocks, and having drug dealers operating out of a car directly in front of my house were all very small prices to pay for somewhat cheaper rent and a short commute!

Oh yeah, and my wife could walk to work from there, and we both believed the risk of her getting mugged or raped was worth avoiding the larger risk of her getting into a fender-bender.

The bachelerotte party sounds like a scene out of Sex in the City. I liked the show, but there is no way I would want that lifestyle. $600 for a pair of shoes? Come on! There was scene in Sex in the City where Carrie added up all of the money she spent on shoes. It was literally thousands and thousands of dollars. She realized one day that she may well end up being the litle old lady who lived in her shoes, because she might not be able to afford anything else!

I enjoyed the ‘Dangerous Neighborhoods’ post. I work and attend a local university and my husband works full time. We saved money by finding a quiet spot in a ‘bad’ neighborhood. The ironic thing is that just 2 miles down the road, the city is redeveloping the neighboorhood. We pay $550/month for a relatively quiet spot. For a comparable one bedroom apartment in a nice area of the city, it would be $800/month. We just save the rest for the emergency fund.

Haha, yeah, Jeremy’s posts were sarcastic but he makes a good point. At several points in college and shortly thereafter, I, a 5′1″ female in my early to mid-twenties, lived in several sketchy neighborhoods, with roommates, solely for the reason that I needed to do so to be able to pay for school. My last situation was with two male roommates in a “gentrifying” neighborhood, where the rent was terrifically low, and I could recover from my post-college debt, and save for my first car.

After one break-in through MY bedroom window, a string of car-window break-ins, and one pimp-beating-his-hooker incident on New Year’s Eve, my peace of mind was so shot that I couldn’t even be in the house during the day without one or both of my male roommates. I had to move out.

I unapologetically moved to a nicer intown area, and I pay more now in rent than I did then: a whole $211 more, plus 1/2 utilities instead of 1/3. However, it was unequivocally the best decision I could have made. Sometimes it can’t be all about the money, even if you don’t have kids.

Sounds like Jeremy was living in a crappy place for sure, and I don’t blame him for moving. However, there are other times when appearances can be deceiving. I read the blog posting last night and my reaction was to recall when everyone told me not to live north of Delmar. As it turned out, my street was mostly grad students and African-American families, a street “on the rise.” In five years my car was broken into once, but I had nowhere near the regular harassment (whistles, yelling, etc.) that just about scares me and my boyfriend off the sidewalk every week here (population around 30,000 with a much lower nominal crime rate). And the cops in my old neighborhood were much less scary. Would I go back? Definitely. It would lower my stress level immensely.

In my mind, part of the issue is that people see working-class and African-American residents and think the neighborhood is dangerous. As a young woman who does not look her age, is not quite 5′2″ , and weighs around 110 lbs., I would much, much rather walk by several men minding their own business than a single man bothering me.

I’ll have to stick my neck out here a bit and say that I’ve lived in some non-too-savory spots before and it’s worth every penny to be in a better area. The reasons it’s worth it for me, would go on for pages. I can see the logic behind saving money, but then again… can’t put a price on staying alive.

Mitch, were you talking about St. Louis? The “don’t live north of Delmar” sounds familiar.

@grayson
The point is that with the longer commute you are actually at much greater risk of dying or being seriously injured in a car crash.

I’m just baffled with the conflating of urban living with high crime. As I’ve repeated ad nauseum on this and other blogs, having lived in some pretty big cities my whole life (Dublin, Amsterdam, NYC, Toronto) I have never been a random crime victim and have really never felt unsafe. And I’m a 5′3″ woman who walks and bikes and carries an iPod.

Every city has its dodgy neighbourhoods but that’s true of the suburbs of every city too, and whether urban or suburban these areas are ususally not representative of that place as a whole.

The Bachelorette Party was a hoot!

The Jimmy Choo shoes!

I remember a children’s book about dental health, with a personified tooth named Jimmy Chew, who either received regular brushings, thus staying whole and entire, or didn’t get good care and thus developed cavities. Jimmy Chew.

I think that must have been a different Jimmy.

Brett, yes, I was in U. City. Lived on Enright the last two years of college (instead of Greenway or east of Skinker) and then on Cates 2002-2006, still easy walking distance from Wash U, Metrolink, and the Craft Alliance. Some people thought this was borderline insane. People who actually had lived nearby thought it not unreasonable. Wash U bought the complex I lived in on Enright and is now infiltrating Cates, so now rents will go up.

Its sad I have so many “friends” like the one mentioned in the bachelorette party. The same freinds who would leave us at the door of a club because the bouncers didn’t approve of my boyfriend’s shoes (which were not sneakers, but dress shoes in which the leather was slightly faded)I have decided to slowly rid these type of people from my life, who only apprciate material things and refer to their friends not by name, but by there occupations. This isn’t even NY, this is Scottsdale, AZ which I think may be worse. Its so sad.