Safe, family-friendly areas of Houston to rent? (Howe: high crime, neighborhoods)

[_MiMi_]

Hello all!

I'd like to thank you in advance for viewing my thread and offering assistance. I am a single mother with two daughters, who will be ages 4 & 9 at the time I plan to move next year from Milwaukee, WI. Due to Houston's HUGE size, I have no idea of the areas I should be looking into. I realize a big part of this plays into where I will be working, but I figure if I can get a jump on the areas I find suitable for living, then I can tailor my job search to be as close as allowed to those areas. It helps that job search engines allow searching by zip code and Google maps tells me how far the commute is between points since I'm unfamiliar with the area. What I am looking to find out is, which areas/neighborhoods are considered to be safer and family-friendly, as well as offer nice schools? I'm on the younger side, 29, so I would rather areas that won't bore me to death LOL. However, I'd sacrifice that for a nice area for my children. In order of importance I'm looking for:

1. Safety
2. Schools
3. Affordability
4. Accessible to shopping and entertainment

I'm not sure how the price ranges work in Houston for 2 bedrooms in these areas because I've received conflicting reports, but please list what you have, the side of town/area and I will look into it from there.

[MIBS98]

Budget?

[EasilyAmused]

77079 or western 77024. Best schools in Houston,safe,and CityCentre is there so you can still have fun. It's an urban -burb.
Of course if you work south of town,it wouldn't be a good location.

[_MiMi_]

Originally Posted by MIBS98

Budget?

Again I don't know how pricing works because one of the main things I hear about Houston is that you can get more for your dollar for housing than here in Milwaukee. But when doing a search, I ran across nice LOOKING properties for under $900/mo, but the reviews were all terrible. Almost all comments said that the places were roach-infested, high crime and stay away, which is why I turned here to get help with areas to look in. (I am very interested in Alief Montessori and tried to find housing not far from there). If I can avoid spending $900-1000 I'd like too, but if it calls for me to be flexible and spend that I'll do so.

[_MiMi_]

Originally Posted by _MiMi_

Again I don't know how pricing works because one of the main things I hear about Houston is that you can get more for your dollar for housing than here in Milwaukee. But when doing a search, I ran across nice LOOKING properties for under $900/mo, but the reviews were all terrible. Almost all comments said that the places were roach-infested, high crime and stay away, which is why I turned here to get help with areas to look in. (I am very interested in Alief Montessori and tried to find housing not far from there). If I can avoid spending $900-1000 I'd like too, but if it calls for me to be flexible and spend that I'll do so.

Sorry I meant avoid spending OVER $900-1000.