Good place to start a family in NYC? (New York, Floral Park: real estate market, to rent)
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Ok I've lived in the Bronx my entire life and I've only ever visited other parts of the world. Me and my wife plan to move somewhere we can stay for a few years while we continue to save money. We want a place that if an "accident" happened we would be ok raising our child in that location. Growing up in the Bronx isn't easy and there's a lot of opportunity to fall into the wrong crowd. I'm not sure how I was able to get through it relatively unscathed and my wife was raised up state. My mom kept me sheltered most of my child hood and I didn't understand why until I was older. Now that I think about it, I don't want to raise my children here. But I don't know what places are any better. I want my kids to have a normal childhood without worrying about some hood kids bullying them, robbing them or trying to make them do stupid things. I can't afford the expensive rent in Manhattan and I don't know of any areas that have decent rent. Doesn't have to be dirt cheap, but something that will leave me with the ability to continue to save. So is there anywhere with a nice neighborhood with decent rent?
I have a friend raising a family out in Kew Gardens (queens). He loves it there. Outside of that, maybe Staten Island, but for either I'm not 100% sure about the schools. You'd be better off making sure an accident doesn't happen until you can afford a better school district, or who knows maybe relocating is something to think about.
Ok I've lived in the Bronx my entire life and I've only ever visited other parts of the world. Me and my wife plan to move somewhere we can stay for a few years while we continue to save money. We want a place that if an "accident" happened we would be ok raising our child in that location. Growing up in the Bronx isn't easy and there's a lot of opportunity to fall into the wrong crowd. I'm not sure how I was able to get through it relatively unscathed and my wife was raised up state. My mom kept me sheltered most of my child hood and I didn't understand why until I was older. Now that I think about it, I don't want to raise my children here. But I don't know what places are any better. I want my kids to have a normal childhood without worrying about some hood kids bullying them, robbing them or trying to make them do stupid things. I can't afford the expensive rent in Manhattan and I don't know of any areas that have decent rent. Doesn't have to be dirt cheap, but something that will leave me with the ability to continue to save. So is there anywhere with a nice neighborhood with decent rent?
This is one of the best threads I ever read on here. You sound jsut like me a concerned Bronxite who wants to do the right thing. Doing the right thing is not easy and like you said its easy to fall into the wrong crowd. Its good that you are looking at your future and trying to secure it. I see time and time again when people have kids here in NYC but also here in The Bronx people overlook schools and cry foul because they live in a crappy neighborhood with poor schools when their kids hite 4-5 years of age. Stuff like this forces family members and friends to pick up your kids on their free time while mommy works at some crap job. I'm not a parent but I can say the best place to raise a family might be UWS, Park Slope and Riverdale, but who has money for that to live their? This is the reason why myself dont want to have kids here in NYC due to not being in a great area to raise a family, job, as well as COL, QOL life issues which plague many New Yorkers as well as women here in the city who are willing to trade up and then put you child support. If you want to raise a family here in the BRonx try Morris Park, Kingsbridge or Parkchester. A good thing your SO is from upstate and not a typical Bronx or New York City chick, thats a child support time bomb waiting to happen!
If you are not looking to buy, why not just live wherever you can save the most money while still enjoying your life? It seems silly to worry about kids and schools if you are not sure that that's something you'll need to even deal with in the next few years. Even if you do have a kid, assuming that you are in a decent, safe neighborhood you won't need to worry about schools/raising him in a good neighborhood for a long time, so you'll have plenty of time to move.
My other half currently lives in the Bronx over by Crobsy and Dudley Avenue (not sure if the area is Throgs Neck, Country Club or what) and the area has a lot of private homes and schools are decent (the high school level stinks though). I like it over there and the only reason why we are not staying there is because I have a special needs child and the schools don't have what my child needs.
I grew up in my teen years in Staten Island and the South Shore is very nice but has a crappy comute if you use the express buses. I don't know much about the North Shore other than New Dorp which has some very nice parts and mass transit is much better options.
This is one of the best threads I ever read on here. You sound jsut like me a concerned Bronxite who wants to do the right thing. Doing the right thing is not easy and like you said its easy to fall into the wrong crowd. Its good that you are looking at your future and trying to secure it. I see time and time again when people have kids here in NYC but also here in The Bronx people overlook schools and cry foul because they live in a crappy neighborhood with poor schools when their kids hite 4-5 years of age. Stuff like this forces family members and friends to pick up your kids on their free time while mommy works at some crap job. I'm not a parent but I can say the best place to raise a family might be UWS, Park Slope and Riverdale, but who has money for that to live their? This is the reason why myself dont want to have kids here in NYC due to not being in a great area to raise a family, job, as well as COL, QOL life issues which plague many New Yorkers as well as women here in the city who are willing to trade up and then put you child support. If you want to raise a family here in the BRonx try Morris Park, Kingsbridge or Parkchester. A good thing your SO is from upstate and not a typical Bronx or New York City chick, thats a child support time bomb waiting to happen!
I kinda like Riverdale. I'll look into that. We intend to have kids one day but not so soon just yet. At the same time since my wife wasn't raised in the Bronx, she doesn't quite have that stuck up F off look on her face that most of the women here use to keep away douche's. It's like they can smell the lack of corruption. I don't want to have to worry if she gets out of work really late.
Your wife should be perfectly fine in Riverdale without the attitude that some who are raised in more challenging areas have to develop to keep people at bay. Riverdale may also not be as expensive as you think, especially if you look more to divided two-to-three family houses, as opposed to luxury doorman buildings with full amenities. Assuming you find a good landlord, who keeps the property up, and I cannot recall a derelict property in Riverdale, proper, since the neighbors won't tolerate such tactics.
Queens, however, does have some of the best schools in the city, particularly Eastern Queens, close to the Nassau border, in District 26. You would be in areas like Floral Park, part of Bayside (part is District 25), Douglaston, Malba, etc. It can be expensive, but much depends upon where you look in that district as there are some areas that tend to be less expensive for that area, i.e., it's not uniform housing expense like you would find on the UWS. Forest Hills may be another consideration in Queens, again because you may find something decent if you look hard, at a good price point. FH and Riverdale are similar areas, though Riverdale is larger with sub-neighborhoods, and it's possible to find a house (at the upper price points) with a decent amount of land for the city, whereas Forest Hills Gardens tends to have smaller residential lots.
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I kinda like Riverdale. I'll look into that. We intend to have kids one day but not so soon just yet. At the same time since my wife wasn't raised in the Bronx, she doesn't quite have that stuck up F off look on her face that most of the women here use to keep away douche's. It's like they can smell the lack of corruption. I don't want to have to worry if she gets out of work really late.
Once it comes time to plan kids, I'm just saying this as a suggestion, you may want to look at different large/mid-sized cities where the schools are better and the land isn't quite so much. I'd originally intended to raise a family here since I was born and raised here, then I traveled a bit and lived in other places for short periods of time due to college and work. The more I did that the more I second-guessed if NYC was truly where I wanted to put down roots. There are lots of other cities that have great things to offer. Just saying, I'm not telling ya what to do or anything like that
Once it comes time to plan kids, I'm just saying this as a suggestion, you may want to look at different large/mid-sized cities where the schools are better and the land isn't quite so much. I'd originally intended to raise a family here since I was born and raised here, then I traveled a bit and lived in other places for short periods of time due to college and work. The more I did that the more I second-guessed if NYC was truly where I wanted to put down roots. There are lots of other cities that have great things to offer. Just saying, I'm not telling ya what to do or anything like that
Out of curiosity, which cities did you find more appealing than NYC with regard to raising a family? I traveled to other cities around the country and found that while many of them are quiet and less expensive there are significant disadvantages. For one, the cultural diversity is at a minimum. Kids grow up in a more sheltered and homogeneous environment, often overly dependent on their parents for support. In other rural/suburban areas, there is a huge emphasis on religious centrality, uniformity is paramount and immediate marriage and a nuclear family are expected either straight out of high school or after college.
I would want my children to grow up in an urban environment, just as I had, to be exposed to different cultures and the arts, to be able to visit parks, try different cuisines, take buses and trains to school and have the convenience of just walking up the block to buy tomatoes as opposed to driving miles to hit a mega supermarket. These are just basic preferences I suppose. I actually think it's great for kids to grow up in cosmopolitan areas. Perspectives and character develop differently in metropolises than in rural, suburban and west american cities (excluding LA, SF and Chicago). Cleveland as an example, has a one of the best and lowest real estate markets. The pace of life is slower, but the cultural elements are limited. There is still somewhat of a divide between blacks and whites, there aren't as many ethnic groups as there are here. The winters are brutal, everything is a strip mall and museums are lackluster. That's why many of these towns rely on play dates and such, and go crazy with children's activities. Children grow up inundated with all kinds of projects, but forget to be creative and are a little out of touch with the regular environment. As nice as the city as is, and as big as your house and a plot of land may be, it's still a little too provincial for my liking. As a note, this obviously a very subjective reasoning.
As for the overall environment I've been fantasizing about moving to Paris to start a family. The parental leave is definitely more generous, the work environment more human and social/family life is more essential. In addition to great respect for culture and arts, there's less of a focus on consumerism and affluence (while I'm not saying that it's absolute, it's at a lower scale). The only problem is that it's harder to find work, obtain a citizenship status and it's more expensive than NYC.
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