We're considering moving to Philadelphia from Chevy Chase in Washington, DC. We know very little about Philadelphia and need assistance in finding a neighborhood to live in. We're city people and supporters of public schooling and users of public transportation.

We have two children, a 12 year old girl (7th grade) and a 7 year old boy (2nd grade). If possible we would like to replicate our current environment. We currently live in a small house, by contemporary US standards, which is fine. The house was built in 1926 and it's 22 feet by 30 feet and the lot is 40' by 120'. The neighbors know us and our children by name and we know theirs. It's like a village in the city.

The elementary school is two blocks away and the junior high school is 1.25 miles away and our daughter takes the public bus to get to school and walks home, library, bookstore, cafe, etc. The neighborhood is safe. There are several public buses that are close. The subway system is about 1.5 miles away. The heart of the city is about 5 miles away.

We can rent or buy.

What are your recommendations for a neighborhood?

I'm no expert on public schools, but you might want to try an inner ring suburb in Delaware or Montgomery Counties. Right of the top of my head:

- Ardmore
- Media
- Jenkintown
- Havertown
- Lansdowne
- Glenside
- Conshohocken

There are very few good public schools inside the city itself, but the Chestnut Hill and Mt Airy neighborhoods (maybe also East Falls and Roxborough) are probably fairly close to where you are now, although you'd have commuter rail instead of the more convenient suburban D.C. rail system (at least I think it's more convenient -- it runs more often than every 30 min, right?)

There's a very good public elementary school (Penn/Sadie-Alexander) in University City, if you live within the catchment area.

HTH

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Thank you Dave. However, everything you mentioned is not in the city. Is the city that bad? I live in DC the real DC and not the suburbs and the schools in our neighborhood are ranked nationally quite high.

What about neighborhood recommendations in the City proper?

Are there school rankings for Philly that you can point me to?

I think Dave might have pointed you there because of the house/lot size. In most of the city, lots/houses are only 15 or so feet wide, and fairly deep.

The neighborhood atmosphere you're describing, however, can be found all over Philadelphia, but you're probably best off looking in Queen Village because the local elementary school, Meredith, is one of the best in the city. As for middle and upper schools, you'll probably want to look into the charters or magnets; unfortunately, there are few "neighborhood" middle or upper schools that are particularly desireable.

You can get school profiles here: https://sdp-webprod.phila.k12.pa.us/...ry/schools.jsp

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---Shosh

The biggest problem with the city, for somebody in your situation, are the public schools. Here are my city neighborhood recommendations, though:

There's also Center City itself, which has some good public schools (Greenfield, I think? Like I said, I'm not an expert). You won't find anything with a lot size that's any bigger than the house itself in Center City, though.

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Thank you everyone. My intention was not to have a lot size that's the same. Smaller can also be fine.

How much are you looking to spend for a house? How many bedrooms? Do you want a garage? Where will work be?

Queen Village is a good option though the only thing I didn't like about it was the lack of public transportation. It's really only convenient to buses. I'm not sure how far west Meredith's catchment extends but Bella Vista is the neighborhood north of QV and has nice areas too. It's a bit closer to the Broad Street subway and downtown. To the north of those neighborhoods is Society Hill and Washington Square West and those would be in McCall's catchment and that is another good elementary school. They are closer to downtown and are in Center City proper. I use to live in WSW and liked it very much. Very convenient to supermarkets, markets, etc.

I've lived in Fitler Square for 6 years and it's great and especially convenient for my wife and I since we both work right across the river in University City. We are in Greenfield's catchment and it's another good elementary school (make sure you are on the north side of Lombard as the catchment border zig-zags a bit). Logan Square is also in Greenfield's catchment and it's a nice neighborhood close to many musuems and convenient to downtown.

I've lived in the city for over 12 years without a car. Have a wife with 2 kids, so it's not that difficult to live in the city without a car if you work in the city and don't have family close by expecting visits often.

For your son's sake, look in Queen Village (Meredith Elementary), Society Hill (McCall) and parts or Rittenhouse (Greenfield). Don't rely on realtors to tell you whether the houses you are looking at fall within the boundaries of these schools however -- I've met too many people who were told they were within certain boundaries, only to find out that they were literally on the wrong side of the street, or one block over. (Someone here will give you the website that lists the boundaries -- I can't recall it offhand). Other good public options are some of the charter schools, two in particular: (1) Independence Charter School -- the Spanish language immersion program is rated quite high; the regular program, not so much. (2) The Lab School -- pretty much an academic boot camp, it has a strange pedigree and people love or hate it.

Again, you most likely won't like any of the middle/high school neighborhood options -- as much as you would like to send your daughter to a public school, you should be prepared to send her to a private school if she doesn't get into a good magnet school.

If you do decide to go private, whether initially or eventually, there are a ton of Friends (Quaker) schools, and all of them are definitely worth a look; almost all have the social and economic diversity one would normally see in a public school and personally, I love the Quaker philosophy of education, community, and social responsibility.

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---Shosh

Both the Tacony and Mayfair neighborhoods are nice, close and have good PT...not sure of the schools though

3 bedrooms, a garage would be great. Work will be in Cherry Hill, NJ.

own <= $600 k

or

rent