Edmond Deer creek

Hello-

we are thinking of Moving to Edmond in the summer, We visited one time about a year ago and loved the area. We are in Orlando presently and it is way over crowded, bad school, crime is on the rise etc... if you could share your experience with Edmond and the deer creek schools that would be great.

also, how is the crime, are the people friendly. we are looking for a place to move with our 8 and 11 year old and this to be our last move ever:)

is Edmond a place you can live thier forever? thanks jeff

Edmond Deer creek

Hello, Jeff.

So glad you are considering a move to our fair state!

Yes, the people are friendly and Edmond is definitely a candidate for a ';live forever'; place. It is vastly different from Orlando in just about every way I can think of.

I hope the local experts will chime in here and give you some specific information, but in the meantime I suggest you scroll down to the topic titled ';Also relocating to OKC - family'; posted by cpamom.

Warmest best wishes in making a good decision for your family.

Edmond Deer creek

You can use this site:

http://newsok.com/news/crime

To track crime withing 3/4 mile of any address. Since you don%26#39;t really know any addresses in Edmond, Here is a site:

http://www.churchangel.com/WEBOK/edmond.htm

That lists churches located there. You can use those addresses to sample a large area of the City. :) (When a location like ';SOUTHEAST 15th Street'; is given, shorten it to ';SE 15th Street';. Do this for all directional info on street names if the result of the search in the crime tracker is ';address not found';)

Just use all the features - including listing the crime report to get the dates. When I entered my address it showed 80 crimes within 3/4 mile but that was over a 12 mont period with no crimes listed after 11-23-2005 (Not sure if this is not being updated or crime has dropped.)

Good luck! Moving to the Oklahoma City area from Orlando will be q huge difference!

You like big-box stores and sprawl? Traffic and a congested commute into the city? Homogeneity? If so, you%26#39;ll love Edmond, which is a typical suburb, easily interchanged with dozens of other suburbs around the country, filled with upper-middle class families who want to be surrounded with people just like themselves.

I think the great thing about America is getting to know and experience all of the local cultures. Places like Edmond, to me, are all about replacing the locally unique with a national sameness.

Oklahoma is as unique and special a place as you will find, but Edmond isn%26#39;t Oklahoma, in my estimation. Edmond is suburbia. If you like suburbia--all that offers, all that it costs-- you will love Edmond.

I%26#39;m sure others are going to disagree vehemently, but I can think of dozens of places I would rather live. Flame on.

Radio,

There are parts of Edmond exactly like you describe...

And parts that aren%26#39;t, (although those parts are not the %26#39;hot%26#39; spots in that city at this time.)

But then, it all depends on what one is looking for, doesn%26#39;t it?

I like being closer in to the main city, and as a result I ended up living in an area of OKC that is much as you say - sprawl, sameness, etc. I could have moved to an older area of the city or an historic area (which I really couldn%26#39;t afford) but chose a location that was very convenient to my and my wife%26#39;s jobs, about equididstant from the main attractions around OKC and in what was a very good school district at the time. Some of that has changed over the years, but as change is the only thing you can count on it is to be expected.

Maybe someday I will move to a more rural or smaller town, or into an older part of the city with more charm and character. But for now where I am suits my needs and my lifestyle.

Don%26#39;t be so critical of the choices of others if they don%26#39;t happen to match your own. There are many reasons people choose to live where they do and not everyone has the same requirements.

:)

Radio63-

we are looking for the best schools for our 2nd grader and 7th grader. both are very Gifted and want the best of schools and challenge for them ( AP classes). we have been to OK city.. as far as traffic sprawl etc... Orlando is 100% times worse. we are looking to slow down and simplify. Since you are a Professor I figured you may be able to steer us in a direction as far as academics. all our research points to Deer creek:)

Modcon, I said ';if you like...'; before my unflattering description. I was allowing room for some people to like those things; I%26#39;m just not one of them.

BigMove, I think that if you read the research you will find that the biggest predictors of student success are (a) the parents%26#39; involvement and (b) the family%26#39;s income. This research would suggest that Deer Creek students do well on standardized tests---not necessarily a good measure of anything that matters, by the way---because the families in the Deer Creek school district have high incomes and are involved in their children%26#39;s lives. Chances are, if you move those kids into a different school, the results will be exactly the same.

Don%26#39;t forget that while large school districts provide extras to their students---foreign language classes, orchestra, lacross--the students pay a price as well. In big schools, students have fewer opportunities to excell; at small schools, there are greater opportunities to be the best at something, to be a class leader. And I don%26#39;t think that the value of class diversity can be overstated.

Edmond is a ';rich'; district on the North side of OKC. The people are friendly, albeit a tad bit snooty. Being an ';outsider'; may make it a hard to fit in to the right ';clique.'; My biggest fear for you would be growth. People are flocking there by the thousands! There are NUMEROUS housing developments springing up everywhere. The schools are good, though very ';political.'; I guess this is true of most schools. OKC, as a whole, is a rather friendly place and easy to navigate. I moved here from IL a year and a half ago and love it. Good Luck with your move.

Radio,

IMO, what you wrote was rather disparaging and implied that someone that does ';like'; a place like Edmond has to be insane. It sounded like a restaurant review that starts ';You like slow service, high prices and food that tastes like garbage..? If so, you%26#39;ll love this restaurant!'; :)

The only reason I posted a response was because your description was SO negative it made Edmond sound like hell on earth. While I am not a big fan of Edmond, I disagree that it is the wasteland you pictured.

Small town living is not paradise on earth either. Shall we talk about the lack of jobs in most small towns? The lack of choices for making purchases? The longer distances you must travel either to get a larger choice in jobs or merchandise? And how about the higher prices for the items that have to be shipped into the out-of-the-way small towns?

Yes, small towns have a different identity than most bedroom communities, which do reek of sameness. But both small towns and large bedroom communities have negatives and positives and nothing about either is all negative or all positive. Rather than spend time disparaging one or the other, how about giving straight information about both, as uncolored by your personal preferences as possible, and letting the reader decide which is better for them?

And that%26#39;s the last I%26#39;ll say on this subject.

Flame away...

BTW: I didn%26#39;t mention your subsequent post about schools for a very simple reason - you were asked for an opinion. Opinions will always be very subjective. :)

Well, Modcon, I didn%26#39;t say big box stores were negative, did I? Seems to me that you%26#39;re reading a negativity into that post which isn%26#39;t there. Is Edmond filled with big box stores? Yes. Do some people like that? Clearly, yes; otherwise, we wouldn%26#39;t have rows of boxes on the edge of every major city. Do I shop at box stores? Some times. So when I said ';Do you like big box stores?...If so, then you%26#39;ll love Edmond,'; I don%26#39;t see how that is so negative. It%26#39;s true, isn%26#39;t it?

And I don%26#39;t think I ever said that any place was idyllic. Suburbs have one kind of problem; small towns have another; city centers have others still. In fact, my post on schools directly alluded to the fact that big schools offer benefits, but that smaller schools offer different benefits.

There seems to be a group of relatively young, relatively affluent folks who believe that suburbs solve all problems (my son, by the way, who lives in far northwest OKC is one of them). But while suburbs do solve some problems, they create others, like homogeneity, like the proliferation of chain stores, like traffic, like more car-time and less family-time (unless, like you, a person works in the same area in which they live).

BigMove seemed to imply that they were looking at Edmond to escape the problems of Orlando. My response was merely meant to suggest that if BigMove chooses Edmond, the family is merely choosing to replace one kind of problems with another kind of problems. If they choose to live at 25th and Classen, they%26#39;ll be choosing a different kind of problem. And if they choose Ada, they%26#39;ll be choosing a third kind. When they choose, they should choose wisely.