How are the different neighborhoods in Tacoma?
June 21, 2007 12:39 PM   Subscribe

O wise Tacoma familiar folks of Metafilter: What parts of Tacoma could be described as "up and coming" and what parts are currently just plain bad?

We're considering getting a house up there, both for affordability reasons and because when my wife gets her Masters, she'll probably work somewhere in Tacoma, Seattle, or parts in between, and that's a bit of a commute from Olympia. However, neither of us have ever actually lived in Tacoma, so we're not very familiar with the different specific parts of town.
posted by Captain_Tenille to Home & Garden (2 answers total)
 
Tacoma is really growing, these days. The downtown area, mostly dead when I lived there, is booming now, with many new condos, restaurants, and night spots. There was a lot of new development surrounding the Tacoma campus of the University of Washington, including the Museum of Glass and a new trolly/transit system to move people around. If you want a condo, go downtown (if you can afford to).

6th Avenue is starting to boom now, too, East of Union. It's technically on the edge of "Hilltop" area, but it's vibrant if you're young. An apartment or townhouse in the area should be affordable. And on the North side of the street to the water you start to get into the "Old Town" area, so there's plenty of room for variety in the area.

More traditional areas of the town continue to be popular, such as the North End, from Proctor into "Old Town." These neighborhoods would include larger, older houses, and corner hangouts at the intersections of major arterials. There are some very nice neighborhoods in the West side of town, along the water, around the Narrows, all the way to say, 12th and Stevens, which is about where you start to transition into the Central District.

The Central and South Districts have some pretty bad neighborhoods, but there are also some perfectly nice little enclaves tucked into the middle of these areas that might be a good bargain for the less timid. I lived in the Central District for 35 years, and was perfectly happy there, although you'd want to look around quite a bit and make sure the area you're looking at isn't too transitional (since a lot of the town is changing, the characteristics of some neighborhoods have transitioned dramatically in the last few years).
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:20 PM on June 21, 2007


From my boyfriend (who grew up in Tacoma, and still has family there): Hilltop's the place I would look for a good deal. It's still a little sketchy but it's getting better -- probably good investment deals to be found there. There are some great old Victorian houses.
posted by scody at 6:32 PM on June 22, 2007


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