Question about areas in Austin, TX?

Question

I'm looking up apartments in Austin and I am planning on moving there in January. I am wondering how good of an area it is near the Highland mall area as far as traffic, crime, things to do, etc. Also if anyone can recomend a nice area that is fairly affordable and close enough to the city where getting to work in the morning won't be a problem. Thanks for your help everybody!!

Answer 1

It really varies up north around the Highland Mall area. A lot of that area around St. John's is fairly rough-looking, but then I've got a friend who has a house up there on a street that's pretty nice with a great yard. (Friend does have a good alarm system because real tough, real dodgy area is very close.)

If you go a little bit southwest from Highland Mall, around 51st and Duval, you get into an older area that's nice. I think the "alphabet avenues" are around there, and the northern edge of Hyde Park. (All of Hyde Park is quite nice.) Some of it has got a lot of university students since it's not that far north of UT.

A little further south and east, there's an area just east of I-35, around 26th to 38th Street, that's not bad. I think it's called the Rosewood neighborhood. It's a somewhat older area. That area varies and it's close to some depressed areas but there are parts that are quite pleasant. Also has a fair number of students, but some professionals too.

There's new stuff going up even further north than Highland Mall, around Parmer Lane. It looks pretty uninteresting to me, total sprawl, but I don't think it has the tough neighborhood nearby.

There's some stuff that's northwest -- about as far north as Highland Mall, but west of MoPac in an area where one of the main roads is Great Hills -- that looks like it's got some kind of nice upscale new complexes. I hate to see them building all over those hills but if I were looking for a place to live I might check out that northwest area.

The other place I would look for an apartment might be sort of around Tarrytown or near Deep Eddy. (might be sort of globally referred to as Old West Austin). It's an older neighborhood, the Tarrytown area is pretty upscale but driving around there recently, I had forgotten how many apartment complexes there are - not new but well-kept looking, and certainly conveniently located. There also are some apartment complexes nearby around Enfield -- same idea. Clarksville is nice but I think it's gotten quite expensive.

All kinds of new apartment and condominium housing springing up all around downtown and Lamar Blvd. which may all be unaffordable. Good location if it is affordable.

South Austin ranges from the way hip and trendy and nifty and expensive, to some very boring and depressing-looking new tract stuff, to dodgy areas. You would just have to go look and get a feel.

What I did, when I recently moved to Dallas, was look on rent.com and apartments.com. I got an idea of what I might want to look at, then I made a trip up there to check out the places. I ruled out one right away, and then found another that I loved. It worked well as an approach to house-hunting.

Answer 2

The poster above me did a great job of evaluating neighborhoods.

The Highland Mall area, like they said, can be dodgy, but you can find nice areas around there. I like the Hyde Park area with the older houses and the "alphabet avenues" around 51st and Duval, as the other poster said.

As for traffic, Austin tends to get pretty jammed up. The downtown area always has moderate traffic, and rush hour is just horrible. Going South from the Highland Mall area can get you stuck in some traffic, but you can frequently dodge most of it by choosing other roads--taking Lamar is usually helpful, except that it also gets backed up pretty badly during morning and afternoon rush.

Dodging the traffic by living downtown can get pretty pricey, but my friend's girlfriend lives off East 6th street and apparently it's not too bad of rent down there. I'm more familiar with prices around UT since I'm a student and want to stay close to campus, so I can't give much insight into prices further away. I do know, however, that living off Riverside Ave in South Austin is much cheaper than living around campus or dt, and there are buses running back and forth, so you don't have to drive. If you choose to, it's about a 10-15 minute drive from Riverside to dt/campus.

Answer 3

don't know too much about the highland mall area, but Round Rock, tx is a 15 minute drive fom austin, easy access through I-35, very safe, excellent schools, beautiful , reasonable apartments, it has it all.