I guess I am one of those 20- or 30-somethings who moved into a lower cost close in neighborhood in spite of its blemishes. We settled down and had kids and stayed put. our kids go to the school in our neighborhood (under 10 minutes walking distance). The school has its challenges, because of a huge proportion of limited English proficiency students and low income students. It is one of the worst performing schools on standardized tests, however tons of money have recently started flowing into the school to revitalize it, and I think we are on the leading edge of that revitalization right now. We have the option in our school district to send our kid to any number of schools near us or out in the fancy rich suburb 20 minutes away, so bad schools is not of first order importance to us. It is of second order importance, because we fear others will look at the neighborhood school as very bad and it will accordingly pull down property values and let the riff raff buy in the neighborhood. (
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Since we have access to good schools for our kids, we are happy living here. My job moved from a suburb location to a downtown location, and that means my commute dropped from 10-15 minutes to 6-10 minutes. And I can take a city bus (paid for by employer) from the end of my street to work and it is about the exact same time as driving downtown after walking from my parking spot downtown.
Access to freeway in under a mile, four regional shopping centers within 5-15 minutes and tons of other strip malls, big boxes, regular or ethnic groceries and restaurants, etc a short walk or short drive away. Plenty of parks and greenways in the neighborhood within walking distance or a short drive. And we live on a small lake which brings tons of wildlife right to our doorstep (sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally as the possum hanging out on the deck last night proves!).
The neighborhood itself is cool because of the mix of people. Retired people who bought into the neighborhood 50 years ago when it was being developed (though they are dying out), working class, immigrants, white collar, early retirees, multimillionaires, etc. The whole gamut.
And can't beat the affordability. Fixer uppers for around $100k, nicely maintained homes for $130-160k. Closer in neighborhoods (a couple miles closer) are 200-400% more expensive and have older housing stock (with the problems that come with it). And further out suburban neighborhoods are typically more expensive, although the houses are much nicer and newer. Just hope you like driving 30 minutes to everything!
Needless to say I am very happy with where I live, warts and all. Some 20- and 30-something friends think like me, yet others still have that suburban mcmansion dream in their minds.
Edit to add: About the perceived or real downsides of living in a gentrifying or inner city area - Crime. Looking at crime stats for where I live, the homicide rate is around 3 per 100,000 population each year. Maybe living in a rougher area doubles that risk to 6 per 100,000. However the great majority of murders are committed by people known to the victim, so living in a rough area may not be the causative factor increasing the homicide rate (ie rough people living in palaces would still kill each other frequently).
In contrast, the motor vehicle fatality rate is around 8 per 100,000 people if you drive 7000 miles a year, but 24 deaths per 100,000 people if you drive 21,000 miles a year. Driving more increases your fatality rate, driving less decreases your fatality rate. Would I trade my short commute for a longer commute from the "safer" suburbs (thereby increasing the combined fatality risk from 14 deaths per 100,000 in the inner city neighborhood to 27 per 100,000 in the fringe suburb). Is living in the fringe suburbs really twice as deadly as living in a gentrifying area? Probably.
