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lidocainedreams t1_j81056x wrote

I mean, reading is huge so it depends. Cotton Street? Absolutely not. West Reading/Penn Avenue/Wyomissing/Exeter, absolutely.

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EstablishedLeaf9279 OP t1_j811g13 wrote

I wish I could give you an award but I'm broke

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lidocainedreams t1_j8169zh wrote

Saw you’re in Laureldale- cute neighborhoods but I’ve heard muhlenburg is getting bad as far as schools go. Like i said it really depends. I live in Exeter/Oley but have a reading address, I love where I live and would absolutely raise a family there.

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CardiBsKnees t1_j84yq65 wrote

Id also add that, unless you are actively involving yourself in the drug trade, you are unlikely to have issues in the city itself. My wife works in the city, never had any issues. I also used to work in the city, and never a problem.

Judy's is great, Santander & Doubletree are fun for events, Alvernia just poured a bunch of money into their new Penn Street campus, IMAX and the Goggleworks are great. Theres also deck hockey leagues that play down by RACC, never any issues at all, and all those places are in the city itself.

Im sure if you get away from Penn Street and the business corridor, you can find issues. But I also have no idea why you'd be venturing to those places for the lolz.

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artificialavocado t1_j87cvy4 wrote

I agree. I’m not exactly the type of person afraid of poor areas but many people are. I lived in a bad part of Philly years ago and they were the nicest people ever. But yeah random acts of violent or robbery of course can happen but are kind of rare at least in Reading. It is mostly gang or drug related. Be mindful and use some common sense if for whatever reason you are passing through. Those neighborhoods are all residential so yeah there isn’t much reason to be wandering around.

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artificialavocado t1_j82pstk wrote

My brother lived in West Reading for awhile it’s nice but is gentrified.

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BeatsMeByDre t1_j83m31l wrote

How is gentrified bad??

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artificialavocado t1_j83maju wrote

I didn’t say it was necessarily bad.

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BeatsMeByDre t1_j856s7q wrote

You differentiate it from nice, just asking how so

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artificialavocado t1_j87cail wrote

I phrased it clumsy. Not so much in the context of this discussion but when places gentrify rent and stuff usually goes up very quickly so it becomes unlivable for a lot of the folks that used to live there sometimes cresting every denser pockets of poverty somewhere else. It can be a double edge sword sometimes.

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yeags86 t1_j82awa9 wrote

Add most of Shillington to the list. I’m on the south end of it. Nice little suburb of older semi detached or small single houses built in the late 1920-early 1930s. Most of them have been updated since then but not all of them are fully modern.

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lidocainedreams t1_j82mx9k wrote

That’s right! I used to rent an apartment in Shillington and loved our neighborhood

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No-Setting9690 t1_j8fbt8h wrote

Thought Cotton was better with the MC club at the end? Now that question is based on like 10 year ago data. So don't look to much into it.

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Odd-Neighborhood5119 t1_j813w1j wrote

No bullshit. It's not a safe city

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Kingzer15 t1_j82fgmr wrote

I took a summer college class there a decade ago and our professor told us to drop the class if we had a honda civic or any Kia as it will be stolen within the next 8 weeks.

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moravian t1_j815t63 wrote

Downtown Reading is a shithole.

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[deleted] t1_j82l9rz wrote

Downtown Reading doesn’t seem bad to me, it’s some of the surrounding neighborhoods that can be sketchy.

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theREALPLM t1_j849s93 wrote

My co-worker wanted to move to Reading to raise his son in a more cultured area than our rural slum. I emphasized to him that our hometown was safer and had a decent school district. He hadn’t moved yet but he spent a lot of time there outside of work until he got shot to death one evening in November. They haven’t made any arrests.

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theREALPLM t1_j849fhx wrote

I argued about the safety of Reading with a coworker who proceeded to get shot and killed in downtown reading in a busy area.

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theREALPLM t1_j849qqo wrote

My co-worker wanted to move to Reading to raise his son in a more cultured area than our rural slum. I emphasized to him that our hometown was safer and had a decent school district. He hadn’t moved yet but he spent a lot of time there outside of work until he got shot to death one evening in November. They haven’t made any arrests.

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theREALPLM t1_j849h9j wrote

I argued about the safety of Reading with a coworker who proceeded to get shot and killed in downtown reading in a busy area.

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BitchyWitchy68 t1_j81jz0m wrote

I live in Reading and I don’t go out after dark.

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BrowniesAndMilk1 t1_j812wsc wrote

Nah dude the life we live is not meant for the faint of heart. You must adapt your abilities before it’s too late. Good luck.

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hayydebb t1_j848f1e wrote

Pa is a weird one. I moved to York which apparently has like 5x the crime rate of where I used to live but I’ve never seen or heard anything. But I’m sure if you asked about York people would say it isn’t safe as well so it’s all just where in the city you are

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sageTDS t1_j898x04 wrote

If you live in the nicer neighborhoods northwest of downtown or in a neighborhood that's not actually part of the city proper then you are unlikely to see or hear anything.

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AtBat3 t1_j86ghlw wrote

You’re like 5 minutes away from it go check it out for yourself

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Christopher_Walkman t1_j8dc1tm wrote

its as dangerous as any other city, lots of people raise their families there and it recently got out of financial recovery. people in the city are putting in the work to make it better

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theREALPLM t1_j8492vc wrote

My co-worker wanted to move to Reading to raise his son in a more cultured area than our rural slum. He hadn’t moved yet but he spent a lot of time there outside of work until he got shot to death one evening in November.

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dalex89 t1_j8df44y wrote

I lived in Reading for 8 months and twice had people hit my car then try to scam me into giving them money. That wasn't even a bad part of town, just across the river on Lancaster ave

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No-Setting9690 t1_j8fbnp5 wrote

I'm currently in Muhlenberg. I would say most of it is, every major city has some areas you do not want to take your family into.
I've live around Reading for 35/36 years of my life. I can say I have never felt unsafe in certain areas, I've delivered food to every single block in all of Reading. Sometimes with almost 2k in my pocket (Room Service Express think UberEats\GrubHub before it existed).

I am a middle age white male, somewhat built. This can help sometimes too.

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Sus_Whore t1_j8nmydf wrote

I'm in Reading a lot usually by myself as a 19 y/o girl and I've yet to had any trouble, I don't live there but live in a town right outside it so I have to venture there on an almost daily basis. It is very poor though.

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theREALPLM t1_j849493 wrote

My co-worker wanted to move to Reading to raise his son in a more cultured area than our rural slum. He hadn’t moved yet but he spent a lot of time there outside of work until he got shot to death one evening in November.

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