George Randers, the inventor of the peanut butter based edible play doh, was born in Topeka but relocated to St. Louis at a young age
this should come in really handy when I'm looking for a house
Need more info, type and size of house, budget...
As a general rule, the presidental streets and the state streets are rougher neighborhoods.
When I first was looking to move to Topeka (I knew nothing of the city, other than where my office was), I called about a house rental and didn't know where it was, I asked about the neighborhood and the landlord said "well it IS highland park" and said no more...I drove by the place and across the street there were dogs standing on top of beat up cars chained to the porch hand rails...I didn't end up living there.
I'm originally from the Lake Shawnee area. I don't know what your price range is, but there are some pretty decent neighborhoods by the SCABA baseball diamonds and east of the lake. Some south as well. A lot of houses in the $150-300 range. I'm pretty biased to this area. If I was forced to move back, this is where I'd move.
Then there's stuff out west in the Washburn Rural area that's decent. Mostly anything west of Fairlawn, south of 10th street. At least it was decent when I lived there about ten years ago. It still seems nice when we stay and visit relatives.
There are some neighborhoods around Washburn University (to the North and West) that are alright. Avoid any area directly to the east and south of Washburn's campus. Everything east of campus going along 21st street is pretty much a war zone until you hit Whittenburg.
Potwin is pretty nice.
There's some decent housing North of the river, but Shawnee Heights and Washburn Rural are better school districts than Seaman.
Never, never, never live in the Highland Park District. Never. Never ever.
If you do an MLS search based on school district, this is what I'd say:
Shawnee Heights - Yes (SE part of town)
Washburn Rural - Yes (W part of town)
Seaman - Maybe (N part of town)
Topeka High - Maybe (Downtown/Center of town)
Topeka West - Maybe (West of Downtown-ish)
Highland Park - Avoid like the plague
That's pretty much it.
Thanks for the info, was already thinking about just sticking to Rural, heights and seaman districts
Played a high school tennis tournament by a topeka high middle school and a drug bust went down across the street from the courts!
i'm not 100% certain that raquetcat is moving to topeka
sorry sd, I know you'll miss all those great 'maha 'paks we had, like that one time at bww, then that other time at your house when we watched 'braska lay the smack down on washington
Topekans consume the third most Hormel Chili per capita in the United States*
*cities with greather than 50k population
Kind of gross but I used to love that stuff as a kid. I would get mad when my mom would take off that layer of orange fat before she made it.
i bought some of this chili today to use on my chili dogs at dinner tonight. can't wait for my C-Dogs.
What are you doing with the layer of fat
i cook it right into the chili. here's my philo on the fat cap- it wouldn't be there if it didn't need to be there.
