TL;DR answer: Depends on how skittish you are and your risk tolerance.LSRAT wrote:Hey y'all! Any opinions about 53rd/cottage grove area? Would you advise/advise against living in that area?
If you've read through this thread, you've probably seen that the rough delimiters of the "ok" area are 47th to the north, Cottage Grove to the west, and 61st to the south. The closer you are to any of those boundaries, the rougher the feel of the place is going to be, with the exception of 61st. Close to the corners, especially. Go beyond them (including south of 61st), and things get palpably more sketchy pretty quickly. That's not hyperbole.
That said, I lived a couple blocks outside the traditional "green zone" and was completely fine. A couple blocks further and even I'd have been a bit nervous, and I don't spook easily at all. Your mileage may vary, though, and I'm sure 90% of my classmates would have been pretty uncomfortable living where I did. I reckon that's a combination of legitimate concern and a generalized fear, whether acknowledged or not, of minorities from lower socioeconomic classes.
I think 53d and Cottage Grove is ok, provided you're at or to the east of Cottage Grove. Without knowing you, I wouldn't advise going west of CG though. Feel free to PM if you want to discuss further.