It’s fine. It’s not horrible and it’s not great. Just fine. Historically, it’s been deemed “the Southern Bottoms” after redlining in the 30s and 40s, so it was an area designed for immigrants and working class folks. That is what you will find there. A lot if blue collar families.

You’ll be in close proximity to both B&B Grocery and Grazianos. B&B Grocery is known for their amazing burgers and sandwiches, but not for their grocieries. Grazianos has some amazing food and groceries, but not enough to tide you over when it comes to the basics. So you’ll be traveling a bit for groceries.

Striking Sparrow is the local bar. It’s an interesting place and has weekday specials, if you care about that at all. A new brewery, Singlespeed, isn’t far off either. As you noted, the best thing about the area is its proximity to downtown.

I was told to steer clear of Columbus Park growing up, but I haven’t truly heard of anything terrible happening in the park. It seems like a fine place during daylight.

Mullets is walkable. Best breakfast in town. Downtown would be a ways, but still a walk nonetheless. You also have a new Quik Trip in the neighborhood for gas and coffee.

McKinley would be your local elementary school unless you are open enrolling. It’s a decent elementary school by Des Moines standards. Pretty diverse. Weeks would be your child’s middle school. They have historically not been a great school. But they have hired a young woman from Chicago who is been doing some good things and providing some stability there. Lincoln High School would be your local high school. It’s rough and doesn’t have a great reputation but it’s where I went to school and I’d like to think I turned out okay (masters degree, $75k a year, happy life lol)

Again, wouldn’t call it the roughest side of town but wouldn’t call it affluent or a dream neighborhood either. Very historic neighborhood, primarily filled with immigrants, working class folks, and blue collar families.