Search Q&A
Neighborhood Recommendations
We are moving from the US to the Liege area; Any advice on the best areas/neighborhoods to live? Or neighborhoods to avoid? We'd like to narrow our search to kid friendly safe neighborhoods with good primary education nearby for non-French speaking family/near other ex-pats. My husband will be working in Seraing, so a short commute would be preferred.
Forget about "neighborhood" in Europe. It is the us only feature to have "good" and "bad" neighborhoods. In Europe the difference is not that extreme.
But you can base this search on prices, the good places should be more expensive.
On the hills south-west of Liège. basically along and either side of the N63 road. Seraing, down in the Meuse valley, lies to the immediate north of these areas with quite a few links roads so it would be an easy commute. The local schools should be excellent, the university and the university hospital (also excellent) are situated in this area at Sart-Tilman.
Even though these areas are desirable, house prices are quite reasonable - but don't forget that buying taxes are quite high and make certain that you understand the buying process.
You basically want to avoid living in / around Seraing itself or Liege center. These communes have some of the highest unemployment rates in the country (outside of Brussels). Depending on who you listen to, between one fifth to one quarter of all workers are out of work, many for decades. The official figures hide a lot. Entire families, parents and their grown-up children who have never worked.
House prices, even some way outside the city are "reasonable" because there is real poverty in the area.
Yes, there are new businesses, and new technology parks opening up, but this has not come near replacing what has been complete economic destruction starting over 40 years ago.
