Rebekah,

The best and most reliable information is information you can gather and verify for yourself. If you are considering a specific neighborhood our recommendation is to visit the area at different times of the day for a walk. Bring a pet, your children, etc. to serve as the ice breaker but use this opportunity to meet the neighbors and talk to them about the community. Ask your questions........you should be able to depend upon reliable information.

You will find that people will be open to talk about both the positive and negative aspects of the community.

Doing this routine for a couple of days with various different individuals will assist in getting an acurate and reliable feel for the community.

Good luck

I am still working on site, but please check it out!

The site is based on subdivision within the Fort Bend County area...
http://www.localtowncommunity.com

I'm originally from around Richmond in Fort Bend. If yhou have a question about that area in particular , let me know.

There are a few area to check on the internet. One of them is http://www.har.com/AWS/AWSF.cfm?tgt=%2Fneighborhoods%2Fdefau… and you can search by county etc.

Do not expect real estate professionals to answer this type of question as an answer could cause them to violate the Fair Housing Act. Use pubic sources to get these answers. Google the FBI data, Fort Bend County and Richmond government and school district sites to get the information and then compare the data to an area you are familiar with. Texas Department of Public Safety maintains a registered sex offender site as well. Good luck!

In addition to the other comments...it is very important to walk the neighbourhood, talk to the potential neighbours. Also, drive through at night. These two tasks will really help clear or confirm how you feel about living in the particular subdivision.

CJ posted a very comprehensive list on another Trulia thread. The info might be helpful.
In additions, check out neighborhoods.realtor.com and localism.com
Find Cj's post here:
http://www.trulia.com/voices/General_Area/Is_there_a_website…

Try your Chamber of Commerce and local police department for statistics. Good luck.

I'm assuming that your question relates to crime and safety. I would go to the police department to find out about the crime rate in the area. Anecdotal evidence is not valid. BUT, and this is a big but, I would have to know what you really want to know about before I answered that in any detail. My advice is get a good realtor and let him/her help you.