I've lived in Rainier Beach since late 2005, with plenty of visits here beforehand.
The area, which is still in the very popular and the US's most diverse zip code of 98118, is the farthest tip of the south end of Seattle, go any further south and you hit unincorporated King County - Bryn Mawr, Skyway and Renton.
To our North, the stretches of Hillman city borders of Seward and Beacon flirt with Rainier until you get back to Columbia City.
Our neighborhood is diverse, with plenty of people from all income brackets, ethnicities and walks of life. The central area is really the Henderson & Rainier intersection with the Rainier Beach Community Center and Pool along with South Shore Elementary School on the NW corner, Payless shoes and the car was on the NE, Bank of America on the SW and Sars Market, Rite Aid and the Beauty Supply on the SE corner.
Within a few blocks of that corner, there is a high school - Rainier Beach High School- a beautiful new public library, restaurants, Safeway grocery & gas, dry cleaners, pho, teriyaki/donuts/laundry, liquor store, vet, sandwich shop, barber shop, mortuary and more.
As you get past that area, it's mostly houses, with only a few apartment buildings thrown in. The traffic on Rainier is pretty fast and aggressive, but the side streets are reasonably safe.
While crime increases and decreases with some extremes here in this area, it's overall been a safe and affordable place to live.
The merchants and other business owners are, for the most part, cooperative members of our community and we have an active block watch neighborhood group, a reasonably local news blog http://www.rainiervalleypost.com/ and a local parent listserv on Yahoo. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rainierskywayparents/
We can walk to good quality and inexpensive restaurants, we have all the services we need in these few blocks and the neighbors are friendly and welcoming. read more