You can call the city, make sure there are no liens or scheduled work to be done in the area..... had a house last year, seller didn't disclose that the city was requiring new sewer line in the neighborhood.

Almost every larger city has an online gis map that provides the info. 

I stumbled across a website that had heat maps and rankings for the cities in terms of most desireable so I was just looking to see if some of those would be confirmed by a local as being correct.

Contact REIGuard out of Kansas City, they're great to work with on investment properties.

Also, county or city traffic departments have that information. 

I have lived here my whole life and would love to tell you about our wonderful city.

My "snow shoveler" here in the Twin Cities is leaving and I dont think another tenant will do it. 

I’m from the Tri Cities are of Washington so fairly close.

The homes we are looking at are about 45 minutes outside of Boston,  have universities and colleges, train stations, and are up and coming cities.

I've reached out to the city of Atlanta and got no reply, I've asked 2 Realtors and they don't seem to know the answer either.