Preston Park's streets are the giveaway: tight terraces and converted flats packed close together, bikes chained to railings, the kind of density you feel before you see a number for it. This is Brighton's Preston, not Lancashire's, and it wears that city's habits — narrow Victorian frontages, a steady flow of people heading somewhere on foot, very little space between one front door and the next. The practical picture here hangs together neatly if you don't drive. Preston Park Rail Station anchors the area, and with three local transport stops feeding into it, this is a place built around getting into central Brighton quickly rather than around a car. Schools are a mixed bag by design rather than neglect — Stanford Infant School carries a Good rating, while St Bernadette's Catholic Primary and the independent Windlesham School sit alongside it without published Ofsted grades, which is common enough for smaller or newer inspections and not itself a red flag. A median age of 40 suggests a settled population rather than a transient student patch, and the flats-and-terraces mix on sale — leasehold dominant, freehold a minority at under half of sales — tells you most people here own a share of a converted building rather than a whole house with a garden. On price, Preston sits noticeably below its own parental frame: houses here run about a fifth cheaper than the Brighton and Hove average, which combined with a top-decile-adjacent affluence score (income and deprivation both mid-to-upper table nationally) makes this feel like one of the more accessible corners of an expensive city rather than a bargain in absolute terms. Rent is steep regardless — north of £1,800 for the area versus roughly £1,070 nationally — which is the real cost of that station and that density. Green space is present but modest: thirteen pockets amounting to under five hectares, small gardens and squares rather than a single big park to anchor a weekend, so locals tend to eat out instead of picnic; the grade pattern backs this up, with nightlife and environment both rated well above the national average even as green space itself stays thin. The safety picture is the one figure worth sitting with. Crime here runs sharply higher than the Brighton and Hove baseline — well over double the parent authority's rate — with anti-social behaviour and violence and sexual offences together accounting for roughly six in ten incidents. That's set against an overall safety grade that still lands respectably above the national average, and a trend that's been flat rather than worsening, so this isn't a place sliding backwards, but it is a place where the crime figures don't match the otherwise comfortable, well-connected feel of the streets. Preston suits people who want city-centre rhythm — a train platform, a full high street, flats rather than houses — and who've made peace with the noise and density that comes with all of that packed into a small footprint.