Moving to Boston
Sadly, Ally is moving to another town. She needs some advice on her new home city. She writes:
After a long decision making process our family has decided to up and move to Boston. We have been living in Portland for the past 7.5 years. It has been a very hard decision but better employment opportunities and family won out. I was wondering if there are any former Boston mamas living in Portland that might be able to give some advice about where to live etc. We plan on buying a home and we don't too live too far out of the city (oh did I mention we don't have a disposable income?) We are interested in family friendly, walkable neighborhoods if there are any.
I lived in Boston for three years on a very tight budget, and left at the end of 2002. I liked it a lot, and it is a very walkable/public transit-able city, but it is really expensive, overrun with drunken students and tourists, and painfully segregated. We lived in East Boston for a while - it's still very close to downtown by public transit, but is cheaper than Somerville and Jamaica Plain (the two neighborhoods where all our friends lived - really nice places, but more gentrified. It was still fairly working class when we left, with a weird but kind of charming combination of the older Italian-American community and the new influx of South American immigrants. I can't speak to the suburbs, which is probably where you'll end up, due to price, but my impression is that the northern suburbs are cheaper. Good luck!
Posted by: Sara | February 18, 2007 at 09:57 AM
My brother and his wife live in Jamaica Plain. I go out there quite frequently. If you e-mail me, we can talk more about it.
Posted by: kirsten | February 18, 2007 at 01:36 PM
Ally, some of our dearest friends moved to Boston about two years ago. They grew up Canadian but have lived most of their adult lives in Portland and Seattle, so they've made the big adjustment to the East coast and Boston, specifically. They have three girls, ages (approximately) 7, 4, and 2. They're an amazing family, and amazing at finding all the places and info about kids, great food, and culture, wherever they live. If you send me an e-mail, I will give you our friends' e-mail address.
I wish you the best!!!
Posted by: Kaaren | February 18, 2007 at 01:36 PM
I'm from Worcester, which isn't too exciting, but if I move back, which I might, I will probably live there near my parents, as the cost of living is much less than the Boston area. Framingham is pretty cool as well, and maybe a bit cheaper as it is farther out from Boston. It is right on Route 9 so there is good access to all sorts of places.Some of the little towns along highway 495 are kind of cute, like Milford, Hopedale, Franklin. Franklin actually has access to the T (the commuter train). Avoid looking at places like Concord and Newton, or else your heart will be broken at the beautiful, million dollar homes! Fun to visit, but hard to live there! Good luck, and if we move back, I'll look you up!!!
Posted by: Debby | February 18, 2007 at 01:53 PM
I grew up in Boston. I moved to Portland after college and stayed here for about seven years. When I was pregnant with my daughter (now 4 years old) I convinced my husband to move back to the East Coast. His company had an opening in Providence, Rhode Island, so we ended up moving there instead of Boston (much more affordable, but only an hour away from Boston, so we spent many weekends in Boston.) We ended up missing Portland a little too much though and moved back here after only 15 months. However, my sister still lives in Boston. As others above have mentioned, it's a REALLY expensive place to live. Jamaica Plain is great - close to downtown with lots of shops and resturants to walk to - but it's gotten very pricey. Some friends of mine sold their condo in J.P. - 2 bedrooms with a 1970s kitchen - for $360K almost three years ago - it was only 900 square feet. You might check out a few of the neighborhoods close to Jamaica Plain which have also gentrified a bit in recent years but aren't quite as trendy. I don't think you'll find any bargains, but the prices may be a little better. My sister lives in West Roxbury. Center Street which defines "downtown" West Roxbury has come a long way in the past few years and there's a West Roxbury stop on the commuter rail that can have you downtown in about 10 minutes. A friend of mine recently bought a house in Roslindale (home of Trethewey Brothers plumbing, if you're a fan of "This Old House.") Roslindale has always been a fairly working class Boston neighborhood, but it's proximity to the city brought gentrification. Another neighborhood with a similar history which is also pretty close to the city is Brighton. The thing is though, the Boston Public Schools are notoriously bad (my parents are both public school teachers and taught for many years in Roslindale - my sister and went to private school in the suburbs because the Boston schools were so awful) so with small children at home, unless you're planning on private school, it might make sense to check out some of the suburbs. Many of the suburbs closer to the Rhode Island border (towns like Attleboro and Foxboro)have decent schools and reasonable housing prices and most of them do have a commuter rail stop, so that if you're commuting into downtown Boston, you can avoid the traffic (which pretty awful.) My sister may have some other suggestions. She's lived her entire life in West Roxbury, Brighton and Brookline. I'm happy to give you her email address if you'd like....
Posted by: Stephanie | February 19, 2007 at 10:07 AM
Hi- I am not in an Urban Mama in Portland. In fact I am not a Moma at all. But I do live in Massachusetts and I have lived in Portland. I actually found this site while researching possibly moving back to Portland.
Boston is a great city, but as everyone has mentioned it is very expensive, the public schools are not great, and the weather stinks(it is 6 degrees here today). I lived in the city for many years in various neighborhoods (back bay, the fenway, brighton,Somerville and the North End). I currently reside in Newburyport on the North Shore. As previous posters have mentioned you may want to check out the burbs. You may find better deals North and West of the city. Feel free to email me any questions you may have.
Posted by: Amy | February 19, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Thanks for all the informative responses. But I forgot to mention that I am from Mass. I am fully aware of the weather, housing prices etc. I am just not too familiar with the close in urban neighborhoods. It looks like we might be looking in and around the areas that people posted. I will definitely be emailing a good number of you. Thanks so much!
Posted by: ally | February 19, 2007 at 12:19 PM
Ally, we moved here a year ago from Mass after having lived there for almost 4 years. When we moved there our goal was to live as close to the city as possible, while still buying a home (renting was not an option for us as we'd already been homeowners). My husband's job was in Hudson, which is a town West of Boston, so our search started around the 495 corridor, along the Mass Pike. We would have loved to have lived in Westborough but it was too expensive, and ended up buying in Shrewsbury which was literally the closest town we could afford to live in, and it was still almost an hour outside of Boston! Ultimately, we decided that we really are not suburb people, but as far as suburbs go, Shrewsbury and Westboro are nice ones with good town amenities and good schools. Shrewsbury had a wonderful parks and rec system, a great mom's group called SCDC (I think that's what it was called), and a good school system. While living there Shrewsbury was also several times mentioned as one of the towns with the best "bang for your buck" in terms of property taxes, which was definitely not the case in Westboro. If you end up looking in the Western suburbs I have a great realtor recommendation for you. She sold our house for top dollar just when the market started to slow last year and really worked her bum off for us.
Posted by: NoPo Mama | February 19, 2007 at 12:59 PM
My SIL lives in Boston, in Roslindale for years, and they recently moved to Newton Center for the better schools. Both she and her husband commute to the city for work.
Posted by: Blair | February 20, 2007 at 10:04 AM
Hello Portland Moms! A mutual connection just recommended I check out this site and I saw this post and wanted to respond. Ally, please feel welcome to check out Boston Mamas (http://www.bostonmamas.com/), and feel free to get in touch if you want to chat more about places to live. I'm a Boston area lifer, with the exception of a few moves for grad school. :-)
Posted by: Christine of BostonMamas.com | February 22, 2007 at 04:45 PM