Working in Boston/ Toronto vs Boston (Cambridge, Quincy: homes, neighborhoods, theater)

[LiveSoundDjLighting]

The City of Boston are not place to be driving around, but rather walking, Buses, and or Trains.

The city having special "BTD" Boston Transportation Department employing employees to issued citation, and to tow any vehicles that miss-parked or standing after 4:00pm in almost Boston area (downtown) and more extreme in the winter time when snow plowing all vehicles must be move off-street parking. City of Boston lost over 5,000 parking spaces in and around downtown where extreme congested. Expecting to receives parking citation when street cleaning (cleverest revenue generator). Car Insurance are another major premium for rocketing when registration vehicle in Boston areas.

Of course, for those who employing by City of Boston are more of defending Boston. What about the crime rate(s) in Boston each week(s)? What About the K-12 public school? For the Universities, are among the best in the Nation, but not the K-12 school.

The Transportation is another major improvement still yet to come, from Buses to Trains in Boston area.

Downtown Boston is considered the most congested in the nation.

[touha]

good day allo live in orlando and i wont to move to boston, pls need help to find job in daycare or with old personnei m women and realy must move to bostonthanks a lotmy e mail : lavie30@hotmail.com

[tuteishungry]

Originally Posted by mattry

I posted a thread earlier about the possibility of a move from Toronto to Boston.

Is there anyone on this board that has relocated to Massachusetts from Toronto or anywhere in Canada? What are your impressions of Boston as compared to Toronto and would you recommend a move to the area?

In addition I wanted some insight on the working conditions in Boston as well. I am employed in the Commercial Construction industry as a Engineering Project Manager and my wife is a Paralegal. Is there anyone who is involved in either industry that could give me their impressions of working in Boston and also the short and long term outlook for the above Industries in the area (Construction and Legal Services)

Thank you again in advance!

I was born and raised in Boston and live outside of Boston. Its expensive and especially with the economy.

[john_to]

I have moved from Toronto to Boston 2 years ago for a job and now I am back in Toronto.

The two cities are very different but whether you find that matters or not depends on your social situation, ambitions, lifestyle, etc.

For me, I found living in Boston difficult. I grew up in Toronto, am single and gay, used to the big city life of vibrancy, diversity, easily accessible eating, drinking, live music, nightlife and all that but also love nature, the outdoors and wilderness.

Compared to Toronto, what Boston offers in terms of the urban scene is sparse, limited, expensive and difficult to access. If you are part of a campus (either as a student, or perhaps faculty), it is probably a little better, but I am long past that stage. Compared with southern / central Ontario, Massachusetts and the New England area offers few good, scenic, uncrowded experiences -- you have to drive a lot further out, in heavier traffic, and you have to expect to find a lot more people.

One of the key aspects I realized about Boston (and pretty much all of Massachusetts) is that it was built as a small town / village. That small town orientation is still pretty much with the city, not only in its street layout and traffic patterns, but in the prevailing mentality of the people.

Despite the growth in size, despite the universities, and despite the IT and biotech hi-tech industries, many Bostonians still think of themselves as living in a small town, and most prefer it that way (most people live in the sprawling suburban areas, each of which was established as a small 5 - 25 square mile independent town).

This manifestation of this is that people are very much oriented to their own locale -- they show up at the town halls to talk about parochial issues, their social circles and interactions take place primarily within those confines (or nearby towns) rather than being oriented towards the central city. When they do go into town, it is usually limited to a Red Sox game (or perhaps the Symphony), or perhaps Christmas shopping at niche stores. Downtown is not as central to many people as it is in Toronto / GTA.

Also, because of this, every town tries to jockey for advantages for itself -- while a town may want money from commercial places and industry to offset property taxes for its residents, it will also try to restrict traffic, parking, business operating hours and locations, congregation of "undesirable elements", etc.. The result of this is NIMBYISM gone wild -- it is very hard to build and improve anything (for example, the football stadium is located 40 miles from the town centre, almost at the Rhode Island border). This also drives up the cost of property and doing business, which are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

It takes a lot of time, patience, and effort to make friends. The New England style is taciturn, reserved, and at times, can be quite gruff. Because of the small town mentality and its established nature, it takes quite a lot of effort for the locals to accept newcomers. One of the questions you will be asked is "how long will you plan to stay". They are generally suspicious of newcomers people who seem to be footloose. Class divisions are sharper and more on display -- the town in which you live, the accent (the stereotypical "Boston accent" marks lower class origins -- there is a highbrow Boston accent that you will hear at the Symphony or NPR announcers that is quite different -- though the accent differentiation seems to be gradually fading).

That said, one thing I admire about people in Boston is that I find that in general, they have a pride of workmanship and are typically competent at what they do. I think that is stronger than in Toronto.

Boston is not as white and WASPish as is typically portrayed. It still attracts a lot of immigrants outside the campus, both educated tech types and labourers from everywhere -- it has the highest concentration of Portuguese-speaking immigrations (mostly from Brazil, but you will find Cape Verdeans from Africa). It is wrong to say that it is not cosmopolitan, but I would say that Bostonians do not embrace cosmopolitianism as thoroughly and easily as Torontonians.

Businesses are scattered. The town "centers" have only a small number of stores and the town centers are widely separated by residential areas (dark and uninteresting to walk through, particularly at night). If you like trying different cuisines, going to different music clubs or bars, you typically have to drive from place to place. In general, you will find the entire Boston area to be much darker at night than in Toronto (even in the suburbs). And because of the small village hub-and-spoke design, narrow streets, it gets crowded and congested very quickly (e.g., try parking and then walking around Coolidge Corner on Saturday).

Food is dominated by chain stores in the outlying areas and the typical high traffic tourist traps. Independent eateries are few and widely scattered, and in comparison to Toronto, more expensive and not as good at every price range. Food tends to be much saltier and heavier with butter / oils -- the sort of "California cuisine" type of light touch cooking with fresh local ingredients isn't in vogue.

Getting around town is difficult. Roads are in bad shape, public transport is very limited and unreasonably slow, the layout is bewildering (hub-and-spoke types with 5 way intersections, roads that start heading north and then turn east), narrow streets and buildings on both sides and the lack of tall buildings outside of downtown means a lack of navigation aid with landmarks, the signage is terrible, and there is practically no traffic engineering standard (signal lights can be directly overhead and you have to stick your head out of the window to see what light it is), and parking is a nightmare (few public parking, not prominent, what little street parking available is fraught with Resident Permit traps). You can bet on getting hopelessly lost.

While a lot of Americans talk up about Boston as a walking city, I find it is poor and not that practical -- sure, you can do the tourist circuit of the Freedom Trail, but basically the streets are narrow, sidewalks are broken, poor street lighting and the restrictions on neon signs means that it is pretty dark at night, and unless you are content to be restricted to one area (say Harvard Square), in practice, you still have to drive or take transport to go elsewhere (e.g., to Jamaica Plain or even Allston / Brighton -- a walk there from Harvard Square will take almost an hour). Boston is a "walking city" only in comparison to hopelessly car-centered places like Dallas, and even then, during the day. There is hardly any pedestrian traffic at night except in a confined area near the "centers" or the student zones -- not only is it boring and lonely, but it gives you a sense of unease even if the crime rate has dropped. Contrast this to downtown Toronto at 8 pm on a worknight.

So Boston doesn't fit my tastes and my needs -- I like to go out, hop from place to place between dinner / drinks / movies / live music, I like walking around town and discovering new things, I like meeting people and making friends, I like vibrant energy of the city without feeling claustrophobic and congested, I like easy escape to the wilderness.

However, if you are more a stay-at-home type and are partnered / have a family, if you want a big lot with large frontage and a charming (often historic) house, if big box and homogeneous chain stores fulfill your needs, you don't mind driving greater distances to places, then you may be quite happy there and will do just fine.

[Mr. Joshua]

^Good therapy, huh John-to? Sorry Boston was so oppressive to you.

The OP was from more than two years ago. Just thought you should know.

[john_to]

Mr. Joshua,

I am not sure I would call Boston oppressive, but it didn't really fit my lifestyle.

I wrote this to summarize my own experience on this particular topic and try to provide a comprehensive experience on relocation, regardless of when the discussion started or date of the last post (early January of this year).

Superficially, the cities in North America look similar -- just a few changes in landmark, climate and perhaps some regional accents -- so it seems that the decision to move is more a calculation of salaries, cost of living, climate or sentimentality -- and can be made to work.

But as I discovered, it is a bit more than that. The seemingly subtle changes required in lifestyle can start adding up to be burdensome over time. Digging deeper, you find that the local culture and mentality can have significant underlying differences -- not in the way that is portrayed in the movies and media or in a one line summary, but something else.

These differences may or may not matter to one or one's family when relocating -- that depends on the person's tastes, needs, career situation, or whether one has ties to people there already or not.

I was not sufficiently acute in my awareness of my own conditioning and habits -- one gets used to a way of lifestyle without being necessarily that conscious of it. Only when one relocates will that be put to the test. A quick tourist visit or even spending a brief period there is typically not quite enough to determine the impact.

There are objective differences between cities that people can point to. But in the end, cities / locations are experiential and phenomenological in nature.

[Cart24]

John TO, may I ask where in Boston you lived? I can only assume that you lived in one of the surrounding towns since you mentioned driving into CC and parking, something that you would never do living in Boston Proper. With that being said I can understand why you had the experience you did, since living in Boston is completely different from the outlying towns.

[Cart24]

Here is the link to another thread I replied to on the same topic.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-...vs-boston.html

[TomDot]

quote=john_to;8414370Mr. Joshua,

I am not sure I would call Boston oppressive, but it didn't really fit my lifestyle.

If I were to cut and paste the adjectives that you used in your prior post, anyone would clearly see that you found your Boston experience profoundly oppressive in every way. Especially in the way that you have passive-aggressively insulted the population of an entire city.

I wrote this to summarize my own experience on this particular topic and try to provide a comprehensive experience on relocation, regardless of when the discussion started or date of the last post (early January of this year).

Your social experience here failed and you want to vent. That's all this was about.

I was not sufficiently acute in my awareness of my own conditioning and habits -- one gets used to a way of lifestyle without being necessarily that conscious of it. Only when one relocates will that be put to the test. A quick tourist visit or even spending a brief period there is typically not quite enough to determine the impact.

It's good that you have finally recognized your limitations.

[john_to]

TomDot,

Please do not misread what I have said. With a Dorchester address, I can see why you may be defensive, but I have not insulted the people of the city in any way.

Whenever cultures are compared, somebody is going to get his feathers ruffled, especially if it is anything other than fawning, glowing praise. But censorship and PR exercises do not advance any understanding, so I will brave it anyway.

For instance, some cultures are gregarious and display easy interactions with visitors and outsiders, while others are more private and formal and prefer building a long period of building trust and value deep ties. The latter may view the former as superficial and flaky, while the former may view the latter as off-standish.

These sort of differences do not just involve Boston -- you can see these sort of differences anywhere in the world. It should not be judged as either "good" or "bad". But knowing the character enables one to set expectations and strategies accordingly.

There are a lot of things I can observe about other places, including Toronto. Toronto has its share of snobbery (e.g., watch the the star chasers in Yorkville), and parochialism (e.g., the futile St. Clair street car fight). Toronto is building high rise condos and office towers which some may not like. And not everyone likes the hustle and bustle of big city life. Toronto doesn't rally around its sports teams in any way like Metro Boston does.

Whether these things matter to a person depends on his or her tastes. And a lot of one's feelings will depend on the particular people one meets, and the particular interactions. But to say that there is no difference in character and mentality in general between the two places is either naive or dishonest.

BTW, some of my comments such as NIMBYism gone wild, the parochialism of the town halls, etc. are equally lamented by many native Bostonians I've met (born there and lived there all their lives).



Mattncind's post is interesting.

I lived in Lexington because my work was out on 495 for a reasonable commute.

You are right in that if I had lived around the busy campus areas like Allston or Cambridge, some of my experiences may have been different.

But one thing that won't be affected is the city layout and its impact on what I do at night. The districts in downtown Toronto are adjacent to each other (financial center, main shopping street, bohemian Queen Street / Kensington market, Yorkville, U of T, etc.) and are connected by thoroughfares that are populated with small business storefronts. The walking distance between these areas is much shorter (if necessary, it is about a $5 taxi ride), and as a result, it is well lit and lively at night.

Contrast that with walking to CC for the indie cinema after a dinner at the South End, for instance. The lot size and city texture is quite different.

Yes, the old architecture and the numerous statues and monuments give Boston more character than the International Style / tract homes of Toronto. But I prefer modernist rather historic charm for every day living.

It is interesting to note that your social circle is dominated by other 20 / 30 something transplants.