Those leaving Boston, or who have left Boston. Do You Have any Regrets? Where did you move? (Arlington: crimes, buy)

[UrbanQuest]

I do agree with the sentiment about Boston being much more integrated with it's suburbs than NYC.

Boston is much like Seattle, Philadelphia, Portland OR, Minneapolis and even Chicago. New York City is so huge with it's 8+ million people that the suburbs really aren't really as important or well regarded. I live in the suburbs in Central New Jersey and we feel like New York doesn't belong to us. It feels like New York belongs to the world and that the world is it's suburbs (or at least the entire Northeast corridor). I love being part of the New York Metro but I am having a hard time feeling connected to the rest of it.

If people ask me where I'm from, I say "Central New Jersey". So that's it, they usually have zero idea this a a huge suburban area for New York City. New York needs to come up with a label for the entire metro area to link us together. Chicagoland or Bay Area come to mind as examples. Probably being a multiple state metropolitan area makes this kind of difficult to do. Here's some examples I've thought about;

The Empire
The Empire Region
Metropolis

Trips into the city feel it's like traveling to some kine of urban fortress.

Hopefully the trans-hudson tunnel helps things...

[Frodo2008]

Originally Posted by lrfox

I was in Maine for more than 4 years. While I never lived IN Boston before (I lived 40 minutes outside the city and made it a second home), I missed it while away. I finally made the move into Boston and couldn't be happier. Now, I'm taking a room in an apartment with some friends on Mission Hill until I get my own place (or at least a more long-term room share as this is for the summer only). I couldn't be happier.

This isn't to say that if I were given an opportunity to live elsewhere I wouldn't take it. I love New York City and if I have a chance to live there for a while (longer if I like it) I'll take it. Same goes for Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and a few other cities that I've enjoyed visiting. I'd also take a chance to live in Europe, Hong Kong, or Japan if I get it (I'm hoping I get this chance during graduate studies). Unless one of these places sweeps me off my feet (Quebec City came VERY close to doing just that), Boston will always be home. I love this town and it just feels right. The cost of living is worth it to me. I'd rather live without a car in 700 square feet in Boston than in a 3,500sq ft home and a luxury SUV in, say... Tampa.

Boston is CERTAINLY not for everyone. I can understand how and why people get frustrated with Boston. However, for me... it's perfect (well, close to it).

So basically there is no way of knowing which is better Boston or some other city unless you live in Boston for a while first and check it out?

[anagram]

i grew up in boston and lived there till i was 18 . ive since lived in nyc and most recently tempe az. i assumed before moving to the phoenix area that every city was essetianally the same type of deal nice urban style good public transportation et. al. i was horrificilly wrong. when i arrived here in arizona i found there to be no downtown night life whatsoever it seemed as soon as 7pm rolled around phoenix shut down. luckily i lived in tempe which is where asu is located so there was some nightlife but tempe is no where near comparable to boston it is more like a smaller version of salem. also the public transportation is positively horrible they just opened up their version of a train and it does goes from an outlying suburb to downtown however it only travels north-south on one track and the buses can take up to 45 mintues to come which is not a good thing when its 115 out. but what i miss the most about boston is the culture there is no identity here in arizona it seems like a wannnabe los angeles and the food sucks many a night i would have sold my soul for a chinese place to a) be open after 9 pm b) know what peking ravioli was. also the pizza sucks its horrible its like going from reginas to dominos es no bueno i guess for those reasons among others im moving back to boston

[Frodo2008]

Originally Posted by anagram

i grew up in boston and lived there till i was 18 . ive since lived in nyc and most recently tempe az. i assumed before moving to the phoenix area that every city was essetianally the same type of deal nice urban style good public transportation et. al. i was horrificilly wrong. when i arrived here in arizona i found there to be no downtown night life whatsoever it seemed as soon as 7pm rolled around phoenix shut down. luckily i lived in tempe which is where asu is located so there was some nightlife but tempe is no where near comparable to boston it is more like a smaller version of salem. also the public transportation is positively horrible they just opened up their version of a train and it does goes from an outlying suburb to downtown however it only travels north-south on one track and the buses can take up to 45 mintues to come which is not a good thing when its 115 out. but what i miss the most about boston is the culture there is no identity here in arizona it seems like a wannnabe los angeles and the food sucks many a night i would have sold my soul for a chinese place to a) be open after 9 pm b) know what peking ravioli was. also the pizza sucks its horrible its like going from reginas to dominos es no bueno i guess for those reasons among others im moving back to boston

Well it sounds like Houston is definitely better than Phoenix if you're not exaggerating. In Houston we have a pretty good Chinatown and there are quite a few places in Chinatown open until 3 AM. That's way past 9 PM. Houston has a pretty nice downtown. The public transportation sucks here too. This being Texas where everybody likes having a yard and Houston is the oil capital of the world you bet your a** the public transportation here is going to suck. That's exactly the way the oil companies want it. The oil executives aren't going to get rich if everybody is using public transportation.

[Northman]

I only lived in Boston for a couple months, back in '06. I had wanted to move there forever, and finally did it........but I planned it poorly and chose the wrong job along with an awful apartment. Ended up going back to Georgia and then up here to Mich. where I've been since '07.

Boston was everything I'd been looking for, and to this day I regret that I was so impatient and ignorant with my decision making when I went there. What a fabulously interesting place to live and work. Save maybe New York, I find it hard to believe there's a better town for a middle aged (40) single person such as myself. Since I was there for such a short time, I never got to experience a lot of what the city had to offer.

I moved back to Mich., my home state, in an attempt to recapture some of that childhood magic........which worked for the first year, but now I'm completely bored. Came back here hoping to meet Ms. Right and finally settle down, but 2 years later I haven't even met anyone I was slightly interested in. I'm also sick and tired of living in such an economically depressed area. It's ALL you hear about here.

Thinking long and hard about giving Boston another go. If I'm never going to marry and have a family I want to live in an exciting, stimulating place, and this aint it. Also considering Chicago, but would love to have another shot at Boston.

[Pear Martini]

I left Boston 3 years ago and now live in Miami. Miami is a great city but Boston is where its at for me. I need 4 seasons, m*******s, and fenway park. Instead Miami is hot and hotter, shame on you if you dont speak spanish, and bandwagon fans.

Actually, my new cleaning lady chastised me for being half latin and not speaking spanish. She really said "Shame on you".

Bost is the home of the cultured and Miami is the home of the ignorant

[Martha Anne]

Originally Posted by adambos

I left Boston for NYC about a year ago and don't regret it for a second. I lived in Boston for about 6 years and began to feel as if I had outgrown it. It lacked the sophistication and cosmopolitan vibrnacy that I craved. the nightlife, or lack of it was abysmal, and it's intrerdependance on the suburbs forced the quality of life issues in the city (back bay) down. With only 500,000 residents of the city of boston, the city never had the votes to push accross quality of life laws. Liberal elites in newton and cambridge (living a different lifestyle and not affected by the same variiables) simply wouldnt budge. There is less panhandling in manhattan than on Boylston St. Attitudes were negative and I got sick of the bellyaching.

I want to be clear. Boston is a GREAT city. MUCH better than overgrown suburbs like Atlanta or Dallas. It is, in my opinion, one of America's premeier cities. However the opportunities, attitudes and depth of new york have been incredible, and it has exceeded my expectations. I love it here.

I have a brother who has raised his family in the Upper West Side of Manhattan after going to college in Boston and staying there till his mid 30's. He tells me he'd never move back to Boston and I try to understand why but cannot. Maybe you can help me there.

I am a native of Long Island, NY, but spent plenty of time in museums in Manhattan while growing up. Then I moved to the metro Boston area to attend college (in Boston itself) and grad school next to Boston and stayed anther 20 years. I had to move back to NY for personal reasons and am "stuck" here, owning a house in Queens, am 25 minutes by train to Penn Station and know Manhattan pretty darned well, am up to date on what it is like, took classes in the upper East Side recently, spouse works in lower Manhattan, we had series ticket to the Met Opera, go to the Met Museum of Art, yada, and I do not like Manhattan life at all nor do I admire nor envy those who live in Manhattan. What is your idea of sophistication? I really want to know, not being sarcastic nor challenging. And I did not see one word from you about the fabulous cultural, intellectual, architectural and historic aspects of Boston. This truly amazes me! In Boston, you have the greatest medical school, arguably, in the world, the finest teaching hospitals, the adjacent MIT and Harvard with all they have to offer, and you don't even mention this fact as it affects all aspects of life in Boston, IMO. You have the Boston Symphony Orchestra which music critics would say is even better than the NY Philharmonic, you have the Museum of Fine Arts, the Harvard art museums, you have far, far better harbor vistas than in NY (unless you consider looking at the Statue of Liberty to be better, and looking at Long Island City or New Jersey better), you have a walkable city and Beacon Hill and Commonwealth Avenue, the Boston Red Sox, etc. What do you call "sophisticated"? Madison Ave, Wall Street, the art scene, the fashion scene? There is far more going on in the brain in Boston than in Manhattan, IMO. And it is far more beautiful than Manhattan, unless you love nothing but skyscrapers and buses, subways and taxiis everywhere.

I would absolutely love to move back to Boston if I could (but it would be in a place like Arlington or Lexington), not Boston itself, as I don't want to live in the city environment.

[Martha Anne]

Northman!

You wrote such a great post. There are scads of great women out there who want to meet someone as thoughtful as you! Don't give up! (I am happily married - don't stay single. It's more fun being married.)

[Martha Anne]

I know what central NJ is like - much of it is nice. I've been to Summit, for example.

Tell me why you love being part of the NYC metro area. I think it s*cks. To me, NYC is ugly and too crowded.

I know Manhattan well, too, but this is how I feel about it.

[Lcstyle]

Originally Posted by Pear Martini

I left Boston 3 years ago and now live in Miami. Miami is a great city but Boston is where its at for me. I need 4 seasons, m*******s, and fenway park. Instead Miami is hot and hotter, shame on you if you dont speak spanish, and bandwagon fans.

Actually, my new cleaning lady chastised me for being half latin and not speaking spanish. She really said "Shame on you".

Bost is the home of the cultured and Miami is the home of the ignorant

Oh please, spare me the Boston versus Miami rhetoric. I like both places and both have their place. Miami is somewhat on the ignorant side, but Bostonian's have forgotten their human side. If your half latin then you should know some Spanish? Why not, every other culture prides itself in its own uniqueness and is celebrated for it.

Boston is Especially horrible if your single:
Women in New England are cold and dry as the bedrock they are born on. They have no human energy unlike Miami women and are horrendously repressed. They'll talk all day and night about useless cerebral crap and will wait 20 years for Mr. Wonderful to show up before they put out and ultimately end up settling for whoever as long as he has a ring and is ready to be Daddy.

And it's too bad because there are so many hot women in BOS, but the place is one big convent! Boston women are great if "look but don't touch" is your thing.

Anyways not to focus strictly on this one aspect of the argument, my other point is regarding the weather, yes, some people like all 4 seasons, and it is extremely hot in Miami all year round. That being said, some people also could care less for the constant overcast and gloomy days that you have in Boston. There's never really a bright, bright "sunshiny" day.

IMHO : All your culture and all your intellectualism won't mean crap when your dead, either. These people up here (in boston) are so repressed its not even funny, it's like you guys have ZERO "game". Everything is cut and dry, All intellectual. You guys seriously need to RELAX and CHILL. It amazes me too that so many people I know up here consider smoking pot something normal. Back home in Miami we actually thought all the potheads were losers. I was amazed that Mass. decriminalized personal amounts of Marijuana, great now your going to get an increase in drug dealing.

Also, the roads in Mass are terrible, are you guys kidding me? I can't believe your freeways don't at the very least have light poles every so many miles like we do back home. I mean we're talking major highways that are unlit! For a place where the road conditions can get dangerous with black ice I'm amazed this isn't something that was solved a long time ago before I got here.

The maintenance on the roads is terrible. This place is called TAXACHUSETTS for a reason, but where do your tax dollars go? Corruption?
Just recently the MBTA hit budget cuts and the Mass Pike on Easter Sunday was down to 1 toll collector backing up traffic for miles. It's ridiculous.
If you guys are so "cultured" and "intellectualized" up here then why is it you can't seem to do more with less, and by that I mean, find new and innovative ways to do more public works for less taxes? I guess my argument here has some threads to the old democratic versus republican argument. You guys up here have big government and lots of taxes, yet our roads in Miami are excellent. Your "weather" argument can only take you so far. A lot of counties even ran out of Salt and sand in their budgets this past winter due to running out of money. The whole thing stinks of corruption including the commonly known problems with the Big Dig. So many people say (including myself as I am the first one) that there is a lot of corruption in Miami, but then when we look at these few things here in Mass then I realize it (corruption) really is a human problem not just a localized problem.

I still don't get why so many brazilian's who are used to the hottest tropical weather come to Mass. For someone who doesn't like the cold this place has got to be the absolute worst. I give it 10 years before Boston turns into another Miami with all the Brazilians coming here.