[hipstermomdanbury]

Danbury is the fastest growing city in Fairfield County for a reason. Every time I turn around a house is being sold in our neighborhood for full asking price. Two months ago, the fellow about four doors down sold his house for full asking price in 2 days. Our neighbor approximately 10 houses down sold her house for above asking price in 2 weeks.


The town has so many cool groups it is now hard to keep up. Restaurants popping up everywhere along with an art scene, literary scene, tons of bike and 10Ks, running club, hiking club at Tarrywile Park, children's Tinkergarten classes at Tarrywile Park, cool Victorians and homes that are gorgeous on the inside. It's quiet yet not boring. Neighbors are great.

Lot's of people here are city-urban-farmer types. I think the last I read Danbury is really popular with backyard chicken owners and the farmer's market and concerts on the green are walkable.


The schools, six of them, were named Schools of Distinction. The families are approachable and the kids on the block actually run and play outside together, right on the street and come over to each other's houses.


Everything is here from Whole Foods to special markets, everything. It's a blast. The vibe here is positive and up and coming. You must go to the cool Brazilian bakeries like Le Elephant and International Bakery.


The little league here is awesome as are the youth soccer teams. The Tech High School is super popular and hard to get into, unless you live in Danbury.


There is a huge homeschool community and a ton of private schools and parochial schools, the only town with three parochial schools plus a Lutheran school plus other religious schools, plus a magnet school and soon a charter school.


The city just gets better every month.


I never had it on my radar until recently and wished I moved here 10 years ago.

Prizes are moving up. Most significantly, houses are being snatched up very fast.

[LilyMae521]

Sounds like you're happy there. Thanks for sharing such positive info. I always thought Danbury was a cool place, now I know. :-)

[hipstermomdanbury]

Hi LilyMae:


The funny thing is, I always loved towns with city centers and loved my time living in NYC, the outer boroughs and downtown in Fairfield County towns. Then, when I had kids, I thought I had to give this all up and move to a quiet suburban town.


But, something, always, did not feel right. Call it loneliness or boredom or a lack of spontaneous community, it is hard to describe.


I never thought of Danbury because I had elevated the more suburban towns (in my mind). After a trial of renting in these suburban towns with Kohls, and BJs and the like, going to their parks and town squares and libraries, I realized, wait, this is not what I want for my kids.


I want my kids to leave their house go to the local park and literally meet 5 new friends, to mingle with all kinds of people, try new foods, be exposed to culture and a walkable city.


We have never looked back and I am so glad we listened to our intuition.


Now, thankfully, I am meeting all these young families here in Danbury who felt this same way. The are so interesting on so many levels!


Of course, being that Danbury is so centrally located, one can be in any Fairfield County town, up or down, in 20 minutes or so.


I told my husband today, wow, I thought we would have to give up so much to be a modern family in Fairfield County, when I say give up, I mean the kind of pleasures we enjoyed before the kiddos.


But, now I see that Danbury is the solution and I am so glad we discovered this town that is vibrant, interesting, ever changing and improving and, well, hip!


I will admit, we also love the low taxes and the awesome library that will soon be remodeled.

[Stylo]

Glad you like it there. I moved from Danbury to Milford (another fast growing CT city) and would never look back. That is home, though, so there's loads of nostalgia and warm and fuzzies. I just would never want to live there again. Love the action, culture, things to do, train access etc. of the coastline.

I always hoped downtown Danbury would bounce back but haven't seen much movement there other than a few projects. Much prefer Bethel downtown.

[BPt111]

Originally Posted by Stylo

Glad you like it there. I moved from Danbury to Milford (another fast growing CT city) and would never look back. That is home, though, so there's loads of nostalgia and warm and fuzzies. I just would never want to live there again. Love the action, culture, things to do, train access etc. of the coastline.

I always hoped downtown Danbury would bounce back but haven't seen much movement there other than a few projects. Much prefer Bethel downtown.

I prefer Greenwich-New Haven corridor better train access and closer to things

[Stylo]

Anyone have photos of the downtown Danbury new developments?

[MrGompers]

Originally Posted by hipstermomdanbury

Danbury is the fastest growing city in Fairfield County for a reason. Every time I turn around a house is being sold in our neighborhood for full asking price. Two months ago, the fellow about four doors down sold his house for full asking price in 2 days. Our neighbor approximately 10 houses down sold her house for above asking price in 2 weeks.


The town has so many cool groups it is now hard to keep up. Restaurants popping up everywhere along with an art scene, literary scene, tons of bike and 10Ks, running club, hiking club at Tarrywile Park, children's Tinkergarten classes at Tarrywile Park, cool Victorians and homes that are gorgeous on the inside. It's quiet yet not boring. Neighbors are great.

Are you a transplant ? What you wrote above can't possibly be true. According to most here no one moves to CT because taxes are too high. In fact people are fleeing because of the taxes. So how are houses selling in 2 days ? New businesses opening up ? That can't be true either. Business environment here is dead last in the country and regulations are too onerous. Add in CT is not a "right to work state" and we might as well be living in USSR of 1965.

Maybe you can organize a tour for city data members to highlight all these things. OR maybe find one of the local yahoos that keep writing editorials in the newspapers about how CT is falling apart and take them on a tour.

[Lalalally]

Originally Posted by MrGompers

Are you a transplant ? What you wrote above can't possibly be true. According to most here no one moves to CT because taxes are too high. In fact people are fleeing because of the taxes. So how are houses selling in 2 days ? New businesses opening up ? That can't be true either. Business environment here is dead last in the country and regulations are too onerous. Add in CT is not a "right to work state" and we might as well be living in USSR of 1965.

Maybe you can organize a tour for city data members to highlight all these things. OR maybe find one of the local yahoos that keep writing editorials in the newspapers about how CT is falling apart and take them on a tour.

I think she posted in another thread that she moved to Danbury from NY; so yes, for a NY-er (except NYC), property taxes would be much less in Danbury. Housing prices would be much less too.

[MrGompers]

Originally Posted by Lalalally

I think she posted in another thread that she moved to Danbury from NY; so yes, for a NY-er (except NYC), property taxes would be much less in Danbury. Housing prices would be much less too.

Not according to 90% of the posters here. As for property taxes in NYC I believe they are actually lower than CT's, but that may only apply to Manhattan.

[Lalalally]

Originally Posted by MrGompers

Not according to 90% of the posters here. As for property taxes in NYC I believe they are actually lower than CT's, but that may only apply to Manhattan.

That's why I said except NYC -- Manhattan and the other 4 boroughs do have relatively low property taxes. It's the other counties (Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam) that are high, and for someone coming from one of those areas, Danbury property taxes would seem cheap.