Best towns and/or neighborhoods

[maggiekate]

wayland, Needham, and concord gets my vote, if rich. One time Lexington was on my dream list.. well one may dream.

[brightdoglover]

I think Wayland compares to the other towns for schools (and housing expense). I don't know about this materialistic snobbery you mention- have only seen it downtown, like Back Bay/South End and other "youngish" overpriced areas.
Wayland, however, is hardly walkable. It's more akin to its rural roots. Anyway, that's overall what I've seen in visiting people I know who live there. Maybe I've missed the walkable "town" parts.

[azaleaeight]

I think what you're looking for may not exist as well.

On the one hand, one person's "snobbishness" is another person's "reserved". On the other hand, as someone living a town away from Andover, I do know there can be some degree of people's thinking their nice home and nice town amount to importance that's on par with, say, curing cancer.

I, personally, would rather deal with a little irritating snobbishness in the air than deal with people who act like the Beverly Hillbillies or like Jerry Springer's guests; so I think you ought to find the town/city you like best, live there, be yourself, and ignore any snobbishness you run into.

There are worse things in life than being a little on the snobbish side; and most of the time if you get to know such people they really aren't all that snobbish anyway (although some are on the ridiculous side ).

[wellesleyres21]

a year late but. medfield, medway. not snobby, walkable (esp medfield), and have varied economic strata. houses in medfield go from 300K to over 2 million. some houses in medway are 200K but if you have a big family and want a big house with lots of land, medway gets my vote. you can get a 4/5 br, 3,000-4,000 house on an acre or more of land for around 500 to 700K. plus medway is the third safest town in massachusetts. medfield is great too, less rural and a little closer to the city.

i grew up in wellesley and it is VERY snobby. also, the houses aren't worth the money you pay for them. we payed 950K for a 3 bedroom, 1,800 sq ft house on 8,000 sq ft of land. the cheapest houses in wellesley maybe go for 700K, and they are tiny, tiny houses. weston is worse, dover and sherborn are about the same. don't know much about the towns farther north but lexington is lovely and very intellectual, but also very pricey.

[Boston344]

I live in shrewsbury on the northboro line and have loved living here. I'm 24 and have gone up through the school system since I was in kindergarten. Our school system is very strong and competitive, with a gorgeous HS state of the art classrooms, electronics and teachers. Athletics are awesome in the schools, too! Many of my friends went to schools like BU, Brown, Tufts and Providence college but were never stressed out so that's a good sign!

There's a nice park called Dean, with a small lake and there is also lake quinsigamond on the other end. The center of town has a small but adequate library, little restaurants and pizza shops and the usual dunkins and exxon haha.

My family has lived in shrewsbury 15+ years and our neighbors are great and we are very friendly. I have not encountered much snobbiness (even though our neighborhood area is 700K+) and the diversity is increasing (i'm korean american)
The commute to Boston usually takes me 40 min (I 290, I 495 S, I 90 E)


if you need more info, just write to me

[camer]

Have you checked out Needham? I actually think it would be a better fit than Belmont or Lexington. Lovely town.

Welcome to MA!!!!!

[camer]

Housing costs are not a concern for us and we could afford the prices of, let's say, Wellesley or Weston. Both communities (which are lovely) meet the good schools criteria. Wellesley also meets the "walkable" and good town center criteria but Weston does not for the most part. The big thing i worry about with both a Weston and a Wellelsey is #3 - the snobbiness/"stepford wife" factor along with very few stay-at-home moms. I hope I have not offended anyone but I have friends that live in both towns and they complain about this all the time. But they also tell me that what I'm looking for just doesn't exist .


If you can afford to live in Wellesley, go for it! Yes, it has a snobby reputation (like ANY other affluent community) but heck, I'm sure there are enough stay-at-home moms you can befriend. I think what you are looking for DOES exist. Best of luck to you. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.