Help! Get me off Cape Cod!

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Ronniec78

I would say Cohasset would be a great choice or even Duxbury. Pembroke is a decent town but I know nothing about their school system. Hingham and Norwell are two other options. If it were me I would choose Cohasset because it's probably the most upscale town on the South Shore. I wouldn't say Plymouth is a good bet because it's not really a nice town. There are parts that are nice but for your price range you can get a place in a nicer town. I would even think Marina Bay in Quincy would be a good choice, but I'm sure the school system in Quincy is not very good.

Plymouth is not a nice town, but Quincy is?
Each to his or her own, of course, but I'd choose Plymouth over many of the towns just south of Boston, for the sake of sanity and escape from traffic alone. North Plymouth isn't the best area, but other parts of town are very nice: ocean views, country views, beautiful cranberry bogs in the fall, lots of new shopping nearby, a pretty and historic downtown that does manage to lure about a zillion tourists each year - it's good enough for them, and makes for great people-watching. House prices are WAY better than farther north. Cohasset and Scituate are nice but they're out there all right, not convenient for commuting. Duxbury aka Deluxebury gets either rave reviews for being a nice posh community or raspberries for having turned into a soccer mom enclave. I hear these comments from people I know who live there. Norwell has a charming old center with a post office, pretty neighborhoods, and that's about it except for Assinippi corner. Parts of Pembroke are lovely, but again, it's out there. Nobody I know has much good to say about the Silver Lake School District, but didn't Pembroke break off from that? Not sure.

[Ronniec78]

I said Marina Bay is a nice place since she is looking for a condo and the school system probably isn't.

[seabreeze3]

I've been reading some posts on Belmont. Looks like they have good schools and in my research I've discovered that they have a reputable fine arts program. Any thoughts here on Belmont? Does it have more of a suburban or urban feel?

[Ronniec78]

I don't know much about Belmont. If you go to Wikipedia and look it up I'm sure it'll give you some good info. The stats on City Data seem old (2005) so I don't put too much into it.

[brightdoglover]

Belmont is urbane-suburban. No tract houses, lots of old double-deckers (fixed up) and older nice houses. Very expensive, very green, a very short hop on public to Cambridge/Boston. It's a very desirable place to live on every level, except expense.
Mitt Romney lives there and rammed through an LDS temple, big honkin' ugly thing, in Belmont, right above Rt.2.

[RLCMA]

I would say Plymouth is your best bet just due to the fact it has a somewhat trendy downtown compared to other towns on the South Shore. If you're looking to stay south of Quincy I would say it's a good choice. You can get a lot for the money you're looking to pay for a house as well since Plymouth is more affordable than most towns on the coast of the South Shore.