Retired couple moving to Boston

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by A02

Sadly, I can't like/upvote this enough. I love Boston to death, but people are WAY more friendly in general San Francisco... and it's not even close. I've has people walk up to me when I lived in SF just to chat about different things (car I was renting, bag I had, etc). Each interaction was completely genuine and it took me off-guard at first. All I could think was "what's their angle, what do they want" at first. Finding new friends outside of work was ridiculously easy compared to New England. .

I can't cosign this. I lived in SF, inner Richmond to be specific, and its a horrible place to try to make friends overall. Yes, people are more chatty and pleasant, but its piles of fake nice. There is no depth to it, no realness, no actual interest in getting to know people.

Yes, if you want lots of pleasant chit chat with strangers, its great. For real friends, not at all.

[495neighbor]

Several friends of mine have downsized from the family home and moved to South Boston and love living there. Very walkable in the good weather and easy to get on the red line during the bad weather. It's the only section of Boston that has a beachfront. There is pretty green space along the water for walking and jogging. You will have difficulty finding a single family home as many have been torn down to build luxury apartments or converted into mulitfamilies.

Areas of Boston with the best single family homes and neighborhood associations are South End, Jamaica Plain and Ashmont Dorchester. Of these three, Ashmont would fit your waterfront requirements best.

Charlestown just feels very cut off from the rest of Boston for me.

The North End is beautiful and fun but very very dense and can be loud and busy with tourists.

[missionhill]

Originally Posted by 495neighbor

Several friends of mine have downsized from the family home and moved to South Boston and love living there. Very walkable in the good weather and easy to get on the red line during the bad weather. It's the only section of Boston that has a beachfront. There is pretty green space along the water for walking and jogging. You will have difficulty finding a single family home as many have been torn down to build luxury apartments or converted into mulitfamilies.

Areas of Boston with the best single family homes and neighborhood associations are South End, Jamaica Plain and Ashmont Dorchester. Of these three, Ashmont would fit your waterfront requirements best.

Charlestown just feels very cut off from the rest of Boston for me.

The North End is beautiful and fun but very very dense and can be loud and busy with tourists.

Good to hear about South Boston to counter what I wrote earlier about obnoxious frat brother types with bank jobs. My impression from other people's comments so happy to be wrong. The waterfront is great there!