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Man thanks for the reply. Aside from the downtown area, are there areas I should see in Concord and its surroundings that will give a good flavor of life there?
Hmmm...when are you going? In the peak of spring/summer I'd probably swing by Memorial Field (or if your kids are elementary age, maybe Rollins Park) in the evening to see families playing and sports leagues going full bore. Of course, I say that and you probably show up the one night of the week they're off.
During the daytime in summer Audobon sees a lot of day camp activity.
I'd recommend going to Fort Eddy at least to check out the cluster of box stores just off downtown - just dip in far enough to hit the LL Bean Outlet or EMS if nothing else. Dept/Box stores have been the purpose of that area for a long time, as much as the specific development has evolved.
Walk Main Street from Pleasant to the Capitol [Though the bakery, co-op and bookstore are the other direction from Pleasant] and don't miss the nook of shops on Warren between Main and State.
For light walking/hiking there are a number of options. If you like history a short drive up to Shaker Village can be in order, and the gift store is nice, though personally I prefer to walk the grounds for free in winter when the grounds are "closed. Or in town you could walk around at the White Farm.
A lot of the appeal of Concord isn't so much things one can see in a trip as just the fact that it's a comfortable family town in the day to day, if perhaps teenagers may complain that 'big city' entertainment is limited. Other value is in its proximity to other things - basically an hour to the seacoast, and less to the Lakes region, or Franconia Notch, etc.
Some nice local swimming/fishing spots, but probably hard to describe to someone who doesn't really know their way around
Interesting. I hadn't actually followed that plan.
Hard to say if it's a waste of money - back in the day the equivalent project was likely Eagle Square. While I wasn't a fan at the time and think it took a while to really find it's niche, I do think in the long run E.S. did help anchor the downtown against peripheral developments like Steeplegate.
So while I agree the project doesn't seem to offer much immediately (I mean, main street Concord is pretty dang walkable already), who knows, maybe the real value is long term. Occasionally planners do really know what they're doing
agreed. I am sure it will be nice, but if i was a Concord tax payer, its not where I would want my money going. Id rather see something done with Loudon Road.
Interesting idea. LR could certainly seem to use "something."
I'd suspect the challenge is that the business that currently are on Loudon Road generally cater more to a car crowd (fast food, banks, autoparts and car wash, etc.) and probably wouldn't support and would likely oppose changes that slow vehicle traffic even more in exchange for more foot traffic.
You'd likely have to have a developer putting private money into some sort of larger vision to reshape the area into something else entirely, and while possible that would likely also draw a lot more local opposition.
I had a chance to visit Concord, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Maybe it's because the weather was so gorgeous, but the city struck me as a very nice combination of small town charms (just about every car stopped for me when I crossed streets on foot; and people were very polite, which I appreciated and reciprocated) and city amenities like restaurants and shops. Even though the main street was in a big mess due to the construction, the downtown area was quite attractive and walkable. And that downtown was real, not some constructed HOA make-believe town center.
I saw a few very nice homes for sale within walking distance of the main street. I thought it would be lovely for my family to be able to stroll from home to the main street. I especially liked some of the houses near the University of New Hampshire Law School and the nearby park (W. Washington/School). Really elegant turn of the century architecture. On the down side, though, most homes within the walking distance to main street seemed run-down and poorly maintained. I was told that the local schools were mediocre.
I took the local road (Loudon?) to the mall area with Target and Best Buy and that stretch of the road seemed downscale.
I also drove to Hopkinton-Contoocook. It had a small, quaint "village center" next to the covered bridge, but seemed pretty rural otherwise. Bow had some nice relatively new construction for sale, but seemed to be exurban sprawl mostly, homes on 1-5 acres with almost nothing else. No town center, no shops, nothing walkable. But the schools seem to rate highly and both towns have very low crime rates (Concord seems to have slightly lower crime rate than the national average with high rape rate at about twice the national average).
I still had a few hours left over after that, so I drove to Portsmouth. The drive was really scenic with some small lake towns. I love that kind of a drive. So long as the weather cooperates, I can do drives like that every day! Portsmouth itself was quite pretty (and full of tourists, it seemed). The whole city seemed to be walkable all the way from restaurants and shops to the pier/park areas. I thought maybe it might be nice to have a main home in Concord and then own a small townhouse or condo in Portsmouth for weekend visits (or maybe something in Sunapee? I didn't get to visit the lakes region unfortunately). Do affluent Concord residents do that?
Overall, I liked the visit a lot more than I thought I would. I think I just might move my family there. It seems though I get either the walkable home in town (but with worse schools and higher crime rates) or higher quality schools and safer area but no walkability with Hopkinton/Bow. The big question for me is how community-oriented people are in these areas (Concord, Hopkinton, and Bow). Judging from the list of events online, there seem to be enough community events and activities, but I couldn't get a sense of that from the short visit.
My family and I really would like to assimilate into the local community culture and be a part of all that entails, so we are looking for an area with strong social cohesion. I would like my children to grow up with that organic sense of community and understand what it's like to be rooted.
I took the local road (Loudon?) to the mall area with Target and Best Buy and that stretch of the road seemed downscale.
I also drove to Hopkinton-Contoocook. It had a small, quaint "village center" next to the covered bridge, but seemed pretty rural otherwise. .
Good post, most of which echoes points we'd made to you in advance. The towns outside Concord are quite rural, but being wealthier towns have better schools at least on paper. Whether that's really because the schools are better in terms of teaching, or just that they have fewer disadvantaged/low SES students bringing down the average is hard to say.
Loudon is certainly not upscale. Once upon a time it was arguably the center for teen nightlife, back when the movie theater was closer in, plus there was a 2nd theater in the K-mart plaza that showed art films. That stretch of road really hasn't changed in forever other than the art theater closing, and the mall pulling away the main theater. So now it's somewhere between a throughway and a strip mall, and not particularly effective at either. I think Loudon has stayed as it is for a few reasons:
1) depending on your destination, it's pretty easy to bypass entirely via 395 or Sheep Davis or Airport or any number of other roads
2) it keeps some businesses that are moderately high traffic close and accessible.
Though the question that's been gnawing at me is, assuming you could or should gentrify Loudon Rd - where do those business go? And I don't know that there's a good answer for that. Thus I think it has stayed frozen in time party because it's easy to avoid, and there may not be a better solution anyway.
The towns outside Concord are quite rural, but being wealthier towns have better schools at least on paper. Whether that's really because the schools are better in terms of teaching, or just that they have fewer disadvantaged/low SES students bringing down the average is hard to say.
It seems to me that teaching quality is secondary to student/parent demographics in determining the "quality" of a school. For my family and me, school quality as such is not much of a direct issue apart from a more generalized influence it has on community quality.
I am much more immediately concerned with the respective crime rates. I really like some of the walkable homes near UNH Law School, but am concerned that the area is a part of the "red zone" on my ADT crime map created from using crime stats (Hopkinton and Bow are green, much of southern and western Concord is yellow).
Even though my family and I are coming from a highly urbanized metro suburban area, it is extremely safe (less than a quarter of the national crime rate - it has lower per capita crime rate, violent or otherwise, than Bow or Hopkinton). It is also very family/kids-oriented with lots of parks and playgrounds.
That brings up another question. I saw no playgrounds in Bow or Hopkinton or, for that matter, in much of Concord. Where do children play? Where do families congregate and socialize? It seems like the downtown Concord area might be the spot, but I saw hardly any families there during my visit. It seemed to cater to young adult revelers and older folks (grandparents?) mostly. In fact, one thing that concerned me about Concord during the visit was a seeming lack of families with young children.
Also, what are local churches (both Protestant and Catholic) like? Are they pretty well attended or otherwise provide many community events? New Hampshire has a reputation of having very low church attendance rate, so that's another area of "food for thought" for me. On a side note, given its history, I expected Concord to be heavily Protestant, but City Data says that among the 30-35% church-going public, 65% are Roman Catholics. Is this accurate?
What you saw was probably a function of where/when you traveled. Concord is definitely a family town much more so than a 'happening place' for DINKS and singles. Though it has made an effort over the years to improve on that score, it's still at core a family town.
Concord has a number of parks where kids play, though I'd say it's also a town where playing in neighborhoods/yards/houses is very common as well, as is getting out and hiking, etc. I'd suggested you check out Rollins Park in particular for the space, slides, pool, sports fields, etc., but there are options around town.
As for the crime rates, I don't have access to ADT but I'd caution you to look at both the neighborhood being selected and the legend and make sure you're actually looking at comparable data. Your profile doesn't say where you live now, but in larger metros you can generally boil down to more detail, whereas in Concord a lot of indices only pull city-wide data, so you may be pulling in commercial crime for concord, vs. only seeing residential crime if you're looking at your home neighborhood.
Sorry, everybody. I wrote a long post correcting my earlier information and providing some additional information and then realized that I was logged in using my husband's computer and account (we have several computers). I will re-write everything under my own account shortly.
Then breakdown of that into personal crime index 57 and property crime index 84.
Personal crime index is then further divided into indices for murder 30, rape 199, robbery 35, and assault 43.
Property crime index is divided into indices for burglary 63, larceny 113, and motor vehicle theft 30.
These match the crime data on City Data for Concord very closely. Concord is generally a moderate crime risk city, slightly below average (except for, for some reason, rape, as I mentioned earlier).
The ADP site also provides a map of the zip code (and neighboring zip codes) and breaks down the zip code into various sectors. Each sector is colored variously green (low), purple (moderate), yellow (medium), orange (high), and red (very high crime risk).
The zip code 03301 is divided into two sectors, north and south. The dividing line is roughly Little Pond/I-393. The northern sector is purple (I mistakenly thought it was red, but it is not), meaning moderate crime risk. The southern sector is yellow, denoting medium crime risk. Medium is higher than moderate under this categorization.
The zip codes 03304 is completely green (overall index 29) while 03229 is also completely green (overall index 35).
One thing I should note is that the property values in Bow and Hopkinton are pretty similar across large swathes. It means that residents are of similar socio-economic demographics, with likely low Gini coefficient (higher the number, the greater income disparity). In Concord, higher priced homes (say $500K-$700K) sometimes abut lower priced homes (say $150K-$250K). In general large disparities in wealth/income tend to correlate to increased crime rates, as do lower education levels and presence of non-Asian minorities (the last of which appears not to be an issue at all in this area since the population is very homogenous at 92-96% white, with Concord at the lower number, and Bow/Hopkinton at the high number). One important caveat, please note that I wrote "correlate," not "cause." I am NOT suggesting that non-Asian minorities or lower education levels necessarily CAUSE crimes, but rather that such demographic factors CORRELATE with higher crime rates according to crime data.
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