Concord, Manchester, or Nashua to live? (Loudon: apartment, rental, violent crime)
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Soo husband and I have decided that we definitely want to move to NH but are really torn between these 3 cities. In your opinion, which one would be the best to live? Here is what we are looking for:
1. Work- I am a Medical Administrative Assistant and my husband works in maintenance/custodial field. Of course work is huge so which would be best to find jobs in these fields with less commute (I don't drive so would be taking bus)? Is there a hospital that offers better pay/benefits then others?
2. Affordability- I'm assuming they are all pretty close in price to rent an apartment but is there one with better options for the price, or even a PM I should go with or stay away from? We are looking to spend around $1100/month for 2 bedroom preferably with heat included if possible. I know this is kind of a silly question but any landlords/PM's you would recommend/stay away from?
3. Festivals/Holidays- Looking for area with fun things to do like festivals, movies in the park, community events.
4. Crime- I know crime happens anywhere but what are there particular areas to stay away from in each of these cities? All places have that one street or two (some have areas) to avoid.
Soo husband and I have decided that we definitely want to move to NH but are really torn between these 3 cities. In your opinion, which one would be the best to live? Here is what we are looking for:
1. Work- I am a Medical Administrative Assistant and my husband works in maintenance/custodial field. Of course work is huge so which would be best to find jobs in these fields with less commute (I don't drive so would be taking bus)? Is there a hospital that offers better pay/benefits then others?
2. Affordability- I'm assuming they are all pretty close in price to rent an apartment but is there one with better options for the price, or even a PM I should go with or stay away from? We are looking to spend around $1100/month for 2 bedroom preferably with heat included if possible. I know this is kind of a silly question but any landlords/PM's you would recommend/stay away from?
3. Festivals/Holidays- Looking for area with fun things to do like festivals, movies in the park, community events.
4. Crime- I know crime happens anywhere but what are there particular areas to stay away from in each of these cities? All places have that one street or two (some have areas) to avoid.
Thank you!
To me if your dead set on living IN one of these cities, Concord is a layup pending you can find jobs there. which I think you should be able to in those fields. The further north you go in NH the cheaper the cost of living goes as your further from the Boston Commuting range. Concord is more of a big town than a city so its safer than Manchester and Nashua and has more of a close-knit feeling to it. Google market days in concord. Same thing for Crime. Concord is probably the safest as well.
With all that said if you can choose a town outside of the city itself you may get different responses as there are lots of nice towns in commuting distances to all those cities.
I'd look at towns in the areas to the East/West along the corridor between Nashua/Manchester, to give you the most options for employment commuting.
Regarding crime and safety, check the old threads here about "tree streets" and where not to live in Manchester and Nashua. Even the most dangerous part of either city is tame in comparison to Lawrence MA and isn't really "dangerous" to live in, just prone to property crime, panhandling, etc.
I have lived in both Manchester and Concord, and I think Concord is by far the nicer, safer, more pleasant place to live. It's also maybe every-so-slightly less expensive than Manchester, rent-wise, but even less expensive when compared to Nashua. $1100 is about the median rent for 2-bedroom in Concord, but there is extremely low-vacancy - below 2%. The same might be true of the other two cities. Can't advise on the job markets in those fields.
The bus issue is the sticking point. I'm not sure you can really get around entirely by bus in any of these cities, but Concord would be more limited, although, if you worked at Concord Hospital or in the nearby medical offices you'd be on a bus route and could choose housing accordingly.
Manchester might be tame compared to Lawrence, but that's not saying much. One point that occurred to me recently is that while Manchester might only be bad "for NH" rather than bad compared to big cities, it seems like all of the bad is much more in-your-face there. You can go to the downtown of many large cities, that have overall higher rates of crime than does Manchester, but you see less in terms of crime, homeless people, people who are clearly on drugs, panhandlers, etc.. Manchester's downtown area is pretty small, and you see stuff even right on Elm Street, but additionally you only have to go a couple blocks off it to have major crime. I'm not saying someone in that area is constantly at risk (there is violent crime but it is typically not entirely random), but it can be very unpleasant.
I'd look at towns in the areas to the East/West along the corridor between Nashua/Manchester, to give you the most options for employment commuting.
Regarding crime and safety, check the old threads here about "tree streets" and where not to live in Manchester and Nashua. Even the most dangerous part of either city is tame in comparison to Lawrence MA and isn't really "dangerous" to live in, just prone to property crime, panhandling, etc.
But how is the OP going to live in any of those towns if she doesn't drive? How is she going to get to work?
But how is the OP going to live in any of those towns if she doesn't drive? How is she going to get to work?
Concord is small enough to be walkable to many job sources. However, knowing our winters, wouldn't recommend that someone plan to rely on it! "Walking" through a foot of snow is no one's idea of fun. Snowshoe to work?
If mass transit is necessary, then choose based on that factor above all else. Good mass transit is pretty rare in northern New England. Can't say how each of those cities is in detail (hopefully more will chime in) but you will want to know for SURE that you have a bus route before you settle and take a job.
It is very, very hard to live around here without a car, that's just a fact.
Concord is small enough to be walkable to many job sources. However, knowing our winters, wouldn't recommend that someone plan to rely on it! "Walking" through a foot of snow is no one's idea of fun. Snowshoe to work?
I have actually lived in Concord, as I mentioned in my post. Concord is actually pretty big. Geographically-speaking, it's about 2-2+ times the size of either Manchester of Nashua, so there's no particular "walking" advantage in Concord, compared to the other cities. It is conceivable to walk to work, yes, if you plan things properly, but that's not always possible. You would really have to find your job, making sure it's close to rental housing (not a big issue in the Concord Hospital area, though as I mentioned vacancy rates are extremely low) and then find your apartment with your job location being the number one most important consideration. Budget may have to be flexible. But depending on where you live and where you work, it may be totally impractical to walk even during great weather.
Additionally, they have a huge problem with not plowing sidewalks in major residential areas (and some other areas) during the winter, which makes even short walks impossible at times, when in theory they should be doable and even reasonably comfortable, despite the snow and cold. In snowier winters, Loudon Road and Clinton Street are often totally impassable, with conditions which preclude the use of snowshoes or traction devices! That is despite both being big rental areas. It's actually kind of shocking. Loudon Road has complexes which house tons of immigrants who clearly don't have cars - you see them walking or riding bikes up and down the road, and they will actually be in the road - an extremely busy road with virtually no shoulder (and what little shoulder there is, filled with snow) - after snowstorms. I've seen them riding bikes against traffic in my lane. (By the way, I know it's actually the law to ride in the shoulder or in the lane (with traffic), NOT on the sidewalk - but Loudon is one area in which that is simply stupid and life-threatening in the best of conditions.)
But, as I said, they do have a bus system. It is limited, but could work. That said, as I went into in detail on some thread months ago, I really don't think you can live anywhere in NH car-free. It sounds like the OP would probably have use of spouse's car on weekends, which is better, but I still wouldn't want to be car-free during the week and totally reliant on foot or bus unless I lived extremely close to work.
Last edited by cowbell76; 08-08-2017 at 10:24 AM..
It is very, very hard to live around here without a car, that's just a fact.
Agree. Sometimes people think we're just being intentionally discouraging when we say this, or they think we just don't understand that they just want a "simple" life and don't really need to go many places. (I'm not saying this about this OP.) But it is completely impossible in most locations, and difficult even in the biggest cities. This is something some people just don't get because some other places have much more developed mass transit systems for similar-sized areas (or areas that "feel" about the same) and you can go from municipality to municipality on a shared bus system. I've lived car-free for years in two major cities (with bad winters), and would have loved to do it when I first moved here, but it would have made my life a nightmare.
It seems maybe doable for the OP, with prioritizing that need, but only because it sounds like the spouse would have a car. I'm not sure what OP would do if she had, for instance, a dentist appointment during the workday. You can plan things so you're on one of the limited bus routes between home and work, but any other errand would throw a wrench in the works. Plan for a cab in advance?
OP, are you able to drive if you had a car? Any reason you couldn't get another car in the future?
cowbell, we need to be careful to distinguish the urban core from the rest of Concord. Concord is typical of NH towns in having a very large geographic footprint while having a much smaller settled core. Even Nashua and Manchester have large footprints in relation to their population, although Nashua, as a commuter town to Boston, has a lot of totally car-dependent suburbs on its fringes.
Towns in NH are a lot like townships in the Midwest, and unincorporated parts of counties in the mid-atlantic. Most folks from outside New England don't realize this, since in most places a town is a settled area. Not here.
I agree about the snow issues, as I said in my original post. You could walk in the winter if you had to, but wouldn't be fun, and maybe not as safe as you'd want. For years, I lived in Wash, DC. I walked to work for exercise (and a detest of Metro), about 5 miles each way. We did get 20 inchers there every few years. Walking in was a real challenge, because it was up to property owners to clear the walks, some didn't, and I had to climb over a big plow pile at each intersection. At the base of each plow pile was a giant salt melt puddle. I quickly learned to use plastic bags on my feet, and then got waterproof boots. You probably could expect something similar in Concord.
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