Considering Hampton, is it nice, and is it safe?

[fishnfool]

I like Dover, it just seems too isolated from the rest of the seacoast. It's juuuuust far enough away from Boston, the ocean, major highways etc. to be appealing to me when Portsmouth is right there. It is convenient though if you spend a lot of time in the mountains though.

[rmcewan]

Originally Posted by jingles689

by the way had you checked out Manchester or Dover? Now THOSE are areas to avoid!

For anyone who has lived in or close to one of the major urban areas in this, or any other country there is NO place in NH we'd consider unsafe, unsavory, or unlivable. I wouldn't walk the streets of my home town in England on a weekend night because there is a VERY VERY good chance I will be mugged, knifed, or - probably - both by one of the roving gangs of "hoodies" that are terrorizing the cities and the unarmed police can do nothing to stop them without inciting the wrath of the various wacko lefty watchdogs and local governments (try messing with the cops or troopers in NH and you'll be eating cruiser hood faster than you can scream police brutality!). By comparison to London, L.A, Vegas, Philly, NYC, DC, Chicago, SF, or any of the other cities I've been to in the last few years, I would rate NH as "mostly harmless". This coming from a guy in a town that just had a teen killed some during sort of domestic fight in the last week. Now little Madbury has a 1 in 1700 murder rate for 2008 - what's that? 10x the national average!!!! Yet, I KNOW it was a freak incident hardly indicating some sort of crime wave.

[NH2NCMom]

I thought of you when I read that article - and I have to think that's the first murder I've heard of in Madbury since I even knew the town existed! But of course it's not a mass serial murder either, it's very isolated just like the few that have happened in Dover - it's not like a gang is going around killing a bunch of people - I don't even hear about that in Manchester or Nashua.

Originally Posted by rmcewan

For anyone who has lived in or close to one of the major urban areas in this, or any other country there is NO place in NH we'd consider unsafe, unsavory, or unlivable. I wouldn't walk the streets of my home town in England on a weekend night because there is a VERY VERY good chance I will be mugged, knifed, or - probably - both by one of the roving gangs of "hoodies" that are terrorizing the cities and the unarmed police can do nothing to stop them without inciting the wrath of the various wacko lefty watchdogs and local governments (try messing with the cops or troopers in NH and you'll be eating cruiser hood faster than you can scream police brutality!). By comparison to London, L.A, Vegas, Philly, NYC, DC, Chicago, SF, or any of the other cities I've been to in the last few years, I would rate NH as "mostly harmless". This coming from a guy in a town that just had a teen killed some during sort of domestic fight in the last week. Now little Madbury has a 1 in 1700 murder rate for 2008 - what's that? 10x the national average!!!! Yet, I KNOW it was a freak incident hardly indicating some sort of crime wave.

[dubthang]

Originally Posted by fishnfool

I like Dover, it just seems too isolated from the rest of the seacoast. It's juuuuust far enough away from Boston, the ocean, major highways etc. to be appealing to me when Portsmouth is right there. It is convenient though if you spend a lot of time in the mountains though.

I guess it depends on what you consider the 'seacoast'. I've always seen it as two seacoasts, northern and southern. In my mind there is a line from Exeter to North Hampton that divides the two. I'm a fan of the northern section, so Dover (to me) is the gateway to the seacoast coming from the northern part of NH. Dover is an akward shape too (that's why it is called the Crescent City) meaning that certain areas are a lot closer to the seacoat than others. I feel that people really can't go wrong living in Dover (as long as the job they want is provided).