Nashua vs. Bedford

[jmatt]

Originally Posted by dognh

Nashua on the other hand has awful schools, a crime ridden inner city, tons of traffic on DW highway, punks from Lawrence hanging out at the mall. It does have a few good restaurants downtown and there probably are a few nice neighborhoods -- but if you're going to live in NH there so many nicer towns close to the border to choose from, including Hollis which borders Nashua.

Not true. Nashua has a far bigger and more diverse population than the surrounding towns, so the schools depend really on where you live in the city. None are truly bad though. If you want your kids to go to smaller, more homogenous schools, then Hollis, Amherst and Bedford are better.

Drugs? Drinking? The best parties when I was growing up were always those towns---especially Hollis.

[WannaComeHome]

Originally Posted by jmatt

Drugs? Drinking? The best parties when I was growing up were always those towns---especially Hollis.

<sigh> can't deny that they aren't there.. when I was in high school apparently most of the A-list crowd used. However.. being a music nerd I wasn't even aware of them until the middle of my senior year when we were discussing titles for the yearbook (class clown, class musician, most likely to....) and some brain thought we should have Class Head. Didn't even know what the term was! So.... if you're looking for it, you can find it anywhere you are. If you're not interested, it's pretty easy to ignore.

[seamusnh]

My commute from Amherst to exit 26 in Bedford (I must be next to BF66389 every day) takes 35 minutes if I get going early. It is 33 miles door to door. I live in Amherst, but on the Merrimack line. I take 3 through Nashua and take exit 11. It is 5 miles from there on a country road to my house in Amherst. We have three kids in the schools and have had a great experience with the school system. We looked in Hollis back in the mid-90's but they had not built the new high school then and most of the houses for sale were on country roads rather than in a neighborhood...

[DreamworksSKG]

You might consider Londonderry, Derry

-jeff--
Winchester, MA

[iclyde]

How about Merrimack? It's just next to Nashua on Rt 3 so pretty good for commuting plus it has good schools. If I had kids I would be comfortable raising them in Merrimack.

[Shea Higley]

Originally Posted by csw

We've been renting in Bedford for the last month, driving around to check out different towns and keep coming back to Nashua because of it's proximity to MA. Asking our in Bedford, I only get "horror" stories about life and schools in Nashua...
We are certainly interested in sending our kids (1, 4) to good schools, but are also looking for the entire package to be right. Also, we'd like to support our future public school by getting involved whereever we can instead of sending the kids to private school.

Somebody recommended Nashua's North End to us - at first glance the houses all look very nice, but the streets/sidewalks etc. don't seem so well maintained after all. what other nice pockets are there?

Thanks! Claudia

Claudia,
As a teacher in a NH public school, your best bet is Bedford. Their school system is top.....a high percentage of students go on to college. Nashua has some issues. I wish our children had gone to the Bedford school system.