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Hi there - we are a family of 5 - daughters aged 5 & 7, new born son of 3 weeks, husband will be working in Princeton, Plainsboro, and sometimes Philadelphia so we will be relocating to somewhere in between - we really have no clue about what neighbourhoods to choose from, work will be in Philly less than Plainsboro so being nearer to the latter would probably make sense. We will be here for a year and want to experience as much as possible and travel too but clearly a family oriented place with good quality housing, leisure facilities and schools is a priority. Any help much appreciated.
Christine-You could live in Plainsboro or West Windsor, they share an excellent school district and both are about 1/2 hour commute into Princeton. West Windsor has the Princeton Jct train station with train service to Philly. Parking at the train station is hit or miss but the council has just approved about 20 new bus stops around the neighbourhood for travel to the station.
Plainsboro has a fair number of rental units (if that is what you are looking for) and also has bus service to the Princeton Jct station. Both are great places to live with lots of family friendly things to do.
The drive to Philly (depending on destination) is 45 mins-1 hour.
Hope this helps
ditto JerseyJ; Plainsboro might be your best option. You also might want to consider Hamilton, which is a little closer to Philly but still close to Plainsboro. Hamilton is nice and the schools are good so long as you stay away from the districts bordering Trenton.
Great - thanks for the suggestions - I forgot to mention that yes we would be renting, my husband's company will help us to some extent but we need to be able to give some indication of where we would like to live.
As always, people are underplaying the parking situation at the Princeton Junction train station. It's beyond awful. You won't be here long enough to get a parking permit (there's an 8 year long waiting list) and the daily spaces are few and far between.
Although you are not looking at buying a house, you may want to look at realtor.com (if looking in Hunterdon, Somerset counties and north, try gsmls.com). It has some rentals, but it will show some pics of houses, which may tell you a lot about the towns you are looking in. You can also make an evaluation of the possible number of rentals by seeing how many condos and townhouses are for sale.
Then once you find a town, you may want to search it on wikipedia for more info. I would use googlemaps, or maps.live to look at the towns from a bird's eye view. (IMO, you will see parks, farms, or congestion)
another way to find out about specific towns is looking at nj.com/forums, which is sort of like this forum, but may have more activity on any town that you focus in on. I also look for the local newspapers to see if there are any major problems rearing their ugly heads.
ditto JerseyJ; Plainsboro might be your best option. You also might want to consider Hamilton, which is a little closer to Philly but still close to Plainsboro. Hamilton is nice and the schools are good so long as you stay away from the districts bordering Trenton.
Just as everyone stated, I would agree on those areas. You can not go wrong and the schools are GREAT!
You should try Chester, NJ. We have a lot of international residents that have relocated here, so you will be in good company. Schools are great. Probably about an hr to Princeton/Philly. Also, 45 mins from NYC. If your daughters step dance you will find plenty of dance schools in the area. The Irish Community Center is located in Wharton, about 20 mins away from Chester. Our parish priest is from Ireland. You will feel comfortable in Chester. Good luck in your search.
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Originally Posted by christinejf
Hi there - we are a family of 5 - daughters aged 5 & 7, new born son of 3 weeks, husband will be working in Princeton, Plainsboro, and sometimes Philadelphia so we will be relocating to somewhere in between - we really have no clue about what neighbourhoods to choose from, work will be in Philly less than Plainsboro so being nearer to the latter would probably make sense. We will be here for a year and want to experience as much as possible and travel too but clearly a family oriented place with good quality housing, leisure facilities and schools is a priority. Any help much appreciated.
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