Buying a home, East or West Windsor? (Trenton, Princeton: neighborhood, high school)

[HastroX]

So the choices we've narrowed down to is West Windsor or East Windsor to buy a home for similar prices:

West Windsor- 1600 sq. ft ranch house single floor, 1 car garage, built 1960s, neighborhood is like a hidden driveway so doesn't look at "nice" compared to EW. Property taxes are ~9K (cause of smaller sq. ft I imagine)

East Windsor - 1800 sq. ft colonial, two floors, 2 car garage, 9 ft. ceiling, built late 1990s, neighborhood looks "nice" . Property taxes are ~11K

Which one should we go for? While a majority of people would say West Windsor, is the academics THAT much better than East (Hightsown High School?)

Should I give the benefit of doubt that East Windsor is getting better based on this article? https://patch.com/new-jersey/eastwin...ve-report-says

Also Route 1 seems to be more congested than Route 130 for east windsor as well.
Is there any hint or news of EW getting better or staying the same? I would say if we're buying West Windsor at top price for that home than I would rather get the East Windsor home so it "improves" as an investment over time.

Background: My wife is a Nurse that works at Penn Medicine, and I work in PA (north wales)

[jerseyj]

We faced that choice some 25 years ago. We bought the 1960's home in WW.

Our jobs were in WW and Hamilton/Trenton and we needed access to NYC trains.

Back then the school ratings were the same as today, EW tax rate was higher than WW ( still is), we opted for the better schools and the station resale value.

Have you looked at Robbinsville? The schools are better than EW (I'm assuming that schools are important).

If your wife will be working at Penn/Princeton, WW is a quick commute through Plainsboro.