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Our family is debating a move to the Philadelphia area for my husband's work—he is currently working remotely, but may need to be on-site in the future.
We are currently in the New York suburbs, and there is a lot I really like here, so I am reluctant to leave unless we can find something comparable. We live in an excellent, very small school district; we live across the street from the elementary school, so our kids can walk by themselves and also use the playgrounds whenever they want; the middle/high schools are under a mile away, with sidewalks, so also walkable. Because the school district is so good, all of the neighborhood kids are in school together—very few go to private school. And it is relatively diverse, more than 40% POC (big Asian & Indian communities in particular), with a large Jewish population as well. We are also less than a mile with sidewalks to the nearest village downtown, with supermarket, restaurants, pharmacy, etc. Our house is modest-sized, about 2000 sq ft (I would ideally like something at least a little bit larger), but our lot is about 0.5 acres (a decent-sized lot is important to me, as I am a gardener, and I need space to work with).
I already know that our money will go farther in the Philadelphia area, even on the Main Line, and our budget is pretty generous, so I'm not worried about that. But does this type of housing stock and community even exist anywhere in the area? (Generous-sized lot, walkable to excellent schools and downtown, a diverse, progressive community?) Or is it either/or, big lots/houses but not walkable vs. small lots/small houses but walkable?
My husband will be working in Malvern. I have read that the Tredyffrin-Easttown school district is the best, and that would be convenient in terms of his commute, but I am honestly not enthusiastic about the housing stock that I am seeing right now—a lot of it looks very McMansiony and totally car-dependent, which is not really our taste.
I like what I see of Lower Merion better, but would the commute to Malvern be a pain? And what neighborhoods specifically should I look at for that balance of lot/house size and walkability?
And Radnor? Same questions.
Do the Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Villanova faculty tend to live pretty locally? Do the neighborhoods have a college-town feel to them? We have spent a lot of time around academia and so would feel comfortable in that type of community.
Are there any other suburbs other than the Main Line that we should consider? Swarthmore, Media? I suggested West Chester to my husband, but he wants to be closer to the city. Schools are our top priority.
I think where you are sounds wonderful. Would your husband be working in person five days a week in Malvern? If he would be in person just a day or two a week, I would just see if he could commute. I could be wrong, because I don't live in Philadelphia or its suburbs, but I don't think that you will find the diversity and good school combination here. I love how you can walk everywhere too! Locals, am I wrong?
Thanks for your reply! Our current area really is wonderful (and not necessarily the norm for NY suburbs, we just got really lucky). The downside is very high real estate prices and absolutely outrageous property taxes, but we accepted that when we moved here. Our families are also here, which is another reason I'd prefer to stay.
We are hoping that my husband will be able to stay partially remote and commute down maybe 2x a month for 3 days at a time, but he is currently negotiating that with his employer. I wanted to learn a bit more about the area in case we do ultimately need to move.
Lived in rural NJ, with few restaurants and entertainment and retired in 2015 and moved to West Chester Borough, we love it. People are very friendly, the town has a community spirit, downtown is alive with always something going on, tons of places to explore, live theater, 75 plus restaurants and many shops. The Halloween and Christmas parades are amazing and not to be missed. It seems they always have something going on downtown where they shut down the streets and have a great time. Here is the Borough Parks and Recreational web site to give you and idea of the things happening.
If you love gardens Longwood Gardens is 20 min drive, amazing place a must see. We are members and visit many times during the year. https://longwoodgardens.org
Just a short drive away are more gardens are in Delaware
With a tradition of horticulture going back 300 years, Philadelphia is America’s Garden Capital.
Visit more than 30 public gardens, arboreta, and historic landscapes, all located within 30 miles of our landmark city.
Delaware the place with no sales taxes(think liquor, stoves, tv, washer/dryer, etc.) is 20 mins away. Train service to Philly is 15mins away in Exton, local train you are in center city in 55 minutes . You can be in the country in 10 mins. Schools are rated very high. Tons of shopping nearby, King of Prussia mall is 20 mins away, largest mall in the east. Many others malls in the area. The Philadelphia Airport is 40 minutes away.
West Chester is a university town, West Chester University with about 13K students on and off campus, if that bothers you may not like it. You have to be careful not to live near student housing, this website from the borough lists all student housing http://www.west-chester.com/DocumentCenter/View/34
With that said we have had no problems living near the university. We take advantage of the many free concerts, lectures, etc the university has to offer. The University has a large music program with many talented students. We attend quality concerts 2-3 nights a week, all for free.
The local police and campus security keep close tabs on the students and pretty much do not put up with a lot of stuff. Our encounter with students have been great, we were moving in a couch and struggling when all of the sudden it got lighter, a few big guys saw us and stopped and helped and would not take anything for their time.
Some streets parking can be a problem so look for homes with off street parking or where parking is not restricted. They love to give out $25 parking tickets! Here is a map http://www.west-chester.com/DocumentCenter/View/764 of where parking is controlled.
Homes can come on the market and be gone in a few hours or a day or so.
When we were looking to move out of NJ,we looked at Media, Chestnut Hill, Phoenixville, Doyestown and several places in Delaware and settled on West Chester a decision we do not regret at all.
I want to add to TLC's post about West Chester in order to address your husband's desire to be closer to the city. I went to West Chester University and lived in the borough for a year after I graduated. I ultimately decided to move to be closer to the city, but that was because I was 23 years old and driving to the city nearly every weekend.
At the end of the day, if you're not going into the city constantly, it's really not a problem. Plus, while the drive can be a bit of a pain, it really isn't as bad as you would think. My route was 202 South to 1 North to 322 East to 95 North into Philly. Of course, there is always the public transit option that TLC pointed out 10-15 minutes away in Exton. You would just need to park your car there.
West Chester borough is truly a great place and shouldn't be discounted.
Media Borough is relatively small, and nice singles or townhomes are limited and come at a premium. Teardowns are becoming more common in the borough though.
Media is the county seat of Delaware County, State Street (main street) is full of shops, bars, restaurants. There is a Trader Joe's and even an active theatre featuring various plays, musicals, and community events. And any big box store you can think of is within a 15 minute drive.
Media is part of the Rose Tree Media School District, a highly ranked district. Media Elementary School is located downtown.
The surrounding communities in the district (though not walk-able) are wonderful: Middletown, Upper Providence, Edgemont. All have tons of housing variety at various price points.
Media area to Philadelphia is easy via driving or the SEPTA regional rail, accessed by several stations in the area. (think metro north).
Swarthmore is another wonderful community in an excellent school district (Wallingford-Swarthmore), but it's not as lively, and the "downtown" area is much more limited.
For the Main Line: Wayne, Devon, Radnor, Villanova, Bryn Mawr, and Ardmore are great communities with their own downtown areas (especially Ardmore). Again, housing in the walk-able areas is usually limited, and the surrounding communities are more spacious with a great variety of housing stock. All school districts along the Main Line are nationally renowned (Lower Merion, Radnor, Tredyffrin-Easttown).
Diversity is a mixed bag in suburban Philadelphia, mostly white in these communities, but certainly open and accepting all of all types of people (from my experience).
I'd expect to pay $600k-$1M+ for a nice single in or around the downtown centers.
Adding a few more items to what the others have posted:
I'll second cpomp's recommendation of Media as a place to live. It has an almost throwback feel to its Main Street — State Street is one of the few suburban streets in the country with a trolley line running down its middle. It also has, if not the best, one of the best restaurant and dining scenes in the Philly 'burbs.
Ardmore, OTOH, is the biggest of all the Main Line's downtowns — it's home to the Lower Merion Township municipal building and one of the country's oldest planned shopping centers, Suburban Square. And South Ardmore, on the other side of Lancaster Avenue from the railroad tracks, is the oldest and ear.largest Black community on the Main Line, settled not long after the Civil War.
With few exceptions, houses on the Main Line are more modest south of Lancaster Avenue than they are north of it. You might be able to find some half-acre lots to Lancaster Avenue's south in Villanova and points west, though. Wayne, in Radnor Township, is the second-best Main Line downtown, and the community is actually quite historic, with many grand Victorian and Gilded Age homes within walking distance of the downtown and Regional Rail station. Diversity isn't as good as it is in Ardmore, though.
West Chester University is the largest of the colleges and universities in the Philly 'burbs, but its downtown strikes me as more grownup than college-town, maybe for the reasons TLC1957 outlined.
All of the school districts serving these communities are quite good. However, I'd like to point out one thing about the West Chester Area School District, which also serves seven townships surrounding West Chester Borough (one of them in Delaware County), that might clue you in on West Chesterites' attitudes. The district's third and newest high school, located in the southeast part of the district near historically Black Cheyney University, is named for Bayard Rustin, the openly gay, Black, Quaker West Chester native who was a close adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (he introduced King to the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience during the Montgomery bus boycott) and the actual organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Bayard Rustin High School usually ranks among the 20 best high schools in the state. Unfortunately, the part of the district it's located in isn't terribly walkable.
You might also want to peruse the March 2022 Real Estate Issue of the magazine I write for (I edit the Home & Real Estate channel on the website and usually put together the Real Estate Issue main feature, as I did this year). This year, we focused on the 14 most walkable suburbs in the region, based on the Walk Scores of their town centers. Every suburb discussed here so far as a place you should consider made the list.
There's also a sidebar on five particularly walkable neighborhoods in the city. Since your hubby will be working in Malvern, the only one of the city neighborhoods you might even want to consider would be Chestnut Hill, which is one of the five. In mulling it over should you so choose, you might want to do so in tandem with my contrarian take on school rankings, published in the 2020 Schools Issue (it's partly autobiographical; you will see my first-grade report card from the grade school I attended in Kansas City in it, among other things). Some of the parents I interviewed for the article have their kids enrolled in public grade schools in Mt. Airy, the neighborhood next door to Chestnut Hill; one of them is a Lower Merion High grad who held the all-time basketball point-scoring record at the school until Kobe Bryant broke it. You might want to ponder what she has to say about discipline in schools.
If your kids are approaching high school age, what I say in this article IMO doesn't apply, for kids undergo changes during puberty that also affect the high school environment in significant ways. But, having said that, your kid in a Philadelphia public school has a shot at attending the single best high school in Pennsylvania and one of the 50 best in the country per U.S. News, Julia Reynolds Masterman. (It's a highly competitive academic school that you have to clear an academic bar and win a lottery to enter, and most kids enter it in sixth grade, the lowest grade in the school.) Failing that, they could attend the high school that's ranked 8th best in the state, Central High School in Ogontz, which I pass every time I travel from my East Germantown home to Center City. Central — the city's oldest high school and also an academic high school that you have to clear a bar to get into — also has the most diverse student body of any high school in the Philadelphia region. And you should be able to find houses with half-acre lots within walking distance of Chestnut Hill's really cool shopping district. The downside: You will pay city wage tax (about 3.8 percent). The upside: Property taxes are lower in Philadelphia than they are in its suburbs, often by a sizable margin.
You're right, it should have. Its central downtown intersection (Bridge and Main streets) has a Walk Score of 90. Mea culpa.
I'm not sure where the Phoenixville Area School District falls in the suburban public-school hierarchy.
And a lot of exciting development in the borough, including a new massive apartment project planned on the West end of Bridge Street.
Per Niche, the district ranks #69 of 496 ranked districts in PA. Top 15%, very good overall, a tier lower than the likes of Rose Tree Media, Swarthmore, Radnor, etc., But anything in the top 10-15%, I view as splitting hairs.
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