Best Philadelphia Suburb (Drexel Hill, Washington, Ardmore: crime, how much, homes)

[KansastoSouthphilly]

Originally Posted by ilovephilly79

Jenkintown is my favorite. Walkable with a nice mix of incomes, housing types, businesses, restaurants, great access to rail and public transportation, and great schools. I like the boroughs the best because you can have a real small-town community-centered experience where you can walk your kids to school and really know everyone. As nice as surrounding Abington is, you'd have to put your kids on a bus and it's much larger in area. Kind of a different type of suburbia.

Taxes are super high, but the services in Jenkintown get you a lot. Doylestown would be a runner up for me but the housing stock is not as varied IN the Borough. And it's so far from Center City. You can get to Center City in 30 mins on RR. Doylestown would be far more difficult in that regard.

Are taxes in Abington that high? I've never thought of it as one of the high tax suburbs. I think of the high tax burbs being towns like Cheltenham, Upper Darby, and most of the South Jersey towns. In Abington Tax on a $489k house is about $7k which seems about normal. Jenkintown taxes seem to be on the high side but not as bad of Cheltenham. Maybe i am missing something though.

[Danny K]

Originally Posted by NewtownBucks

Yardley and New Hope/Solebury are different suburbs. I'm not sure why you put Yardley with Solebury. I believe Solebury is actually closer to both Newtown and Doylestown than Yardley.

New Hope/Solebury is seriously not even a Philadelphia suburb anymore. It's too far. Really Doylestown is the farthest you can go and after that it is really beyond the Philly Metropolitan area.

[Danny K]

What about Bensalem/Bristol/Levittown/Langhorne Area? Why is that not an option?

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Danny K

New Hope/Solebury is seriously not even a Philadelphia suburb anymore. It's too far. Really Doylestown is the farthest you can go and after that it is really beyond the Philly Metropolitan area.

Since counties are the building blocks of metropolitan areas in the United States, New Hope is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

You can drive there from Center City in 45 minutes, less time than it would take you to drive there from Midtown Manhattan and about as long as it would take you to drive to Doylestown, or maybe even less thanks to the lack of a freeway route to the latter.

There is, however, a part of Bucks that isn't that closely attached to the Philadelphia metro. That would be Upper Bucks County, the townships and boroughs closest to the Lehigh and Northampton county lines. If a town's ZIP code begins with 180, it's part of that slice of Upper Bucks.

[2e1m5a]

I am not a "suburb person" but for me in deciding which to vote for it was between Lower Main Line (actually Narberth) or Media---great transit access, downtown areas, nice housing stock.


Also missing is Drexel Hill/Havertown. And while Upper Darby may have some issues it is a Top 5 city in the state population wise and very diverse.

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by Danny K

New Hope/Solebury is seriously not even a Philadelphia suburb anymore. It's too far. Really Doylestown is the farthest you can go and after that it is really beyond the Philly Metropolitan area.

According to whom? It is a suburb of Philadelphia, even if its more detached than other closer in burbs like Media.

Originally Posted by Danny K

What about Bensalem/Bristol/Levittown/Langhorne Area? Why is that not an option?

There is an option for "other".

The areas you mentioned are decent / nice, but I wouldn't rank them as top Philadelphia burbs, especially when using the criteria of this thread.

[ilovephilly79]

Originally Posted by KansastoSouthphilly

Are taxes in Abington that high? I've never thought of it as one of the high tax suburbs. I think of the high tax burbs being towns like Cheltenham, Upper Darby, and most of the South Jersey towns. In Abington Tax on a $489k house is about $7k which seems about normal. Jenkintown taxes seem to be on the high side but not as bad of Cheltenham. Maybe i am missing something though.

I've seen it vary throughout the borough, but it is not uncommon for a $500,000 house to have $14,000+ taxes. But of course it all depends on the property. I'm not familiar with Cheltenham Township taxes.

[NYtoNJtoPA]

Originally Posted by Danny K

What about Bensalem/Bristol/Levittown/Langhorne Area? Why is that not an option?

I live here and like it very much. We're renting but looking at houses in the area and plan on staying right here since we're on a budget. And our money will go further in Falls Twp than anywhere else in the area. But if I had the money to burn my first choice would be Yardley/Lower Makefield Twp out of anything in the Philly metro. Love the homes there and a small main street. Rt 32 along the river is a beautiful drive. Bowman's Hill Tower is also nearby and it is still easy to get to Philly.

Bensalem and Bristol aren't all that desirable. Both have a good section and a bad section, but as a father to be I am looking for a house in a decent school system, so I wouldn't live in either area with kids. Levittown and Fairless Hills are fine as long as you are not in Bristol Twp. Falls and Middletown Twp areas feed into Pennsbury and Neshaminy schools respectively which are both very good. Langhorne and Feasterville-Trevose feed into Neshaminy as well. Langhorne is decent too, all the regional shopping, Oxford Valley Mall. The Street Rd towns beyond Bensalem - Feasterville-Trevose, Southampton, Warminster, Warrington, Holland/Richboro/Churchville etc - are more in the league of Yardley, though more congested and have less pleasant scenery obviously, though they do have many pretty neighborhoods and are closer to the city. Bucks County on the whole is beautiful.

[rowhomecity]

Yes, there are so many suburban towns in the metro I tried to highlight some of the top rated ones overall.

I put the other option for a user to make that choice and then in the thread state what town they choose as other.

And yes I admittedly left out Jenkintown by accident. It is a great suburban town.

And I also meant to pair Media/Swarthmore. They are very much connected in feel and distance.

Yardley is a small area, so I was trying to get a solid chunk of that region of lower bucks so I included Solebury. Most homebuyers looking in that area look for homes in both Upper Makefield, Solebury and Yardley in general, depending on their commuting needs.

I'm assuming the 3 who voted for other, voted for Jenkintown because it has received a lot of discussion on its mixture of affordability, vibrancy and transit and employment access.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by NYtoNJtoPA

I live here and like it very much. We're renting but looking at houses in the area and plan on staying right here since we're on a budget. And our money will go further in Falls Twp than anywhere else in the area. But if I had the money to burn my first choice would be Yardley/Lower Makefield Twp out of anything in the Philly metro. Love the homes there and a small main street. Rt 32 along the river is a beautiful drive. Bowman's Hill Tower is also nearby and it is still easy to get to Philly.

Bensalem and Bristol aren't all that desirable. Both have a good section and a bad section, but as a father to be I am looking for a house in a decent school system, so I wouldn't live in either area with kids. Levittown and Fairless Hills are fine as long as you are not in Bristol Twp. Falls and Middletown Twp areas feed into Pennsbury and Neshaminy schools respectively which are both very good. Langhorne and Feasterville-Trevose feed into Neshaminy as well. Langhorne is decent too, all the regional shopping, Oxford Valley Mall. The Street Rd towns beyond Bensalem - Feasterville-Trevose, Southampton, Warminster, Warrington, Holland/Richboro/Churchville etc - are more in the league of Yardley, though more congested and have less pleasant scenery obviously, though they do have many pretty neighborhoods and are closer to the city. Bucks County on the whole is beautiful.

This is a very good YMMV post.

Bristol has a decent downtown and one of the best theater companies in the 'burbs (Bristol Riverside Theater), and developers there have done some really cool things with the old mill buildings, but people tend to leave it off these "best suburbs" list because of its generally downscale demographics and less-than-stellar school district.

Of the other towns listed here, only Yardley has what I would call a walkable town center, one of the criteria the OP set forth as a metric. Where would you all place them on the vibrancy scale?

I would conclude from some of what the poster above said that they value tranquility over vibrancy, and for those who have similar priorities, a whole different set of communities will rank as their "best suburbs."

BTW, about where to draw geographic boundaries: Yardley lies just below the Scudders Falls Bridge while New Hope is about a 20-minute drive north of it, but if Yardley Borough and Solebury Township are going to be yoked together, than the cluster should include New Hope Borough, which Solebury just about surrounds, too. That cluster would then score very high on the "walkable town center" metric and through the roof on vibrancy, with New Hope doing the heavy lifting on that last score.