Pros and cons of Boston (Worcester, Cambridge: real estate, apartment, renting)

[AngeloSLS]

Plan on moving to there or to Pittsburgh, just want to know the pros and cons of Boston, MA.

[TAM88]

Boston is a great city and really metro area to live. Our economy is doing pretty well and the unemployment rate is below the national average. A pretty diverse economy with large employment numbers in education, health care, bio-tech, high-tech and financial services. True seasonal weather. Right on the ocean. Within a short drive of a wide range of things to do and places to see. Boston has a solid and widespread transit system. There are plenty of cynical locals who will chide it, but at the end of the day, you can count on 1 hand the number of cities in North America that have a better transit system. It's a dense and compact city that's pretty easy to get around. A diverse population and good ethnic food offerings.

The negatives would be weather for some. It does get pretty cold and we do see a good amount of snow. The cost of living is also higher than a lot of other cities in this country. You may have an easier time stretching your dollar elsewhere. However, I feel you get what you pay for. Depending on where you live and where you work, traffic can be pretty bad as well.

[xS☺B☺s]

Boston is probably better in every category except expensive. It is surely more expensive than P. Not to diss the Steel City - I've heard good things about it, but B is 3x the size of P, on the ocean, and just up the Street from NYC. The only reason to choose P over B is cheaper and less congested. Oh, and bad drivers.

[RC1981]

Cons: Absurdly high cost of living, the cold.
Pros: Everything else.

[sponger42]

Don't know Pittsburgh. Boston compared to other places around the world:

Pros:
+Pretty architecture and area.
+Seasons
+Decent Economy
+Servicable metro system.
+Emphasis on history and traditions.
+Low crime.

Cons:
- New ideas / change / outsiders not welcome.
- Highly segregated city.
- Very old and decrepit infrastructure (roads, rails, homes and utilities).
- Long cold dark winters.
- Sleepy/insular/Small-town feel. Everyone is in your business, even if they don't know you.

Sight unseen, I'd choose Boston over Pittsburgh, though not over some other cities.

[scorpio516]

I've only been in Mass. for 3 months after growing up in the midwest and living on the west coast for 6 years, so take from that what you will.

Cons:
A little pricey, but not too bad
Scenery good, but not great
Suburbs are oddly rural
Drivers are awful!!!
Not a great cycling infrastructure in the suburbs

Pros:
Seasons
Culture
Location
good economy
pretty great public transit - not quite as all-encompasing as SF, but good. In SF you can take a commuter train from Gilroy to downtown SF, 77 miles away or from Sacramento to Oakland (doesn't cross the bay east-west) 82 miles away, but those are the only two commuter rail lines, here they don't go as far (Wickford Junction, RI is only 65-70 miles from South Station), but there are so many rail lines.

[Cato the Elder]

Originally Posted by scorpio516

pretty great public transit - not quite as all-encompasing as SF, but good. In SF you can take a commuter train from Gilroy to downtown SF, 77 miles away or from Sacramento to Oakland (doesn't cross the bay east-west) 82 miles away, but those are the only two commuter rail lines, here they don't go as far (Wickford Junction, RI is only 65-70 miles from South Station), but there are so many rail lines.

Don't forget Amtrak, which is a bit different from the Bay Area. In addition to the long distance routes to Chicago and beyond like Oakland, Boston is part of the Northeast Corridor, which is akin to commuter rail connecting Boston to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC.

[DAOBoston]

Good reponses so far. I will just echo.

Cons:
1) high cost of living, in particular, high real estate costs
2) homes and infrastructure tend to be older - not a lot of new construction compared to other parts of the country.
3) weather - winters are tough! The season goes from Dec -March: cold temps, snow, freezing rain, wind, etc. It's depressing (although this is obviously subjective). Spring is also patchy as the season is not consistent. April and May tend to be cool and wet. Typically we do not have consistent warm temps until June.
4) airport - Logan is not the greatest compared to other major cities in the US on a number of levels (althought it's getting better).

Pros:
1) diverse economy w/ great job opportunities: healthcare, education, financial services, life sciences, technology.
2) education - top notch offerings at all levels - and both private and public.
3) culture - cosmopolitan city with great offerings in the fine arts, restaurants, museums, shopping etc.
4) great sports town
5) attractive city in terms of aesthetics, history, architecture, etc.
6) diverse landscape: mountains, ocean, beaches, lakes all within easy reach.

Biggest advantage Pit would have (I would think) is cost of living and lower real estate costs. I don't know Pit, but I would guess you'd get more house for your buck.

[rranger]

As someone who has lived in both places, I'd say the following:

Pittsburgh:

Pros:
- Low cost of living
- Mild winters, but really depressingly dark. It's just close enough to Lake Erie to get the remnants of lake effect weather
- Nice neighborhoods with lots of local stores. Squirrel Hill and the South Side come to mind, but the same can be said for other neighborhoods. Shadyside has become more "corporate" since I left, so it has far less of that
- Interesting topography ... gives a whole new meaning to "you can't there from here" ... really ... the various Appalachian hollows in and around the city give it a very fractured street system
- Nice rural scenery if you head in the general direction of Latrobe and Ligonier
- Great universities: both Carnegie Mellon and Pitt are world-class in their respective areas of core competence
- Given the low cost, a great place of young hipsters (and I'm not using that term pejoratively). The South Side and parts of the North Side are genuinely funky
- Carnegie Institute is a world-class art and natural history museum
- There are incredible parks in the city, notably Schenley and Frick. In fact, Frick Park has virgin tracts in it, which is unavailable in most of the eastern half of the US, much less in a city. In general, Pittsburgh is loaded with greenery

Cons:

- Old, dilapidated infrastructure. It's a wonder many of the bridges in western PA are still standing due to absolutely criminal lack of maintenance
- You'd better like yellow and red brick, 'cause it's all over the place. Pittsburgh even makes structures like ranch houses out of brick, which - to me - looks really odd
- Generally stagnant economy. There is a burgeoning high-tech start-up sector developing, but nothing like Boston. Carnegie Mellon and Pitt just haven't been as successful in hatching businesses and getting young entrepreneurs to stay in Pittsburgh as I'm sure they would have liked (my opinion, but that kind of activity isn't anywhere as well developed as it has traditionally been by MIT in and around Boston)
- A generally lower level of educational attainment among the population than in Boston - and it shows
- Food. While Pittsburgh has nice restaurants like any American city, the general, everyday quality is really crap

Boston:

Pros:
- A relatively diverse economy with lots of jobs in Health Care, Financial Services and Education. There are also numerous start ups for the "new economy" related to genetics, green technology, etc.
- Fairly cold winters, but at least they're a lot more sunny than in Pittsburgh
- Lots of neighborhood shops in the city itself (Jamaica Plain, Back Bay, Dorchester, North End, Beacon Hill, West Roxbury ... really too numerous to mention) and in the immediate towns (Brookline and Cambridge immediately come to mind)
- A nice gently rolling topography with a number of hills. Blue Hills and Middlesex Fells Reservations are just outside of the city and these places are real gems. They are large preserved tracts of forest and ponds with hills and lots of hiking trails. In general, like Pittsburgh, Boston has lots of greenery and trees
- Boston has absolutely some of the most beautiful suburbs, particularly in the west and along the north shore, that I've seen in any American city. Nothing in Pittsburgh (or most other cities, for that matter) even remotely compares
- Given it's proximity to the ocean, lakes and mountains, the recreational opportunities are really broad - much more so than for Pittsburgh
- It has a plethora of world-class universities: Boston U., Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts. No other place in the world comes close to such a concentration
- Boston has a number of incredible museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, De Cordova, Peabody-Essex and the various Harvard museums (Fogg, Sackler, etc.). Also the Worcester Art Museum and the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design are merely an hour away, both of which are amazing as well


Cons:

- The cost of housing is silly. Currently, a typical one-bedroom apartment is renting for $1,800 a month on average. And, I think that tends to make Boston less of a hipster-friendly city. It's difficult to be a creative type if you can't afford to do what you want
- The subway system needs a complete overhaul. The city is in the midst of a massive infrastructure overhaul related to the water system, but the trains are a mess
- Food. Much better than Pittsburgh but, like New York, Boston is filled with tons of poseur restaurants that are overpriced and serve mediocre food. You have to be very careful in selecting where to go and spend your hard-earned money
- Like Pittsburgh, the street system is a morass. The converted cow paths don't lend themselves to cars, so driving is a real pain, particularly with the concentration of traffic

That's pretty much it. I'm not going to address how people are, because I view that as a pointless exercise. You really can't generalize the way some people would like about either place (related to people), and any place is what you make of it. One thing I will say is that Boston is a much more cosmopolitan city than Pittsburgh, with people from all over the place - but I'm sure you could have guessed that.

I don't think you mentioned where you're moving from (that might have provided a better context) but I hope this helps.

[BKmachine]

Con: Its racist