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The OP needs to help her husband find a job in LA so they can move back. Just curious though... does her husband hate Boston also?
Otherwise, while I don't doubt that LA is a wonderful place for the OP to live, I am very content with Boston being the way it is AND... very happy that Boston isn't like LA, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta or NYC!!! Viva la difference!!
Someone mentioned comparing Boston to LA was like comparing apples to oranges. I'd say it's more like apples to zebras. The two cities could not be more different.
OP - I agree with other posters. Talk to your husband, move back to LA. You'll never be happy here.
The OP needs to help her husband find a job in LA so they can move back. Just curious though... does her husband hate Boston also?
Otherwise, while I don't doubt that LA is a wonderful place for the OP to live, I am very content with Boston being the way it is AND... very happy that Boston isn't like LA, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta or NYC!!! Viva la difference!!
The infrastructure of Boston indeed needs improvement.
BTW I want to ask a question. Mass Ave (which is relatively broad) in Arlington has no lanes at all. Why is it like that? It still has lanes in Cambridge. It's kind of weird to see cars drive anyway they want.
BTW I want to ask a question. Mass Ave (which is relatively broad) in Arlington has no lanes at all. Why is it like that? It still has lanes in Cambridge. It's kind of weird to see cars drive anyway they want.
Probably because there are a lot more cars and congestion on Mass Ave in Cambridge than in Arlington (and Lexington). Just because a street is wide, doesn't mean that there should be more lanes for car traffic.
I will agree with Bettafish - there are places where the roads are a disaster. Miu - I don't know if you often take Mass Ave in Arlington, but it's a bear in rush hour. Locals know it's 2 lanes, but you can spot the out of towners. It's particularly bad when you try to pass on the left and they don't realize that they are actually in the right lane... I never honk quite so much as in Arlington. Waltham center has similar problems too, where you need to change lanes constantly just to keep going straight. And there are plenty of scary intersections where the lights should have been modified a decade ago to accommodate left turns.
That said, they're really minor issues in the grand scheme of things and it's a part of living in a city that was not designed around automobiles. There is really nowhere that I could imagine walking where there isn't a sidewalk or a bus within 4 or 5 blocks - and this includes places I visit in the suburbs.
I think that some towns like Arlington don't want to facilitate the increased traffic flow, especially if those extra cars are outsiders passing through using their town as a shortcut or to avoid heavier traffic on alternative routes.
Also most cities and towns aren't going to automatically add lanes and markers on their streets without conducting expensive traffic flow studies... even though it seems obvious to the layman that they should just go ahead and make those changes.
So I came here from Los Angeles kicking & screaming due to my spouse's job. Obviously the weather isn't going to sit well with me. My experience has been long and brutal winters, a non-existent spring (mostly rain), humid summers that warrant 2 showers a day with the beauty of the tropics. Fall is so-so but living for fall seems sad.
We actually live in Newton which is 80% white and have had more than enough racist encounters.
While the food scene is growing it's at least 10 years behind the times and the segregation saddens me i.e. no Little Tokyo (downtoan la), Little Saigon Westminster), koreatown, armenian village etc. I have eaten a lot, and I do mean a lot and my decent meals have been few. In two years I've eaten at two-3 places that I would take out of towners to....providing I could find parking.
My experience with Somerville & Cambridge is why don't they just gate the whole town with two entrances/exits where residents show their pass to enter. It doesn't inspire me to check out my new unfortunate home. For the record Somerville is 7.5 miles from my home in newton and to take the MBTA i would have to take 3 busses and 1 train. It would take approximately 75 minutes and cost 11.25. That just seems whacked to me.
Move into town? Well when we first got here my spouses's job put us up in a apt. in Brookline. Another unfriendly parking city especially when out of town guests come to visit.
I don't feel any buzz or excitement and the independent commercial stores are just rundown, terrible looking and full of crap as is the majority of art I have seen which surprises me given all the youth. Having been to Portland Maine recently it seems to me the youth moves up there where it is more affordable? This would go for Portsmouth as well.
Boston is notorious for navigating and I get lost too often (as does spouse) even with a GPS!
On a slightly positive note, when the trees "pop" in the "spring" it is nice and I do appreciate all the parks, walden pond, the audobon parks. the lack of a horizon/mountains makes me crazy and attributes to my lack of a sense of a direction.
I'd like to understand the physics of road deterioration. h20 expands in the cold, got it, I figuredthe water would mostly be out of the cement? Does the snow and salt really do that much damage? really, the roads here are horrible. That allston/brighton strip leading into boston! Jeez.
I could go on and on and on and on.
I'd really like to know how out of towners survive here/
You have a lot of complaints related to parking and driving. The big secret is that people take mass transit or walk in Boston and with that comes a prioritization of living in places where shops, restaurants, nightlife, and work are within walking or short transit times (including a short walk to those transit stations). Also, when you walk so often instead of zipping past in the car, you tend to notice shops you would normally pass by and will run into more interesting surprises over some of what's offered. In Boston, its metro, and much of the northeast big cities, which neighborhood and maybe down to which blocks you live on makes a more significant difference in how you live than in LA overall (unless you used mass transit and biked often in LA as I did).
With all that walking, another thing to keep in mind is that you have to learn how to dress for the weather. This means actually being mindful of weather forecasts and figuring out what to wear accordingly. I'm from Los Angeles as well and I was definitely not prepared for my first winter or two in the northeast. Long johns are a real thing. Comfortable shoes and socks are essential. All kinds of hats, earmuffs, scarves, gloves, etc. make a world of difference. One very specific store to hit up since you're in the East Coast already is to make a trip down to Uniqlo in New York City because they sell affordable clothing meant to keep you warm without being bulky at all. I think there was talks of expanding to Boston this year, but I don't know if that will actually happen (really, the upper midwest, new england, and most of canada would go crazy for this stuff).
As far as diversity, if that's what you're looking for then obviously Newton was not a good pick (which is also true if you were looking for bustling streets and a great diversity of cuisine). There are certainly parts of Boston and its adjacent cities that are far more diverse and a lot more active. There is actually pretty good Vietnamese to be found in Boston (surprisingly to me), but what you might want to look for are varieties of food a lot more common in Boston than in LA rather than look for what you were used to in LA. Boston and its metro has a much more prominent West Indian, Haitian, and Spanish Caribbean communities than LA does and you will find better pickings for those cuisines. The area also has a good lot more Portuguese (really good) and Cape Verdeans than Los Angeles. There's also the regional dairy and seafood heavy cuisine of New England which can be pretty great.
I think a lot of this might be you came to Boston kicking and screaming might have prevented from doing as much research and preparation as maybe you should have. The sort of things you're complaining about should have probably been mitigated a lot more from just realizing how neighborhoods and mass transit works in the city rather than trying to force the way through with trying to drive, navigate and find parking all over. Also, have you pulled up stakes from one part of the US to another before? Moving like that without having close friends or family where you're going to is often really rough and when it is, it makes every single blemish all that much worse. Anyways, best of luck to you.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-23-2013 at 03:38 PM..
Long, brutal winters? How long have you been here? Last year was particularly mild and this year looks to follow suit, save a few cold snaps. I grew up in Atlanta (couldn't get out fast enough) and I didn't even have to turn my heat on until the end of November this year.
Of course there's not the Asian culture in Boston that you find in LA. It's a fact of geography. It's funny that you lament the lack of Armenian food - Watertown has the largest Armenian-American population in the USA. Sevan Bakery is particularly good. Boston is very Europe-centric - lots of Italian, Irish, Jewish, Middle Eastern, and general American/New England seafood fare. Complaining about how Boston does not have the Asian offerings that LA has would be like me complaining that Boston doesn't have as well-rounded of an array of BBQ joints as my hometown of Atlanta.
I note you mention parking a lot. Boston is not LA. The entire metro area of Boston is still smaller than LA proper - and you can walk Boston proper from top to bottom in about 2 hours. It's small! And we walk. Of course there's not parking - the roads were constructed over 100, 200 years ago and are not set up to accommodate cars. So you walk, take the T, etc. Again, Boston is not LA.
Cambridge and Somerville are very accessible - I'm sorry that you CHOSE to live at the end of the green line where you were choosing to live further out of the city which will invariably take longer and be more expensive. Where in Newton do you live? If you are closer to the Riverside stop, then yeah, it can be quite expensive or long. Either you take the D line for 45+ minutes into Park Street and switch, or you have to take a bus into Waltham and then another bus/train into Cambridge (Central Square or Porter Square respectively). Provided you plan it right, it shouldn't take longer than 45 minutes. Since you have a car, you could easily drive to Watertown and hop the 70 bus into Central Square - would take you half the time. People tend to spend time in the neighborhoods they live in and commute into the city, and those pathways are really how the transit lines are designed. There are limitations, but Boston has one of the best public transit systems in the US (and head and shoulders above LA!).
Portland, Maine is a tourist town, as is Portsmouth. So yes, of course there are trendy shops - they're not for the people who live there. No, youths certainly do NOT move to Portland or Portsmouth. Quite the opposite - the more ambitious and successful recent grads tend to flock to Boston to build their careers. I've never heard complaints of shopping in Newton and Brookline - and certainly not in downtown Boston!
It just sounds like you want to complain about anywhere that isn't LA (how long would it take to go 7 miles via public transit in LA if trying to deviate from standard transit lines? 2 hours? 3?). LA is very different from Boston - and I would say a pretty miserable place to live, personally.
How do out of towners survive here? By being pleasant, getting active in the community, and not trying to relate it back to where they are from. Boston and LA couldn't be more different from each other (thank goodness - can't imagine a more horrible place to live thanks to the sprawl). There is so much to do in this city thanks to the cultural offerings downtown and the dozens of colleges, so if you aren't finding a buzz or excitement, it's because you're choosing not to.
Maturity and class go a long way. Something the OP sorely lacks.
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