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Hello.. I see many threads here love New Hampshire.. I am hoping someone will give me info and ideas..
I am looking to relocate with family (2 kids) to either Dallas metro or Boston metro, mainly for Good Schools compared to where I live. Which one would you recommend based on Taxes, Schools, Quality of Living, cost of living?!
Here are some facts about me:
1. I have been living near Philadelphia (northern DE, near PA border) for the last 15 years.
2. I love Snow.. looking outside your window and seeing all white, while smelling something amazing from the kitchen (thanks to wife baking yummy bunts or muffins..).. listening to "walking in a winter wonderland.." or the colors during Fall.. it is something magical to me.
3. Every Weekend in summer is spent in a beach (some great beaches in Delaware)
4. I love Hiking trails, road biking through windy hilly park roads in summer and early fall..
5. The idea (and pride) of living in the Northeast - (being close to beg cities)
I would imagine New Hampshire has most of everything I love in terms of nature and climate I hate
1. Poor public Schools (at least where I live)
2. Too ghetto type atmosphere in schools and some areas
3. High price of homes - but homes still looking very average
About Dallas area (plano, frisco, Rockwall suburbs) I love
1. Amazing Houses for your money
2. Great public Schools
3. Great Shopping
4. Just enough diversity but not too ghetto
5. Low crime
But nothing else in terms of nature and climate is there in texas for me.
So, I need to know from locals or past residents of NH..
1. Is the state of NH too redneck as some in the media portray? 2. Are public schools good? If so which one are they? I need them near Boston. Or somewhere below Manchester. I need the college admissions rate, mainly ivy league. SAT scores etc. 3. School demographic.. and area demographic.. (I did see the census data for the area..) 4. Shopping etc.. 5. How about the NH beaches? Are there any? Can we at least visit them for couple of months, or are they too cold most of the time? (Every time they show Maine coast in movies.. it is cloudy, gloomy and cold)
What kind of work do you do? Where is your family? Why not Cherry Hill, NJ area? That area has great schools and wouldn't cause such a large relocation. You could possibly keep your current job and be near family/friends.
As for NH...we are not redneck. There are remote towns, but it is not "redneck". I've lived in the south so I understand the term.
Schools...they vary throughout the state. Hollis, Bedford, Amherst are all known to have good schools. I believe some near the seacoast are supposed to be good as well. There are some very good private schools as well that are always an option. Not sure why you care about Ivy League...waste of money IMO. You'd have to search the internet for that info as I don't have it.
Demographic - NH is something like 94% white. The only diversity you are going to find is in the larger cities. As for school demographic, it'll vary greatly in the same city. I live in Nashua which is fairly diverse by NH standards, but my elementary is not diverse at all. Just depends what part of town you are in.
Shopping - Nashua, Manchester, Salem, Seabrook...they've got all the big box stores you could want. Smaller towns like Peterborough have great independent stores. As you get way up north, there are fewer and fewer shopping opportunities unless you are in a tourist trap like Conway. Also, no sales tax here.
Beaches - NH has a very short coastline but some very nice beaches. I enjoy Seabrook Beach. Hampton is more of a dive. Rye is lovely.
As for TX, I've lived there too. Tons of shopping, nice beaches along the gulf, and VERY diverse. Your post makes me feel you are looking for a more WASP-ish area, but of course I could be wrong.
1. Is the state of NH too redneck as some in the media portray?
What do you consider "redneck"? I wasn't aware the media portrayed NH this way, but the short answer is no. Yes, there are many heavily wooded, rural working-class areas in the state. But southern NH is more suburban than rural. And NH is far less socially conservative than most rural areas in the US.
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Originally Posted by offmove
2. Are public schools good? If so which one are they? I need them near Boston. Or somewhere below Manchester. I need the college admissions rate, mainly ivy league. SAT scores etc.
As with anywhere, schools vary dramatically from town to town. Most of the suburbs of Manchester and Nashua have very strong school systems. Some of the most highly-rated include Bedford, Hollis, Windham, and Londonderry.
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Originally Posted by offmove
3. School demographic.. and area demographic.. (I did see the census data for the area..)
What kind of demographic information are you looking for?
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Originally Posted by offmove
4. Shopping etc..
Specifically? NH has no sales tax, so that's a big plus. There's no shortage of places to shop in southern NH.
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Originally Posted by offmove
5. How about the NH beaches? Are there any? Can we at least visit them for couple of months, or are they too cold most of the time? (Every time they show Maine coast in movies.. it is cloudy, gloomy and cold)
Yes, there are beaches. Hampton Beach is the most popular (and has kind of tacky old beach town feel), but there are a few smaller, less commercialized beaches (like Wallis Sands). Contrary to what the movies show, the coast of NH and ME is one of the sunniest places in the Northeast. And it will be hot enough to want to swim in the summer, but the water is a bit cold. It usually reaches 65-66 degrees from mid-July to mid-August, which is OK for me and millions of other New Englanders, but some people might find that uncomfortable.
However, southern NH is about a 2-hour drive from the beaches of RI, southern MA and Cape Cod whose waters are comfortably in the low-to-mid 70s during summer.
To answer some of your questions..
During Hillary vs Obama primary the media did portray NH that way.. (I believe Hillary won the NH primary..) To be fair some rednecks are ok..Different people define them differently. In general for the context of this post I would describe redneck as ALL of the following: rural.. very very socially conservative.. immigrant hating.. angry.. trashy.. pickup driving..xenophobic.. homophobic..confederate flag flying..nascar loving.. Obama hating.. heavy drinking.. gun loving.. unclean.. with old broken down fridges and rusted cars on the yard type of person..
Don't misread my language.. I have nothing against anyone doing any of these.. For this discussion I would describe someone with most of these qualities as redneck.. Sometimes I have met wonderful rural conservative christian folks who are more open minded and kind than some urban hypocrites..
Demographic info related to percent of kids in school.. percentage classification based on race/economic status/, sat scores, college admissions etc. trying to hear local opinions from parents with actual experience with NH school system rather than simply relying on stats you can find online..
To answer some of your questions..
During Hillary vs Obama primary the media did portray NH that way.. (I believe Hillary won the NH primary..) To be fair some rednecks are ok..Different people define them differently. In general for the context of this post I would describe redneck as ALL of the following: rural.. very very socially conservative.. immigrant hating.. angry.. trashy.. pickup driving..xenophobic.. homophobic..confederate flag flying..nascar loving.. Obama hating.. heavy drinking.. gun loving.. unclean.. with old broken down fridges and rusted cars on the yard type of person..
Well, the 2008 primary vote was pretty close (if you'll remember, all the polls in NH were predicting an Obama win). However, many of Clinton's supporters were affluent suburbanites while many of Obama's supporters were rural farmers. And vice versa! NH tends to defy stereotypes and classification... we're a very independent bunch. For what it's worth, here's a map of the primary results by town.
As with any rural area, you will find some of the stereotypical aspects of "rednecks" in NH (although as I've said, the places you're interested in are suburban, not rural). But NH has less poverty, higher educational attainment rates, and less social conservatism than most places in the US. So most of those "redneck" attributes you listed do not apply to a huge swath of the state's population. Heck, we're one of the only states with same sex marriage...and I know a lot of die-hard conservative Republicans who fully support that!
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Demographic info related to percent of kids in school.. percentage classification based on race/economic status/, sat scores, college admissions etc. trying to hear local opinions from parents with actual experience with NH school system rather than simply relying on stats you can find online..
Well, the demographic info should be available online somewhere. As for personal experiences with the school systems, I can't help you there as I don't have kids. There are a few people on the NH forum who can give you some input but I would be cautious; you should try to canvas as many parents as you can before determining whether it's the right school or not.
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