Eastern Cities: Most Overrated and Least Overrated (districts, live, best)
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Agreed, I actually like Cambridge, and if I had stayed more permanently in the Boston area would have considered living in Cambridge or maybe Brookline.
I think what irks me most about much of Boston is that places like Dorchester are not much cheaper for what you get, but the bulk of available housing under a million dollars are in places like Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roslindale, East Boston. In Chicago for instance, the poorer neighborhoods are significantly cheaper. I bought my first condo in Hyde Park Chicago for $90k (1200sqft 2 bdrm, solid brick building) within a very lovely tree-lined neighborhood full of walkable amenities next to the University of Chicago and close to Lake Michigan. This was at a time when Chicago's Lincoln Park condos were 5-10x more expensive. You don't have that kind of differential in Boston, even though a Dorchester triple decker is not remotely in the same league as a Back Bay townhouse, not even 100 years ago.
It's one thing to say triple deckers are utilitarian housing for the masses (as in, don't be a snob, every city needs cheap, practical housing), it's another when they are $800/sqft in Egleston Sq, sold as "luxury housing" by Sotheby and you need a jumbo mortgage. Hence I find it very overrated.
Housing in Boston is terribly unaffordable. You can't get a cheap condo outside the CBD like you could in Chicago, New York or Philadelphia per say. You can go to Fort Lee NJ and get condos in the 100s. Great city. Love nj. In Boston? You cannot get a condo insde the 495 for under 250k unless it's severely gutted. In the Core? No less than 500k. Condos run like 700k in Dorchester. Boston's housing market is crunched and people are moving in too fast, the city can't keep up building.
I moved to NJ because it's soooo much cheaper than Boston. Albeit Greater Boston obviously is better than NJ, it's just so expensive to live in Boston unless you have your PhD. Literally. But a positive if Boston, you have a good job. Your set. I know people who make 200-300k at 27y/o now. I lived around Jp and got paid barely over 55k. That's nothing for Boston.
I compare SF to BOS for affordability. You cannot go to a ring suburb and get good housing. It's just not possible. You can't go to Lynn, Quincy, Plymouth or Framingham and get something under 250k. It quite sucks, when I was young a nice house in Canton was 230k. Upgrade to Newton? It was 400k for a big leafy home. But things have changed drastically in 15 years with no end in sight. People moved to Boston too fast and construction never kept up. Ugh...
Overrated: New York City and Boston (my wife is from Boston and would say the same thing)
Underrated: Philadelphia and Tampa
Agreed about Boston. Horribly overrated. Just a larger Providence. I feel like it so desperately wants to be at the big kids’ table that it has convinced itself it belongs, but deep down, it has an inferiority complex and is not self-assured that it’s a marquee city. People from Boston act like the city is so cultured, educated, urban, and world-class, and it’s just so not. Its got absolutely nothing on NYC, Chicago, and Philly, but Boston residents actually think it can compete on the world stage.
Agreed about Boston. Horribly overrated. Just a larger Providence. I feel like it so desperately wants to be at the big kids’ table that it has convinced itself it belongs, but deep down, it has an inferiority complex and is not self-assured that it’s a marquee city. People from Boston act like the city is so cultured, educated, urban, and world-class, and it’s just so not. Its got absolutely nothing on NYC, Chicago, and Philly, but Boston residents actually think it can compete on the world stage.
Inferiority complex?
Bostonians are arrogant. Arrogance is usually not something associated with an inferiority complex.
It's historically been Philadelphia that has the inferiority complex ("so far from God, so close to New York City," to adapt a common epithet about Mexico). I think I should know one when I see one, for I grew up in a city that had a world-class municipal inferiority complex. I even compared the two in an essay in the mag I write for. My hometown seems to have gotten over its inferiority complex, and it looks to me like we're slowly working our way out of it in Philly too.
Usually, a presenting sign of an inferiority complex is defensiveness, not arrogance. (BTW, I think I can recognize arrogance too, for some people have called me that as well.)
Agreed about Boston. Horribly overrated. Just a larger Providence. I feel like it so desperately wants to be at the big kids’ table that it has convinced itself it belongs, but deep down, it has an inferiority complex and is not self-assured that it’s a marquee city. People from Boston act like the city is so cultured, educated, urban, and world-class, and it’s just so not. Its got absolutely nothing on NYC, Chicago, and Philly, but Boston residents actually think it can compete on the world stage.
Boston is a world leader in education, tech/biotech, healthcare and research...if we are going to find a way out of this pandemic Boston will play a major role...one of the leading vaccine candidates and 1st us vaccine to enter phase 3 trials is from a company based in Cambridge and at least 2 other leading candidates have Boston ties - Johnson and Johnson with Beth Israel, and curevac with its us hub in Boston
YES!!!!! People from Cincy will act like OTR is the best urban neighborhood in the Midwest but then turn around and crap on Indy for "not being urban enough."
Cincy is barely even in the Midwest and isn't really that representative of most of the Midwest in general.
Housing in Boston is terribly unaffordable. You can't get a cheap condo outside the CBD like you could in Chicago, New York or Philadelphia per say. You can go to Fort Lee NJ and get condos in the 100s. Great city. Love nj. In Boston? You cannot get a condo insde the 495 for under 250k unless it's severely gutted. In the Core? No less than 500k. Condos run like 700k in Dorchester. Boston's housing market is crunched and people are moving in too fast, the city can't keep up building.
I moved to NJ because it's soooo much cheaper than Boston. Albeit Greater Boston obviously is better than NJ, it's just so expensive to live in Boston unless you have your PhD. Literally. But a positive if Boston, you have a good job. Your set. I know people who make 200-300k at 27y/o now. I lived around Jp and got paid barely over 55k. That's nothing for Boston.
I compare SF to BOS for affordability. You cannot go to a ring suburb and get good housing. It's just not possible. You can't go to Lynn, Quincy, Plymouth or Framingham and get something under 250k. It quite sucks, when I was young a nice house in Canton was 230k. Upgrade to Newton? It was 400k for a big leafy home. But things have changed drastically in 15 years with no end in sight. People moves to Boston too fast and construction never kept up. Ugh...
You can get some very cheaply built 1960-1980s era tiny box condos for ~200k in Dorchester/HydePark but everything you said is true.
You can get some very cheaply built 1960-1980s era tiny box condos for ~200k in Dorchester/HydePark but everything you said is true.
Yeah I remember checking Zillow and they were some of the worst condos I have ever seen online lol.
Surprised there isnt any good condo/leasing deals around Hyde Park/Dedham or Rockland/Abington. Those are two areas I would suspect... just prely based on geography.
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