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Which collection of cities would you prefer to live in and/or visit?
Criteria include but aren’t limited to: food, parks/scenery, diversity, nightlife, safety, and people.
Connecticut River cities include: Lebanon, NH / White River Junction, VT | Brattleboro, VT | Greenfield, MA | Northampton, MA | Holyoke/Chicopee/Springfield, MA | Hartford, CT | Middletown, CT
Merrimack River cities include: Franklin, NH | Concord, NH | Manchester, NH | Nashua, NH | Lowell, MA | Lawrence/Methuen, MA | Haverhill, MA | Amesbury, MA | Newburyport, MA
The Merrimack cities are closer to one another and [I think] are bigger on average, but the biggest of the Connecticut cities are bigger and the Conn River cities cover a larger area.
Last edited by Boston Shudra; 04-25-2021 at 10:17 PM..
Hartford MSA is 2x the population of the entire Merrimack Valley. Springfield MSA is about the same as MV in population. Still, I voted for MV because I think the quality is a bit better
Hartford MSA is 2x the population of the entire Merrimack Valley.
Funny you should say that! The idea for this thread came from a post on the Most North "hood" thread in the MA forum where the poster said Hartford is "a lot bigger" than Lawrence. Made me think: I've been to both a lot, and downtown Hartford makes the city feel a lot bigger than Lawrence with its skyscrapers and wide streets. However, the residential neighborhoods of Lawrence seem denser than those that I saw in Hartford.
So I used the MCDC radius tool to look at the areas over given radii.
Lawrence (01840):
- 3 mi = 138,909 people
- 6 mi = 238,112 people
- 9 mi = 417,951 people
- 12 mi = 647,727 people
- 15 mi = 929,099 people
Hartford (06103):
- 3 mi = 152,305 people
- 6 mi = 318,663 people
- 9 mi = 517,114 people
- 12 mi = 701,286 people
- 15 mi = 892,532 people
And to be clear, Woburn MA (closest "large" city or town with no ties to the Merrimack) is ~17 miles from Lawrence, so it shouldn't be included in these pop estimates.
As you can see, at 15 miles from the city center, there are actually more people living near Lawrence than Hartford due to the fact that cities near the Merrimack are generally a lot closer together than those on the Connecticut. Maybe Holyoke/Chicopee could match or surpass Lawrence in 15mi considering how close they are to each other and Springfield and Northampton.
Edit: I tried using a Chicopee zip, and it doesn't seem to outnumber Lawrence at 15mi from center.
Last edited by Boston Shudra; 04-25-2021 at 10:14 PM..
Funny you should say that! The idea for this thread came from a post on the Most North "hood" thread in the MA forum where the poster said Hartford is "a lot bigger" than Lawrence. Made me think: I've been to both a lot, and downtown Hartford makes the city feel a lot bigger than Lawrence with its skyscrapers and wide streets. However, the residential neighborhoods of Lawrence seem denser than those that I saw in Hartford.
So I used the MCDC radius tool to look at the areas over given radii.
Lawrence (01840):
- 3 mi = 138,909 people
- 6 mi = 238,112 people
- 9 mi = 417,951 people
- 12 mi = 647,727 people
- 15 mi = 929,099 people
Hartford (06103):
- 3 mi = 152,305 people
- 6 mi = 318,663 people
- 9 mi = 517,114 people
- 12 mi = 701,286 people
- 15 mi = 892,532 people
And to be clear, Woburn MA (closest "large" city or town with no ties to the Merrimack) is ~17 miles from Lawrence, so it shouldn't be included in these pop estimates.
As you can see, at 15 miles from the city center, there are actually more people living near Lawrence than Hartford due to the fact that cities near the Merrimack are generally a lot closer together than those on the Connecticut. Maybe Holyoke/Chicopee could match or surpass Lawrence in 15mi considering how close they are to each other and Springfield and Northampton.
Edit: I tried using a Chicopee zip, and it doesn't seem to outnumber Lawrence at 15mi from center.
Yeah true but for one when you do the 15 mile radius that double dips a lot with the other Valley cities. Hartford MSA would also be double dipping but I believe only within Connecticut. Springfield metro would cover a lot of the MA stuff and then the Vermont cities are tiny anyway
Even some of the ones that aren't doubled dipped just wouldn't belong in the MSA. It's like the Mansfield thing. Just cause some town like Wilmington, MA is closer to Lawrence than to Boston doesn't mean it's more tied to the former.
The real catchment area for Lawrence is like:
Basically just Methuen, Lawrence, and the Andovers. Mybe little bits of Salem NH .
Il vote CT River cities. I like them better. Dont get me wrong, I like the Merrimack River cities/towns..
But there is quite a bit of Meth, Heroin or whatever in the Merrimack. They have a little bit of catching up to do up there to justify the insane COL. CT does too, but IMHO its more well rounded and diverse.
Back in the day, I used to work at the Andover Industrial Center off 133 east of 28. At the time, I was living in Andover Center 5 minutes walk from 28. Later, I got my pilot's license at LWM in North Andover right at the Merrimack River. My ski resort next door neighbor has his primary residence at the Andover Country Club. My best friend has been in Andover Center since ~ 1990.
IMO, Newburyport wins best place easily. I lived in Portsmouth NH but Newburyport is pretty much at parity with Portsmouth. Closer to the Boston job market is a big advantage. Andover is the only other blue chip spot "almost on" the Merrimack.
On the Connecticut River, Hanover/Norwich with Dartmouth College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock is really attractive. Killington is less than an hour to Skyeship Base and Sugarbush isn't much further using the Roxbury Gap road.
Longmeadow is a blue chip town though pretty limited. I used to live in Northampton. That was a good place to live. In Connecticut, Glastonbury is the only blue chip Hartford suburb right on the river. I guess you can count West Hartford but I don't see how you can count Simsbury/Avon on the other side of the Metacomet ridge. A friend of mine moors his 45' sailboat in Old Saybrook. Where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound is really nice though there's no established town with a scenic Main St like a Newburyport.
Much less so. Like much less. Isnt MA/NH the center of heroin in the Northeast?
Sort of but less so in the past couple years. ODs in Springfield and Chicopee are going up. In Lowell and Haverhill they are going down. In Lawrence they are still going up however. When opiate deaths were peaking around 2015-2016 Lawrence had relatively low deaths (still quite high) but many people who sold the drugs and their families didn't use them. After a while I guess they started using them too, maybe as sales dried up since people were sick of going to their friends funerals after a few bad years.
Massachusetts has consolidated numbers for every city and town. NH you have to pick around to find them afaik. Not sure about Hartford numbers but CT generally has been much lower than MA and NH. However that doesn't mean certain cities in CT couldn't have worse numbers.
NH was generally hit worse than MA overall. The OD rates in NH as a state was like in the 30-35 /100k range during the mid 2010s, which was higher than MA or the other New England states.
Manchester NH was hitting numbers over 90/100k which put it in a different class than most of the other cities and most places outside of parts of Ohio and Appalachia. Random small towns in NH would hit insane numbers if a bad batch came through and took out a handful of people, just because of the small population denominator
FWIW San Francisco overdose deaths were >80/100k for 2020 which is absolutely staggering for a city that size to hit that kind of numbers. Really almost unbelievable.
Sort of but less so in the past couple years. ODs in Springfield and Chicopee are going up. In Lowell and Haverhill they are going down. In Lawrence they are still going up however. When opiate deaths were peaking around 2015-2016 Lawrence had relatively low deaths (still quite high) but many people who sold the drugs and their families didn't use them. After a while I guess they started using them too, maybe as sales dried up since people were sick of going to their friends funerals after a few bad years.
Massachusetts has consolidated numbers for every city and town. NH you have to pick around to find them afaik. Not sure about Hartford numbers but CT generally has been much lower than MA and NH. However that doesn't mean certain cities in CT couldn't have worse numbers.
NH was generally hit worse than MA overall. The OD rates in NH as a state was like in the 30-35 /100k range during the mid 2010s, which was higher than MA or the other New England states.
Manchester NH was hitting numbers over 90/100k which put it in a different class than most of the other cities and most places outside of parts of Ohio and Appalachia. Random small towns in NH would hit insane numbers if a bad batch came through and took out a handful of people, just because of the small population denominator
FWIW San Francisco overdose deaths were >80/100k for 2020 which is absolutely staggering for a city that size to hit that kind of numbers. Really almost unbelievable.
Good data and post. Makes sense.
Poor SF. Didnt even realize they have 500-700 overdose deaths a year. Thats insane.
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