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What I like about Atlanta's suburbs are the the generous lot sizes and big yards along with beautiful tree canopies. I never saw the point in moving out to the suburbs away from a denser city only to have a postage stamp sized yard.
Well, these suburbs often command a premium because you get some of the basic amenities of a city - walkability, transportation, restaurants/bars/coffee shops - often without some of the negatives like poor performing and under invested schools, crime, etc.
These "inner ring suburbs" are where we've chosen to live. There is something about a physically close knit neighborhood for families that we like. Our kids walk or bike to school. They are free to walk to friends houses in and outside of our neighborhood. The parents get together in the front yard every Friday evening.
Now, I can absolutely understand why others want more space, more house. We lived in a 495 town in Massachusetts, and ended up loving the town, the orchards, the farms, the access to nature. Just not sure it'd be our preference again/moving forward.
No I get it. But being that much of NYC spans N/S, naturally, the suburbs west are far quicker to get in and out of Manhattan.
I have my issues with those North Jersey suburbs, but convenience certainly isn’t one of them.
This is (sadly) only true for birds. While geographically closer to the center of Manhattan, Westchester towns are uniformly closer by train time than their NJ equivalents. It explains most of the gap in cost psf between the two areas, frankly. Metro North is the gold standard of NY commuting.
NJ Transit has 3 issues:
1. Half of the lines connect in Secaucus or Newark, so 50%+ of NJ commuters don't have a "1-seat ride"
2. The tubes under the Hudson River are failing after Sandy and decades of under-investment (and Amtrak owns them and has right of way), which creates delays
3. The Portal bridge, in the swampy bits of NJ, is in desperate need of repair/replacement (believe this has finally been scheduled) and has been a significant source of delays
Note the above doesn't apply to Hoboken or JC, which utilizes the PATH and thus functions more like a boro. But for the true suburbs, North Jersey has the worst mile-for-minute commute out of Westchester/NJ/LI.
I actually prefer the NJ suburbs generally, but that is despite the longer commute times. Westchester or LI doesn't really have towns like Montclair or Maplewood (or at least any places with any real scale) outside of maybe Larchmont. But that train commute from Montclair is nearly an hour (and that's with no delays) and as the crow flies it's less than 20 miles from midtown. That same train time in Westchester gets you well north of Croton-on-Hudson.
I'd technically also add Saint Charles, MO, as pretty nice looking as well. You also could add the downtown if Belleville, IL as well. And in a way, also Alton. Though some parts of it still seem nice, and others seem like they have had better past days. At least Alton didn't decline as badly, as East Saint Louis did.
Shoot! Been away too long and forgot St. Charles. Probably forgot another half dozen good ones, like Rock Hill, and University City.
ATL is probably the biggest surprise of the poll this far.
I do really like the area, despite its reputation for sprawl. I could most definitely live in Decatur or Brookhaven or Druid Hills.
What are some other suburbs like the ones above I may not be familiar with? Meaning, inner burbs, a commercial street/district, variety of homes.
Vinings is great ITP. Sandy Springs is just OTP. If you want to venture OTP (Outside The Perimeter or I-285), a website I frequent, Urbanize Atlanta is having a March Madness "tournament poll" on the best OTP suburban downtowns in the Metro Atlanta area: https://atlanta.urbanize.city/tags/best-otp-downtown
Vinings is great ITP. Sandy Springs is just OTP. If you want to venture OTP (Outside The Perimeter or I-285), a website I frequent, Urbanize Atlanta is having a March Madness "tournament poll" on the best OTP suburban downtowns in the Metro Atlanta area: https://atlanta.urbanize.city/tags/best-otp-downtown
Atlanta is one of those places that surprises me with each visit. It seems like I am always finding something new. I had been there quite a few times in the past, for instance, but only during my last visit did I end up in The Battery in Cumberland (I didn't even know this existed, and quite frankly, who would think, considering the forest nature of the metro and how everything is hidden by green, valleys and hills.) https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8887...7i16384!8i8192
And then, even those suburbs without a "downtown core" so to speak still have their own charm. I've spent some time in Morrow, and am considering buying property there. I love the rolling hills, the trees, the sharp contrast to Atlanta itself (downtown ATL is a mere 20 minutes away, and the airport 10 minutes...)
Atlanta has been and remains one of my favorite metros due to its layout, and the variety and multitude of its suburbs.
(This isn't nearly as remote as it may seem... Right behind that hill with the trees are more streets lines with homes. But it retains this quaint, small-town atmosphere due to its layout and tree cover. I love it.) https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5656...7i16384!8i8192
ATL is probably the biggest surprise of the poll this far.
I do really like the area, despite its reputation for sprawl. I could most definitely live in Decatur or Brookhaven or Druid Hills.
What are some other suburbs like the ones above I may not be familiar with? Meaning, inner burbs, a commercial street/district, variety of homes.
I was thinking that too. Northern Virginia and the Northern Atlanta suburbs are more similar than any other comparison in the nation. I noticed that the southern cities are underperforming in this poll....Miami, Dallas, and Houston have nice suburbs as well....
I was thinking that too. Northern Virginia and the Northern Atlanta suburbs are more similar than any other comparison in the nation. I noticed that the southern cities are underperforming in this poll....Miami, Dallas, and Houston have nice suburbs as well....
The issue I have with Miami's suburbs isn't that they aren't nice... They are just all bland. They all look alike. And they look identical to every other suburb of a major city in Florida. This is an issue with Florida as a whole. You could take Lake Mary out of Metro Orlando and drop it into the Miami area, and it would fit right in. And vice-versa with, say, Weston. It's always interesting driving from, say, Orlando, to Tampa, to Fort Myers, to Fort Lauderdale, to West Palm Beach, and then back to Orlando. All of those areas look and feel the same, particularly in their suburbs. There is simply no charm to them, barring a very select few.
I don't have enough experience with Dallas and Houston to comment on those.
The issue I have with Miami's suburbs isn't that they aren't nice... They are just all bland. They all look alike. And they look identical to every other suburb of a major city in Florida. This is an issue with Florida as a whole. You could take Lake Mary out of Metro Orlando and drop it into the Miami area, and it would fit right in. And vice-versa with, say, Weston. It's always interesting driving from, say, Orlando, to Tampa, to Fort Myers, to Fort Lauderdale, to West Palm Beach, and then back to Orlando. All of those areas look and feel the same, particularly in their suburbs. There is simply no charm to them, barring a very select few.
I don't have enough experience with Dallas and Houston to comment on those.
Plano, Frisco, The Woodlands, and Sugar Land are pretty nice and have solid downtowns.
I was thinking that too. Northern Virginia and the Northern Atlanta suburbs are more similar than any other comparison in the nation. I noticed that the southern cities are underperforming in this poll....Miami, Dallas, and Houston have nice suburbs as well....
Houston suburbs IMHO are just...ehh...as vanilla as they can get. None of the "nice" suburb (Katy, Sugar Land, part of Cypress, The Woodlands, Pearland, or even Clear Lake area) has any "core downtown" nor even DC's favorite mixed-use "suburban-urban" developments. Instead it's just sprawls of cul-de-sac neighborhoods, commercial strips with a gajillion strip malls, all of course with zero transit.
(I grew up in Sugar Land...nice and quiet but it's suburbia galore).
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