West Chester vs Phoenixville vs Doylestown, PA? (living, best, better)
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Walkability (meaning driving downtown, parking your car and spending a few hours browsing shops, eating at restaurants, etc, I don't mean being able to live without a car)
Lively Vibe - things going on
Density
Core Downtown
Proximity to other attractive towns with things to do?
Low Crime (Burglary, Robbery, Murder)
Weather
Proximity to and ease of getting to Philly
Amenities
Public Transit
Health Care
Housing Stock (Variety of styles - apartments, townhomes, condos, SF - and variety of price ranges/age)
West Chester. It's a cute little college city with a very walkable downtown. Really nice building stock and feel. I like the sidewalk outdoor seating/cafes and different restaurant/bar options. Nice town.
I'd second BigCity76's recommendation of West Chester, the second-most-populous of the four suburban county seats and the region's only real college town. West Chester University gives the borough an arts and culture scene that surpasses those of Doylestown, Phoenixville, Norristown and Media, and WCU students keep the restaurants, shops and bars downtown busy when school is in session. (The locals manage to hold up their end of the bargain when it's not.)
A couple of side notes, however:
If you love craft beer, there's no better place to live in this region than Phoenixville, which is probably the sudsiest municipality in Greater Philadelphia if not all Pennsylvania: 13 craft breweries and brewpubs line a four-block stretch of Bridge Street, the borough's Main Street.
When it comes to public transit, none of these places excel, but West Chester has more options. Only Doylestown has Regional Rail service to Philadelphia, though a group in West Chester is working to restore service on the abandoned portion of the old PRR West Chester Branch beyond Wawa, where it terminates now (service was suspended in 1984 because of deteriorated track conditions). However, West Chester is the best served of these three by bus, with three SEPTA bus routes and one TMACC (Transportation Management Association of Chester County) bus route serving southwestern Chester County (Avondale, Oxford, West Grove and Kennett Square) converging on the downtown. The route that connects to the Market-Frankford Line — Route 104 — also serves the WCU campus. You can get from West Chester to Exton, a major shopping center and site of a Regional Rail station, on Bus Route 135 (which ends in Coatesville) as well, and Route 92 takes you from West Chester to King of Prussia, the region's biggest shopping center and edge city.
Edited to add: And since you also asked about walkability, and I assume you are thinking of actually living within the municipal limits of one of these three communities, I'd give points to a place where you did not have to drive downtown and park to walk around it. The chances of your being able to do this and still find a house you can afford to live in are highest in West Chester and lowest in Doylestown. All three downtowns have Walk Scores above 95, but where you'd probably have to look in not-terribly-walkable Doylestown Township to find housing you could afford, Doylestown Borough being pretty pricey, you should be able to find housing within reach within the borough boundaries of West Chester — and the borough overall has a very respectable Walk Score of 74.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 08-12-2023 at 07:42 AM..
Walkability (meaning driving downtown, parking your car and spending a few hours browsing shops, eating at restaurants, etc, I don't mean being able to live without a car)
Lively Vibe - things going on
Density
Core Downtown
Proximity to other attractive towns with things to do?
Low Crime (Burglary, Robbery, Murder)
Weather
Proximity to and ease of getting to Philly
Amenities
Public Transit
Health Care
Housing Stock (Variety of styles - apartments, townhomes, condos, SF - and variety of price ranges/age)
If walkability/density are #1 I lean West Chester. A bit bigger of an area to walk around than Doylestown. Phoenixville is on the up and up and they close the downtown main street during the summer weekend nights which makes for a nice environment. For me: West Chester > Doylestown > Phoenixville.
One big difference of being on different sides of Philadelphia is what other things are in proximity to each. Doylestown is closer to NYC/Poconos/Leigh Valley and a little closer to the shore. West Chester is closer to Lancaster/Amish Country/DelMarVa but a little further from the jersey shore.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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The location of the towns is a good factor to consider. If I remember correctly, you have family in the DC area. In that case, West Chester (and Media) is about a half hour or so closer than Doylestown. My brother lives in West Chester, and my sister lives in Bucks County, and it was much easier to visit my brother when we lived in NoVA. When my kids were quite young, we would sometimes even do West Chester as a day trip.
While Doylestown is closer to "a shore" it is not necessarily closer to some of the popular "Philadelphia" shore towns like Ocean City (NJ) or Cape May. West Chester is closer to those, and Media even closer. Doylestown is fairly close to some of the more northern NJ beaches like Belmar or Point Pleasant.
I think Doylestown, Media, and West Chester are all good choices. I'm not familiar enough with Phoenixville to comment.
I'm not sure how much outsiders are aware, but Phoenixville is now one of the fastest-growing towns in the Philly area, and in particular is building up its downtown pretty impressively; its reputation may be still be lagging, but it's quickly approaching West Chester levels as far as a highly-sought suburban hub.
To the OP: I'd recommend reposting this/requesting a move of this thread to the Philly forum. I don't know that there's enough potential commenters on the national forum to give you more opinions.
You're worried about crime in Media? You can't be serious...
I'm not "worried" about it, but relatively speaking, if these stats are correct, this is what is reported for violent crime in each locale:
Where I live now - Mount Pleasant, SC (a Charleston, SC suburb) - 98/100K people
Where I used to live - Newburyport, MA (a Boston suburb) - 107/100K people
Doylestown - 137/100K people
Phoenixville - 188/100K people
Boston - 551/100K people
Media - 596/100K people
It seemed (to me - again, I don't know how to interpret these stats) that if a place that is 5K population has as much violent crime as a city of 654K people, and a lot 5x the violent crime where we live now, perhaps it's "higher crime" that we want to live in.
It appears that these numbers don't make sense, because West Chester has 4.9 murders/100K, Media has 0, West Chester has 54.2 Robberies/100K, Media has 37.3, and West Chester has 226.6 Burglaries, and Media has 111.8/100K.
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