[Buttercup15]

We are moving to CT and are looking at a place in East Haven. I have mostly heard negative things about the area. I have a 13 year old so we are looking for a family-friendly area.

Thanks for any replies.

[JayCT]

east Haven is a nice working class town with some very nice neighborhoods. Its schools though perform well under the state averages on the Connecticut Mastery and Connecticut Academic Performance Tests. This does not necessarily mean that the schools system is bad but many people there do send their kids to private schools. Jay

[kad1974]

May I ask why East Haven? and where are you moving from? I did live in East Haven for 5 years, so I can fill you in as much as possible.

[CathyD1]

As Jay said, the schools aren't really up to par and while they do have some good neighborhoods, the close proximity to New Haven can sometimes pose a problem.

I would look into Branford or Hamden. Both good towns with decent schools.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by CathyD1

the close proximity to New Haven can sometimes pose a problem.

I would look into Branford or Hamden. Both good towns with decent schools.

It doesn't appear that East Haven has anymore issues than Hamden does. Both border New Haven and appear to have "similar" crime ratings.

[stewarthaas]

East Haven is ok, the high school isn't too much to talk about but I can suggest a trade school in Milford that he can take a bus East Haven supplies to it.

Branford is a nicer town thought, what price range are you looking for? Then I can suggest specific areas.

[derbyshire]

If your name ends in a vowel you'll do just fine in Staven!

[Lowerdeck]

Originally Posted by derbyshire

If your name ends in a vowel you'll do just fine in Staven!

I was waiting for someone to say that. East Haven to me seems very much a working class town and very Italian. Similar to Cranston RI or some areas in/near Boston.

Personally, if you had to be at that level: I would pick West over East Haven.

[AnonChick]

I'll be the one to say otherwise. I lived in East Haven for 11 years. I even worked for the Town for 6 months. Politics sucked. Town itself was awesome. Their educational system sucks, but if your child is bright and motivated he can do fine in spite of that. Or, you could just send him to private school.

I lived on the Foxon side of the town, which borders New Haven, North Haven, and Northford/North Branford. We lived in one of the kajillion condos on our road and unfortunately, they've done so much commercial development on route 80 that it's not somewhere you'd want to live unless you work odd hours, because traffic is impossible. It can take you 20 minutes to get from the highway exit to the condos during rush hour, which are less than 2 miles up the road.

If you're working points north along the shoreline, however, you'd have a much easier time of it. You'd be going in the opposite direction of traffic. So if you're working in Northford, North Branford, North Haven, Durham, Branford, Madison, anywhere *north* on Rte. 80, you won't run into much traffic going your way at all.

It's only when you have to deal with getting to and from I-91 at the bottom of Rte 80, or down North High to I-95, that you'll have trouble.

The town itself is lovely and has one of the best town beaches in the state, although it's not as expansive as some. The town center is rather pretty, very old fashioned, with a comfy unpretentious town green.

It is predominately working class, and Italian. It's not a rule, it's just how it ended up. I'm neither and lived there for 11 years. We used to joke that the only reason they let me in was because I married a paisan

The best thing about living in a working-class italian town, is the food. There's John & Maria's on Rte. 80, and New Haven Pizza also on Rte. 80 (I think they changed their name; they're in the next plaza over from Walmart). There's Tolli's, which is actually where John of John & Maria's came from, and a couple of italian pastry shops, and the Beach House.

Aldi's just opened up in the past year or so on Rte 80 so you can get all your staple grocieries cheap. Branford is right up the Boston Post Road, (aka rte 1, which starts in Maine and goes all the way down to Florida).

There are a few farmland areas, lots of wetland, a couple of marinas, and Tweed-New Haven Airport splits its property line between East Haven and New Haven. The Annex, a huge mix of neighborhood types ending at Lighthouse Point beach, is on the East Haven side of the Q-bridge (I-95) even though it's technically New Haven proper.

It's mostly old residential with crops of newer condos on the outskirts. Lots and lots of cape cod style houses and smaller colonials. Very "neighborly" neighborhoods where people know each other and aren't afraid to wave and say hello when they're out getting the morning paper in their jammies and slippers

I loved East Haven. I just hated living in a condo and was looking to be away from the traffic nightmare that is the Q bridge, and I-91 during rush hour. So we moved next door to North Haven. More expensive, but also more open spaces.

[nevada49]

Well the last post pretty much covered it all. I live in the Southern end of town, 1 mile from the beach and 1 mile from the town center. I love my neighborhood and only hope I can move to one as convenient when I relocate (after retiring) next year. I can walk to the beach and to the town center. The neighborhood is older, but very pretty, with rocky outcroppings, wetlands and nice mature trees. A state park was opened in the last couple of years with nice walking trails that lead to a river and the Branford town line. You walk across a small bridge and are in a beautiful waterfront area of Branford. There are lots of shopping options in town. The one problem, maybe, is the highway - I-95 is a nightmare. It takes me 45 minutes to go 7 miles to work and I work an off-shift. It takes my neighbor 1 hour to go 7 miles at 6 a.m. This ridiculous situation will be around for the next 5 or 10 years. There is an alternative to the horrible Q-Bridge, two lanes in each direction, but since May there have been barrels and cones blocking one lane in each direction, with no work evident. That backs traffic up for a mile or two in each direction every day. So, East Haven might be all right, depending on where you have to commute to. The schools I know nothing about, but the kids in my area seem like good kids and do well in school.