Small town feel

[Scpence61]

I am not looking for something as small as the town I grew up in. That is why I came down to the Charlotte area. I am planning to attend BU for graduate school and I am just trying to find a medium size town with a small town feel. It will be a compromise between me and my boyfriend. He grew up in LA so being close to a large city is important to him and I just like the feel of a small/medium town. We also have two large dogs and his three kids to factor in so living in the city of boston in an apartment isn't going to work out well for us. I am willing to drive about an hour...an hour and a half tops to commute. Thanks everyone for the great suggestions.

[ogre]

First, congratulations on grad school!

To get back to ideas about places to live that might work for you, with the information that you'll be commuting to classes at BU, a lot of the towns that have been suggested could push the limits of a max. of 1-1/2 hours for commuting, depending on the time of day. If your classes are at night or in the middle of the day, the towns already suggested are likely to put you within that time limit, or in some cases the one-hour commuting range. During the usual commuting hours, however, traffic would make it unrealistic to expect to drive from, say, Lakeville, get into Boston in the neighborhood of BU, get parked, and walk to your class all within an hour and a half. If you're likely to be commuting during rush hours, you may want to focus on towns along commuter rail lines, such as Hanson, Halifax, or Littleton. You could still be pushing the hour-and-a-half limit, but it would be pretty close to this if you did not have a long drive to the train station.

If you basically just want a clean, pleasant town that is not too crowded, there are towns closer to Boston that could work. This might be something to consider not only because of commuting time but because of the compromise you're making with your boyfriend, since most of the towns suggested in previous posts are kind of in the sticks.

If you want a low population density and somewhat of a small-town feel right in the town where you live, within medium distance of Boston, less distance than Hanson, Halifax, or Lakeville from the city amenities your boyfriend wants, I'd suggest looking really closely at Holliston and Hopkinton, maybe also at neighboring Ashland, though I think the two H towns may be a little nicer overall than Ashland. In the Holl./Hop./Ash. area, you're close to a bunch of mall shopping in Framingham and Natick, and no more than about a forty-five-minute drive from downtown Boston in light traffic.

Unfortunately, the really uncrowded, woodsy towns closer to Boston are among the most expensive suburbs to live in. The Boston area in general has a high cost of living, so you're likely to find that even rents which would be considered modest in this area will be significantly more expensive than you'd find in the Charlotte metro. In one of the pricier suburbs of Boston, you could easily spend five, six, seven, eight thousand a month just on rent for a three-bedroom house. If that works for you, then check Lincoln, Weston, Dover, or Sherborn for towns fairly close to Boston that are uncrowded and have many good-sized yards and plenty of trees around. Westwood and Wayland are similar towns that might be a bit less expensive, though housing costs will still be up there in those towns.

For more modest costs by local standards, some towns you might want to check out which are fairly close to Boston and are very suburban but still quiet and uncrowded are Wakefield, Norwood, and Natick. All these towns might be larger than you're looking for, but they do have a quiet feel about them.

If you want as low a rent as you're going to find moderately close to Boston in a sort of smallish suburb, Dedham is a more low-brow, but still pleasant, town than some of the others I've suggested, and would be worth a looksee if relatively small, clean, fairly close to Boston, with modest rents by the standards of towns near Boston would best suit your needs.

Keep in mind what I said in my earlier post about how it's going to be difficult to find a town anywhere close to Boston that is a genuine small-town Mayberry kind of place. The fact that just about any town within even a long commuting distance of Boston is a bedroom community means that many residents travel all over the metro area for work and other needs, which does dilute somewhat the really tightly knit sense of community you can find in towns where people cross paths with their neighbors throughout the day because many people live, work, shop, and find entertainment in the same town. However, there are suburban towns in the area that are uncrowded and pleasant. Which one of those would work best for you depends on details such as your housing budget, how much of a downtown you want, how spread out or not you'd like the town to be, and whether you would like to use public transit frequently.

[holden125]

Originally Posted by Scpence61

I am willing to drive about an hour...an hour and a half tops to commute.

I question the whole idea of driving into BU every day. Unless you can get a dedicated spot, parking for the whole day is a very difficult endeavor. And 4 hours of driving in some parts of the country is less stressful than 1.5 hours of driving into Boston at certain times of day. I would strongly recommend the train.