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I grew up on Long Island and spent most my adult life in the New York metro area. I've been here in the Boston area for about twenty years. Any pretension that Massachusetts is just a little north of New York is silly. There's a substantial difference between the two areas: Massachusetts is, simply put, significantly colder. That is actually an advantage over the summer: The number of uncomfortably hot days around here is very small. Boston summers are among the most comfortable I've experienced anywhere in the country. Of course, that means the winters are severe. Very severe by comparison to any part of Long Island.
having lived most of my life on Long Island and now MA for the last 5 years I can tell you for certain that those taxes get you almost zero noticeable increase in services or quality of infrastructure over what we have in MA. Schools are just as good here as well. In fact the roads overall are in far poorer shape on LI than up here. About the only thing better service wise on LI is that most towns collect trash 2x per week.
Sorry to hear that. I did not visit for a while but gotten impression that roads and infrastructure are in much better shape, including trash is taken more often than here. In my mind that is much better service that can justify taxes.
Person coming to MA needs to check carefully if any municipal trash pick-up is offered in chosen town you might need to haul your own or pay someone else to do it.
Just curious how shopping in general, and grocery in particular stacks against MA?
Western MA is horrible in winter and hot and muggy in summer. The snow never melts due to all the trees. I moved away after living there all my life, due mostly to the winters. There are piles upon piles of snow.
Northeastern MA, Essex County is pretty bad in winter too. It is great in summer though because you are on the ocean, there are NO mosquitoes as long as you are close enough to the water, and it's not as hot as inland. Snow starts in late Nov. and ends in late March.
There is nowhere near as much snow as there is in WMass but there is still a surprising amount. Light, fluffy snow, heavy wet snow. They take great care of the roads with sand, salt, and plowing. Newburyport is a great place as long as you can take a cold snowy winter--in summer it's like a resort. All of Cape Ann is fantastic in summer and it gets tourists but doesn't get that overcrowded.
Coastal CT is better for winter weather and, of course, the gold coast of CT has a similar climate to LI but is expensive.
Having grown up in Essex County (ages 6 to 18) and lived in Western Mass for a total of 19 years (ages 0-6 and as an adult), I can report that the above assessment is dead on. Stay out of Western Mass if you don't like snow and humidity. NE Mass is much more tolerable in terms of weather. It is not cheap but I imagine it's cheaper than Long Island.
Person coming to MA needs to check carefully if any municipal trash pick-up is offered in chosen town you might need to haul your own or pay someone else to do it.
Just curious how shopping in general, and grocery in particular stacks against MA?
It's great to see input from expat LI'ers to MA! Something I did not expect,LOL
It never occurred to me that trash pickup wouldn't be offered in ANY suburban location! I've lived all my life on LI and trash pickup was never less than twice a week. Actually in most towns it is 3 times a week nowadays, because there is a separate pickup day for recyclables: for paper, and for glass/metal, on alternate Wednesdays. As a single I would be fine with a single pickup day, but having to haul my own??!? Not in this lifetime!!
If you're asking about the availability of shopping in general on LI, my answer would be that retail is everywhere. There are four major shopping malls with several anchor stores each, within a half hours drive in any direction of central LI (fyi to the expats: the Walt Whitman Mall recently expanded to a two-level, a la Roosevelt Field). Then there are the midsized malls and what I call the store groupings which are not enclosed but share the same parking lots. So for instance if one Best Buy is out of stock on something, there's another location within 10 miles. As for grocery stores there are multiples within 5 minutes of each other, for instance there's a Stop&Shop not only in my home community but also in the adjacent community less than 5 miles away to the east, in the adjacent community 4 miles to the west, in the one 2 miles to the north and a fourth about 5 miles to the northwest. That's in addition to King Kullen, Waldbaums, Pathmark and ShopRite all within a 6 miles radius of my house.
If you're asking about retail prices I would assume it's probably the same as in MA. My son went to college in Waltham in the mid 2000s and when I'd visit him I'd pick up groceries at the Stop&Shop; they were essentially the same prices as back home on LI.
It's great to see input from expat LI'ers to MA! Something I did not expect,LOL
It never occurred to me that trash pickup wouldn't be offered in ANY suburban location! I've lived all my life on LI and trash pickup was never less than twice a week. Actually in most towns it is 3 times a week nowadays, because there is a separate pickup day for recyclables: for paper, and for glass/metal, on alternate Wednesdays. As a single I would be fine with a single pickup day, but having to haul my own??!? Not in this lifetime!!
If you're asking about the availability of shopping in general on LI, my answer would be that retail is everywhere. There are four major shopping malls with several anchor stores each, within a half hours drive in any direction of central LI (fyi to the expats: the Walt Whitman Mall recently expanded to a two-level, a la Roosevelt Field). Then there are the midsized malls and what I call the store groupings which are not enclosed but share the same parking lots. So for instance if one Best Buy is out of stock on something, there's another location within 10 miles. As for grocery stores there are multiples within 5 minutes of each other, for instance there's a Stop&Shop not only in my home community but also in the adjacent community less than 5 miles away to the east, in the adjacent community 4 miles to the west, in the one 2 miles to the north and a fourth about 5 miles to the northwest. That's in addition to King Kullen, Waldbaums, Pathmark and ShopRite all within a 6 miles radius of my house.
If you're asking about retail prices I would assume it's probably the same as in MA. My son went to college in Waltham in the mid 2000s and when I'd visit him I'd pick up groceries at the Stop&Shop; they were essentially the same prices as back home on LI.
Then I think you will be surprised to learn that shopping is not as abundant as many towns fight any commercial development like it is a plague despite meager tax revenue and budgets. Which results in many MA towns having no other revenue than property taxes, and it is never enough money.
There are too many people, and very few shopping options. Access and exits are always full of traffic, and one has to have plenty of patience. Not fun. Unless you can shop off-hours all the time.
Most Towns have regular trash pick-up once a week (if offered), and recycling is every two weeks (which is awful if you really recycle, as you often need separate space just to store all this collected trash/recyclables). You have it so much better on LI.
BTW someone recently on this forum was surprised at the beer prices in the store, coming from NJ, and I was wondering if everything else has higher mark-up as well. Gas does for sure. Cost of living is not for the faint of heart and wallet.
Cost of living is not for the faint of heart and wallet.
Ironically, I just looked at the C-D stats for Hadley and nearly fell off my chair when I saw that it's a higher number than in the LI community I now live in. I didn't think that was possible unless smackdab in the middle of a large city, LOL
Current LI community: 154% of national average
Current Hadley: 250% of national average (!!!!!!)
I then looked up a few of the communities on LI which are considered wealthy, and here's the C-D stats for those:
Head of the Harbor 160%
Mill Neck 142%
Old Westbury 172%
Southampton 170%
Poquott 161%
Plandome 169%
Oyster Bay Cove 166%
Those last two made the recent list of America's Most Affluent Neighborhoods, btw. Oddly, my community is upper blue collar to white collar; not "wealthy" at all. Cost of living on LI is fairly equalized no matter what community one lives in (poor, middle income, or wealthy) because the services are the same; it's the school districts that drive the property tax differences. So what the heck is up with Hadley that makes it so expensive to live there? LOL
On the other hand, I also looked up Wakefield, MA, which is a place I've been to a few times; the COL given there is 135.8% of national average. I also comped the demographics, education, population numbers, size of community and median house prices between Wakefield and my current LI town; they all match almost exactly. Just for fun I looked at some For Sale listings there, and saw a ranch that would be asking $100K more, and have double the taxes ($11K versus $5100), if it were magically transported, lot size and all, to my community on LI.
Then I think you will be surprised to learn that shopping is not as abundant as many towns fight any commercial development like it is a plague despite meager tax revenue and budgets. Which results in many MA towns having no other revenue than property taxes, and it is never enough money.
This is a problem in many places, and is not really unique to MA.
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There are too many people, and very few shopping options. Access and exits are always full of traffic, and one has to have plenty of patience. Not fun. Unless you can shop off-hours all the time.
It really depends on where you live. I've never really had trouble buying what I want/need and traffic is only terrible during rush hour.
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Most Towns have regular trash pick-up once a week (if offered), and recycling is every two weeks (which is awful if you really recycle, as you often need separate space just to store all this collected trash/recyclables). You have it so much better on LI.
This is true, and it sucks.
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BTW someone recently on this forum was surprised at the beer prices in the store, coming from NJ, and I was wondering if everything else has higher mark-up as well. Gas does for sure. Cost of living is not for the faint of heart and wallet.
Gas in NY costs more than in MA. Food is generally a little cheaper. The cost of random goods is generally on par with what we pay, but the sales tax is higher.
The various taxes in NY add up to a tax burden that is higher than MA.
Sorry to hear that. I did not visit for a while but gotten impression that roads and infrastructure are in much better shape, including trash is taken more often than here. In my mind that is much better service that can justify taxes.
Person coming to MA needs to check carefully if any municipal trash pick-up is offered in chosen town you might need to haul your own or pay someone else to do it.
Just curious how shopping in general, and grocery in particular stacks against MA?
MA is a little better in terms of variety of choices in supermarket chains. Prices are no different. LI has stop & shop everywhere and then some other junk like Waldbaums and King Kullen.
Then I think you will be surprised to learn that shopping is not as abundant as many towns fight any commercial development like it is a plague despite meager tax revenue and budgets. Which results in many MA towns having no other revenue than property taxes, and it is never enough money.
There are too many people, and very few shopping options. Access and exits are always full of traffic, and one has to have plenty of patience. Not fun. Unless you can shop off-hours all the time.
Most Towns have regular trash pick-up once a week (if offered), and recycling is every two weeks (which is awful if you really recycle, as you often need separate space just to store all this collected trash/recyclables). You have it so much better on LI.
BTW someone recently on this forum was surprised at the beer prices in the store, coming from NJ, and I was wondering if everything else has higher mark-up as well. Gas does for sure. Cost of living is not for the faint of heart and wallet.
Is 2x per week trash pickup worth $5,000 per year extra to you? Because that is the difference in taxes between what I pay on my house in MA, and what the owners of the house I rented on LI paid. Similar houses in similar towns economically/demographically.
As for shopping being crowded, someone from LI will actually find MA a relief. Only difference is you may have to travel a few miles further to get to the shopping, but with the traffic on LI it will probably take about the same amount of time. Remember, there are almost 3 million people on LI (almost 8 million if you count Brooklyn and Queens with geographically are on LI).
A few more thoughts - beer/liquor prices are higher in MA compared to LI, because of taxes. Gas is cheaper in MA compared to LI, again because of taxes.
Overall, I noticed that aside from property taxes which are overall much lower in MA except for some select towns, the other taxes between MA and LI/NY are about a wash. Some are higher, some are lower.
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