Moving to Boston (Cambridge, Newton, Brookline: condo, townhouses, public schools)

[missionhill]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Not sure this is such great advice. I never saw Dedham as a very welcoming town, for anybody but particularly racial minorities. That may have changed over time, but I imagine the underbelly is still there.

The underbelly—Good term. There’s a big underbelly in the USA and not so ‘under’ these days. Even so, with non-whites at over 20% I’d be more optimistic about Dedham than Westwood.

[Tryingtomakeit14]

Thank you for the added locations we had started to look into Needham (looks like for what we want we would need to up our budget about 600,000 - not what I want to do but what may be necessary) more seriously this morning and it seems we should add Brookline and Milton to that list as well. I appreciate all the advice because it seems the worst in America is coming out right now and don’t want to move our kids into areas that will add more than what they would get normally on top of that. It seems a lot of people feel living in the city is actually great too and we would love that if we could make it work and figure out the school situation. Thanks again for the help

[ben young]

Move to Roxbury , public transportation, 15 min to Boston Diverse just what your looking for, send kids to Pvt school.

[simplexsimon]

Originally Posted by missionhill

I'd be dubious of Westwood as welcoming to a multiracial family. When white population is 95% or higher, as it is in Westwood, you'd have to approach with caution.

It's 86% according to Niche and like most affluent towns the Asian population is increasing.

I agree and think Milton would be a better fit based on OP's checklist and there certainly may be a better cultural fit with more black people in town, but is it significantly more welcoming than Westwood or any other affluent town?

In the richer suburbs it feels like there's more socioeconomic discrimination than racial discrimination...still not a good thing, but different.

Originally Posted by Tryingtomakeit14

(looks like for what we want we would need to up our budget about 600,000 - not what I want to do but what may be necessary)

Are you really able to increase your budget to $1.4-1.6m? That changes some things.

[massnative71]

Milton is probably your best bet. Still, I think it's safe to say that none of these towns in consideration are "unwelcoming". The most you will have to worry about is indifference.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by missionhill

Even so, with non-whites at over 20% I’d be more optimistic about Dedham than Westwood.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I am an immigrant with an obvious foreign accent, my wife is non-white we live in a town about 98% white and the worst thing that ever happened to us was that a guy told my wife "your English is really good"....she grew up here.
On the other hand a Chinese friend of mine was told to go back to her country while strolling around the MIT campus.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by ben young

Move to Roxbury , public transportation, 15 min to Boston Diverse just what your looking for, send kids to Pvt school.

This is poor advice. OP, Roxbury is the ghetto.

[Tryingtomakeit14]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

It's 86% according to Niche and like most affluent towns the Asian population is increasing.

I agree and think Milton would be a better fit based on OP's checklist and there certainly may be a better cultural fit with more black people in town, but is it significantly more welcoming than Westwood or any other affluent town?

In the richer suburbs it feels like there's more socioeconomic discrimination than racial discrimination...still not a good thing, but different.



Are you really able to increase your budget to $1.4-1.6m? That changes some things.

I think after coming on here we realized we can’t stay where we want budget wise so we adjusted it to 1.4-1.7 million but we don’t want to go higher than that. We want to get a place that we can feel comfortable in but not stretch our budget to it’s max so 1.7 Would be our biggest for a home.

[porterhouse]

You should look in Cambridge to check all your boxes in that case.

[Tryingtomakeit14]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

You should look in Cambridge to check all your boxes in that case.

Thank you we will look into there as well - thanks for the suggestion