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Groton had, and to some degree, still has a deeply entrenched WASP culture, but to call it a 'sun down' town is rather extreme hyperbole and, frankly, unwarranted fear mongering
Ah yes, let's form an opinion of a town based off the obscure 1920's musings of a boarding school student.
The same site lists Brookline and Belmont as 'probably' 'sundown' towns which, while it may have had some relevance due to redlining half a century ago, it has little relevance in 2020. These town may be classist, but they are certainly not racist in any meaningful way. If you're a wealthy educated Hispanic, no one will blink.
Please, be rational here. OP may wish to have his kids in a more racial diverse district, but not because any of the listed towns pose an ideological threat. The pro-Trump anti-immigrant loons are largely relegated to the former working-class Catholic towns in the South shore, central Worcester county, and Springfield 'burbs. Many blue collar Catholics shifted to the GOP post-southern strategy due to their social conservatism (e.g., pro life) and the effects can still be felt to this day ... they are, however, a dying demographic in this state.
Ah yes, let's form an opinion of a town based off the obscure 1920's musings of a boarding school student.
That's an email written in 2016.
Apologies to OP, just reading a lot about KKK in the area lately. These things were happening when my french-canadian grandparents were my child's age.
Anyway to OP, I landed in Ayer thinking we would move to a surrounding town eventually.
Groton is high on the list. My child attended preschool there, fellow students families were very nice, More economically diverse than I would have thought. Out of 14 kids there was one Hispanic child and one Indian.
Town is very pretty with lots of conservation land and farms. I was just there yesterday to hike Gibbet Hill and saw nobody, we had the castle to ourselves. That hike alone will make you want to live there.
I don't like that much of the town is 40 mph feeder roads and downtown is barely an attraction for people to slow down. I have seen some talk of reduced funding of the schools which i don't like to hear.
Harvard is similar, but more upscale. And also more subdued. Harvard and Dunstable give off an old money, don't notice us vibe, while Groton is a bit more extroverted.
Westford and Littleton I know little about. I was in Westford to hike the Stone Arch bridge the other day (very nice!) but I just don't get that town. Just feels like suburban sprawl to me.
Apologies to OP, just reading a lot about KKK in the area lately. These things were happening when my french-canadian grandparents were my child's age.
Anyway to OP, I landed in Ayer thinking we would move to a surrounding town eventually.
Groton is high on the list. My child attended preschool there, fellow students families were very nice, More economically diverse than I would have thought. Out of 14 kids there was one Hispanic child and one Indian.
Town is very pretty with lots of conservation land and farms. I was just there yesterday to hike Gibbet Hill and saw nobody, we had the castle to ourselves. That hike alone will make you want to live there.
I don't like that much of the town is 40 mph feeder roads and downtown is barely an attraction for people to slow down. I have seen some talk of reduced funding of the schools which i don't like to hear.
Harvard is similar, but more upscale. And also more subdued. Harvard and Dunstable give off an old money, don't notice us vibe, while Groton is a bit more extroverted.
Westford and Littleton I know little about. I was in Westford to hike the Stone Arch bridge the other day (very nice!) but I just don't get that town. Just feels like suburban sprawl to me.
Written in 2016 ...about events which transpired in 1920 with modern pontifications of what constitutes a 'sundown' town.
OP came on here to better gauge towns under consideration for his family in 2020, not read your recent studies into century old conflicts between Protestants and French-Can/Irish Catholics. You must realize that a reference to a location being a 'sundown' town ... particularly to transplants with limited context ... conjures images of the reconstruction-era south where lynchings and domestic terror happened en masse. IMO, it's ignorant fear mongering during a moment where we already have far too much amygdala-triggering rhetoric.
OP, can you prioritize what you'd be seeking in a town? For example: diversity, lot size, privacy vs community, desired architecture/era of build, retail/commercial presence, etc. Schools are likely at or near the top, but given that all of the mentioned districts are top 10 percentile (within a top tier state), that is a given.
Westford and Littleton I know little about. I was in Westford to hike the Stone Arch bridge the other day (very nice!) but I just don't get that town. Just feels like suburban sprawl to me.
I would say for the Littleton, Groton and Tyngsborough lines, that is largely the case. Anywhere north and west in Westford is fairly meh. Not a lot of charm, not a ton of nice neighborhoods. Much of the rest of town is beautiful. Going back two decades, it was merely a slightly larger version of Groton or Boxborough. Very little commercial development aside from Corporate offices along 110. It was second to really develop as a commuter suburb, behind Acton.
If ever interested in "exploring" a bit, Grab a muffin at Muffins on Main on a Saturday morning and go for a quick drive. Check out the neighborhoods around the center of town like Woolsack and Randolph Circle. Drive down to Abbott School and check out one of Paul Revere (his son went to Westford Academy) built cupolas. Take Main Street east and check out Hill Orchard, Baldwin Rd. Check out Salt Box farm on Hildreth (circa 1660) and some of the new luxury builds back towards the common. Nab Lake has some nice little beaches, always a lot of boats on the water and people swimming in all directions. And the southern portion of town with residential neighborhoods like Preservation Way is quite nice.
As for your hike, I do like the Arch Bridge trail. There are ~30 trails, all fairly well maintained around Westford. They've done a good job with building trails off of residential neighborhoods for access. It's a massive expense in Westford, and something they take pretty seriously (i'd argue too seriously, as they've probably spent $100M+ in buying/conserving land over the last two decades). Most recently, they spent millions of dollars to make sure developers didn't purchase and break out part of that Salt Box lot.. The developer wanted to break it up into 45 lots, which really would have been a blemish on Hildreth road. So the town had to compete with a substantial offer, as the developer probably would have built 45 homes, each selling at $1M+.
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