Moving to MA from out of state - figuring out how to pick the "right" suburb for me and my family (Boston: home, neighborhoods)

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

People who live in Acton might be driving to Burlington or Waltham and not say Alewife or beyond but they aint going to Marlborough.

Or they could be riding a bicycle to Nagog Park. I've never totaled it up but there must be several million square feet of office space and light industrial space there. Lots of startups incubate there. They can't get funding to live in $100/sf space in Kendall Square.



There's more office space in the suburbs than in Boston/Cambridge. I cited the numbers a bit up-thread. In the recent headlines, Pfizer has a 70 acre campus in Andover. The EMC stuff that spun out of a Data General storage project years ago is all out on 495. I haven't looked recently but that was the largest tech employer in the state the last time I checked.

[coldyankee]

The Manchester-Essex area has a great school system but the surrounding towns may be out of your price range.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

From researching living in Acton, I can tell you that pre-pandemic Route 2 in Concord was one of the busiest roads in the entire state during rush hour. The rotary was pretty much a disaster.

Rte. 2 is far lower capacity than most of the other highways, especially with the rotary even the slightest amount of traffic will cause backups. Without seeing the official traffic counts, I call BS that it's "one of the busiest roads in the entire state" (volume wise).

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

There's more office space in the suburbs than in Boston/Cambridge. I cited the numbers a bit up-thread. In the recent headlines, Pfizer has a 70 acre campus in Andover. The EMC stuff that spun out of a Data General storage project years ago is all out on 495. I haven't looked recently but that was the largest tech employer in the state the last time I checked.

And speaking of Marlborough. Intel has a big campus in town, SanDisk has a big office right off 290. Then head up to Littleton and see the big IBM campus.

It's too bad AstraZeneca moved out of Westborough though. Amazon Robotics bought the big building with the pyramid. And actually it's really close to the Westborough station - but Otis doesn't have sidewalks or anything.

Anyway, there are a lot of people who work in high paying jobs along 495.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Rte. 2 is far lower capacity than most of the other highways, especially with the rotary even the slightest amount of traffic will cause backups. Without seeing the official traffic counts, I call BS that it's "one of the busiest roads in the entire state" (volume wise).

There are also a bunch of traffic lights between the rotary and Boston that make things worse. The congestion is pretty much always closely related to an intersection in my experience.
In front of the prison the median is just a line and the lanes are not very wide. It would be nice to have it upgraded to proper highway at least to the 95 intersection.

[yesmaybe]

Originally Posted by scorpio516

And speaking of Marlborough. Intel has a big campus in town, SanDisk has a big office right off 290. Then head up to Littleton and see the big IBM campus.

Intel dumped the fab. They were still doing some R&D but I think that's soon coming to a close. Intel doesn't really offer RSUs, and I doubt IBM does either. As for IBM, I doubt they use the former Digital HQ much now.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

The talent they want lives in the city.

Like Microsoft does have an office in Burlington but I imagine it's a legacy from an earlier acquisition. There are MBTA buses which go by where their office is. Would that be enough for them?

MSFT does have the office on Wayside Dr. Their space in that building came along with their acquisition of Nokia's handset business. It's now a sales office from what I understand. They also have an office in Acton due to their acquisition of Affirmed Networks.

And yes, there is plenty of office space in the 'burbs. IMHO, must of the office space in Boston that is being vacated will be converted to lab space over the next few years.

[ben young]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

This. MA has a short sloppy spring. Spring is more of a thing down in MD/VA Winter is more pronounced in MA. Its a trade-off. Also, I wouldn't call the snowfall in Central MA moderate, I would consider it to be high.

Other than that Central MA is a good for what you want

snowfall in North Central Ma in the 70 to 85 inch range sometimes 110

[yesmaybe]

Originally Posted by ben young

snowfall in North Central Ma in the 70 to 85 inch range sometimes 110

Isn't Worcester like a Top 5 city in the US for snowfall?

[P Larsen]

It's not even in the top 10 by rolling 30 year annual averages. But in a given year, it could be in the top 10, if lake effect and mountain snow elsewhere is below average.