Medium-density vs low-density suburban neighborhoods (Boston, Worcester: renters, townhouse, buyers)

[maclel]

Originally Posted by Guineas

With Greater Boston though, the quaint town centers are often not particularly exciting other than some banks, a diner, Pilates studios and real estate offices, and also not easy to walk to unless you live right next to it due to the road layouts.

Schlepping kids into cars for pre-planned, scheduled activities is some of my least favorite things to do in parenting. It's so much easier and more spontaneous when you can just put on some rainboots and go for a walk to some place interesting.

My wife grew up in a woodsy metrowest town and always hated the car dependence growing up.

I agree with your first statement regarding the lack of appeal of town centers. However, its logical consequence leads me to disagree with your second statement. It feels exactly the opposite to me. I can put on some rainboots and jump onto the trails that hug my property and venture into the forest. I can also readily ride my bike through winding country roads with little traffic. To me this is much more interesting than walking on sidewalks and navigate traffic at every crossroads to go to a Dunkin' Donuts.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by Guineas

With Greater Boston though, the quaint town centers are often not particularly exciting other than some banks, a diner, Pilates studios and real estate offices, and also not easy to walk to unless you live right next to it due to the road layouts.
.

100% truth in this.

Sometimes I prefer the lower-end towns because they generally have more practical box retail/chains. The more upscale town centers are so underwhelming and not particularly useful. They look better though than say Stoughton Center.

[Guineas]

Originally Posted by maclel

I agree with your first statement regarding the lack of appeal of town centers. However, its logical consequence leads me to disagree with your second statement. It feels exactly the opposite to me. I can put on some rainboots and jump onto the trails that hug my property and venture into the forest. I can also readily ride my bike through winding country roads with little traffic. To me this is much more interesting than walking on sidewalks and navigate traffic at every crossroads to go to a Dunkin' Donuts.

I don’t disagree. We never found a nice medium density town in Greater Boston that was super walkable from SFHs and had interesting walkable parks and commercial strips. The closest we got was pondside JP, parts of Quincy/East Milton, and parts of Newton. Small pockets. Where we are at in Seattle now is much closer to that ideal. The nongrid street layout of Greater Boston, harsh winters, and the commercial zoning restrictions make that hard to work as idealized I think. People who buy SFHs in Greater Boston also just prefer more privacy and land it seems.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

Do you mean a lack of that kind of housing? We definitely don't have a lot of that around here. Where my parents live in FL that's what their neighborhood is like. You can practically reach out the window and touch the neighboring house.

I mean SFH rather than small condos.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by Guineas

With Greater Boston though, the quaint town centers are often not particularly exciting other than some banks, a diner, Pilates studios and real estate offices, and also not easy to walk to unless you live right next to it due to the road layouts.

No they're often not super exciting. This being said, they create centers for activity and socializing. When I meet someone for coffee I go to the center of town. When I meet someone for lunch I usually go to the center of town. This weekend there was something being put on by our local chamber on the town center. People LOVED the picnic benches and tents the town setup for dining in the town center during the pandemic. Plus, if I need to grab something quickly it's great to have a town center. We have a hardware store in the center of town and I can't tell you how many times I've been in the middle of a DIY project and found I needed something. It was awesome to just drive a minute away and grab it rather than to spend more time going to a big box home improvement store.

The town centers here are often not super exciting but they're also not without their value.

[sawyer2]

Originally Posted by thinkingotherthings

By "medium" density I have in mind typical neighborhoods in Winchester or Belmont, for example.

We are in Belmont and love the density/walkability aspect of it. We moved from Back Bay with kids 6 or 7 years ago for perspective.


Pros

We have an easy walk/bike (1/2 mile or so, and less in most cases) to all of the following:
- Elementary and Middle school. (Nearly all middle school and older elementary kids on our street walk to school every day weather permitting.)
- Several parks and playgrounds
- Town pool
- Library
- Bunch of coffee shops, restaurants, pizza places etc
- Two commuter rail stations and multiple bus routes with great access to Cambridge and Boston

Sidewalks throughout the town facilitate walking, biking etc.

The kids are always popping over and back to their friends houses ....a lot easier when they all live within a few blocks radius. We definitely spend way less time schlepping them around compared with our friends in the outer 'burbs, or scheduling 'play dates'.

Smaller lots are more manageable from a landscaping perspective and its something that we enjoy doing, but it's not so much that it is overwhelming and need to pay someone.

'Walkability' depends on where you live in the town of course but Belmont is small and compact and our experience is pretty typical, unless you are set back on Belmont Hill, or unless your don't like walking.

Very short drive to big box stores in Watertown and Waltham.

Inexpensive and plentiful (pre pandemic at least) Uber/Lyft rides to restaurants etc in Boston.


Cons

- $$$$. The town has gone very expensive and there is no inventory. I thought that with the pandemic/WFH these innermost suburbs would lose desirability but it has gone the opposite. Lots of people moving from Boston, Cambridge, Somerville who want more room/not a condo .... but don't want the outer 'burbs. In the last year we have received several unsolicited all cash teaser offers up to 20% over what we think the market would bear ...but we have no interest in leaving.

- What you get or don't get for the money....older house, smaller lot etc. Our friends in Andover bought a newer build that is probably 2-3X size, and 10X size lot for the same money or less, but we are not interested in a huge McMansion.

- Privacy or lack thereof. Clearly if you are on a bigger lot with more room you have more privacy. I find it more isolating, but we are pretty social and like the 'hello neighbor' aspect.



Different strokes and all that ..... no right answer here. Good luck!

[thinkingotherthings]

sawyer2, Guineas, and others who prefer medium-density neighborhoods: Has noise from neighbors ever been a major issue? That is really my biggest concern about medium density, moreso than lack of privacy (I think medium density provides enough privacy). Actually I grew up in one of the denser parts of Brookline and I don't remember noise being a major issue ever. But now I live in Waltham and noise is a huge problem – granted we are targeting more upscale towns than Waltham so I hope noise wouldn't be an issue with the towns on our list, but you never know...

Originally Posted by sawyer2

We have an easy walk/bike (1/2 mile or so, and less in most cases) to all of the following:

With the medium-density towns we're targeting (Belmont/Winchester/Lexington/Arlington/Melrose), at our budget (1.5M), and requirements (4+ bd, 2.5+ ba, 2300+ sqft, in good move-in-ready condition) we don't have much hope of landing a house that is walking distance to all the amenities; while I'd love to have that, we just can't afford it. But we are aiming for a house that is a short drive to amenities, regardless of neighborhood density.

For those of you who prefer lower-density neighborhoods: have you ever had issues with internet access? (I did see maclel mention no problems getting FIOS in Lincoln; just curious to collect additional data points.)

I am enjoying all the discussion!

[CaseyB]

No, no issues with the internet. We have comcast (Xfinity), some of our neighbors have Verizon.

[msRB311]

My boss lives in Newton and he had internet issues yesterday...

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

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I've never understood why so many people here on C-D are so obsessed with sidewalks. IMO, it's not just about sidewalks. It's about traffic levels on the street. For example, in my neighborhood we have sidewalks but no one uses them. Everyone walks and bikes in the street because all the entrances in the neighborhood are on side (so no cutting through) and generally the streets are extremely low traffic. So, if the sidewalks went away no one would care.

To make something more Ada accessible yes you do need sidewalks. I can also attest being in a more affluent area that often times lacks sidewalks is that if you have to walk at night and there's no sidewalks and there's no lighting it's a huge safety issue. A sidewalk at least provides the general expectations that it should be safe to walk down the street on a given area. I'm not saying that I will protect you from a tractor-trailer but the expectation is there that it should be safe.