Is Holden MA good place to raise a family?

[Cloudship]

And it's a duplex. One of the reasons people move to Holden is for space.

[Remy11]

Cloudship,
I totally hear you. The town I grew up in north of Boston has changed greatly in the past 20 years as well. Any extra piece of land has been built up with cookie cutters too and home prices have skyrocketed since my parents bought in 1975. I used to complain to them about how bored I was and couldn’t wait to graduate high school and move on, and they’d say ”someday you’ll be hoping you can afford to move back.” Unfortunately, I think this is the case for a lot of towns in the Boston burbs.

[Remy11]

Cloudship,
One more thing. I was thinking a lot about what you said and I feel in the end, we’re the lucky ones because we got to experience these towns the way they should be experienced. I have a feeling you and I might be around the same age and I loved everything about my neighborhood growing up. We could leave our doors open, the crew of us neighborhood kids played outside from sun up to sun down, and all the adults/parents were friends with one another. I really did have the quintessential American neighborhood growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but I feel like that dream is all but dead now. You barely see kids outside playing anymore and neighbors barely know each other. I drive up my old street once in a while and it’s like a Ghost Town. Each house is occupied, but nobody is outside. No group of kids circling on bikes and no parents chatting on the front porch. I don’t think the good old days could be recaptured even if you did move back. Times have really changed and I’d take my childhood any day over the way things are now.