Pick a New England place for us (Beverly, Northampton: lease, crime)

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Larger downtown; cross off Jamestown, probably Hanover and Montpelier and probably Brattleboro as well.



Lowest crime; cross off Providence, Portland, Burlington, and Newport (it has some bad areas although downtown itself is fine and overall the city is fairly low crime).

I mostly agree with this though I'd keep Montpelier (and maybe Brattleboro) on there if we're also keeping places like Newburyport, Keene, and West Hartford on the list. Montpelier in particular has a comparably sized and similarly active downtown to those three with a similar amount of services (more in some cases as it's the state capital), amenities, etc. Having a full service grocery story (Shaw's) downtown is a plus for Montpelier too. I'm on the fence with Brattleboro, but don't consider it to be far enough out of the pack to completely drop it from consideration.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by Tsitsipas

Of the places mentioned so far in this thread, which one(s) have the best combination of a larger downtown + lowest crime?

Places in MA that have been suggested are: Northampton, Newburyport

NH recommendations were Portsmouth, Hanover, Keen

RI recommendations were Newport, Providence, and Jamestown

VT - Montpelier, Brattleboro, Burlington

Other suggestions were West Hartford CT and Portland ME

Newburyport should be high on your list, Hanover is also very nice - those are also two of the smaller towns in the list. Portsmouth is still very nice but it does have a little more issues - UNH undergraduates and the naval base are probably part of that. None of these towns are tiny or have *high* crime, but a number of them have average crime levels for a city - you can actually look up their crime rates with the breakdowns by type right in the main City Data site (not this forum portion).

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by lrfox

I mostly agree with this though I'd keep Montpelier (and maybe Brattleboro) on there if we're also keeping places like Newburyport, Keene, and West Hartford on the list. Montpelier in particular has a comparably sized and similarly active downtown to those three with a similar amount of services (more in some cases as it's the state capital), amenities, etc. Having a full service grocery story (Shaw's) downtown is a plus for Montpelier too. I'm on the fence with Brattleboro, but don't consider it to be far enough out of the pack to completely drop it from consideration.

We lived in West Hartford Center for several years. There’s property crime. There’s no way I’d leave anything valuable visible in my car. Anything close to the Hartford line, you have to alarm your house, keep your garage locked at all times, and never leave anything at the front of the house or it will walk away. That includes porch banditry. There’s also tons of prosperous single family home suburbia that doesn’t have much of a property crime problem. The southeastern quarter of the city is higher density and less affluent. Very socioeconomically diverse. The people also drive like Boston combined with New York. I like the place but it’s not Mayberry.

Brattleboro has the Vermont heroin zombie problem. In a state that rural, it gets pushed to a small number of higher density places. Vermont is better at dealing with the problem than most places with enlightened public health policies and community policing but it’s still pretty visible and creates some crime.

[bizcuit]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Fairhaven doesn’t meet your criteria. It has no high walk score village. It has some crime and gritty sections.

Marion is a great harbor town and has the Tabor Academy prep school but it’s only 6,000 people and doesn’t have much retail at the waterfront. Mattapoisett is the same way. 5,000 population. One restaurant on the harbor. Your grocery store is on Route 6 in Fairhaven or in Wareham. They serve as white collar professional bedroom towns for New Bedford and have strong elementary schools with shared middle & high schools. Lots of vacation homes. I could easily live in either town but neither has the high walk score village.

I live on the edge of the Padanaram part of Dartmouth. It has more of a defined harbor village than Marion or Mattapoisett but it’s still pretty limited. New Bedford is a low job skill immigrant city of 100,000. The local economy isn’t strong enough to support things like Whole Foods and Trader Joes. No luxury car dealerships. I’m from here. I moved back from Portsmouth NH because the real estate math worked better. I couldn’t retire in Portsmouth with so much of my net worth tied up in my house and the really high home ownership costs. If you want to live coastal, the Massachusetts Sourh Coast and sections of Rhode Island have much better bang for your buck but you have the weaker economy compared to Boston or the western part of the Connecticut shore commutable to NYC.


If you can afford the real estate, I’d rank them Portsmouth, Newburyport, Newport in that order if you want coastal and historic with a high walk score center. Inland, Northampton was a good suggestion. Portland ME and Burlington VT.

Good advice overall. But, Portland, ME is not inland.

[bizcuit]

Originally Posted by mdovell

That was the first place I thought of. Not sure on grocery access.

There are plenty of grocery store options in Northampton. We have a huge Big Y and Stop & Shop stores. River Valley co-op in both Northampton and Easthampton, which is a wonderful store which tries to locally source produce and meats as much as possible. Smaller markets throughout town. And Whole Foods and Trader Joes next door in Hadley.

[bizcuit]

Originally Posted by Tsitsipas

Of the places mentioned so far in this thread, which one(s) have the best combination of a larger downtown + lowest crime?

Places in MA that have been suggested are: Northampton, Newburyport

NH recommendations were Portsmouth, Hanover, Keen

RI recommendations were Newport, Providence, and Jamestown

VT - Montpelier, Brattleboro, Burlington

Other suggestions were West Hartford CT and Portland ME

Do you want inland or coastal? What about jobs? Hiking, cycling, skiing? Music and restaurants? Access to a bigger city, like Boston? A little more info might help us pare it down a bit more for you.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

:
:
Brattleboro has the Vermont heroin zombie problem. In a state that rural, it gets pushed to a small number of higher density places. Vermont is better at dealing with the problem than most places with enlightened public health policies and community policing but it’s still pretty visible and creates some crime.

I have my first choice already for retirement - Camden, ME... but I still haven't built my little retirement cottage and have been doing some further due diligence for alternatives in ME, NH, VT, MA and NY, especially towns that might be less expensive and near beautiful nature... it used to be that serious drug problems were just not an issue in smaller rural cities and towns, but within the past 20 years, there has been a great rise in addiction, follow-on crime and overdose from both legally and illicitly manufactured opioids like fentanyl, heroin, codeine, oxycontin, etc - fatal overdoses are up 5x nationally in the past 20 years and still rising steeply... that is definitely on my radar as a concern when evaluating these places. I think these issues are everywhere at some level today, but that said, some places are worse than others.

[Tsitsipas]

Originally Posted by bizcuit

Do you want inland or coastal? What about jobs? Hiking, cycling, skiing? Music and restaurants? Access to a bigger city, like Boston? A little more info might help us pare it down a bit more for you.

Truly fine with both inland and coastal as long as there's a beautiful historic atmosphere - the kind that is unique to New England. Jobs are all set (work from home since 2014). I walk twice a day and I love having multiple options for walking environments, ideally including a downtown area where I can just enjoy the atmosphere without actually going in the shops / restaurants. Some downtown districts are better than others for pedestrians, and it's a lot to ask but my ideal downtown would have either not much vehicle traffic, or really low speed limits, or in general just be a place where drivers are respectful of walkers. Regarding big city amenities by far the most important thing to me is high quality groceries and the ability to either pickup or have delivered. A lot of people assume instacart is everywhere but it is definitely not.
I will give some additional info replying to another post.

[Tsitsipas]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

Newburyport should be high on your list, Hanover is also very nice - those are also two of the smaller towns in the list. Portsmouth is still very nice but it does have a little more issues - UNH undergraduates and the naval base are probably part of that. None of these towns are tiny or have *high* crime, but a number of them have average crime levels for a city - you can actually look up their crime rates with the breakdowns by type right in the main City Data site (not this forum portion).

You mentioned college and military presence and this gives me an opportunity to describe my ideal population. I would definitely not want to be in a location dominated by the 18-25 yr old crowd. Would prefer to live around families, middle aged to retired folks, some 20s and 30s in the mix is fine, but don't want a place that's all about college kids, "young professionals", etc.

[Tsitsipas]

Originally Posted by bizcuit

There are plenty of grocery store options in Northampton. We have a huge Big Y and Stop & Shop stores. River Valley co-op in both Northampton and Easthampton, which is a wonderful store which tries to locally source produce and meats as much as possible. Smaller markets throughout town. And Whole Foods and Trader Joes next door in Hadley.

Sounds like heaven.