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An interesting find, with a few surprises on towns with a higher density than I would have thought. The numbers are people per square mile, according to the 2010 census:
#20: Bedford, with 647
#19: Durham, with 653
#18: Rochester, with 664
#17: Concord, with 668
#16: Newmarket, with 711
#15: Plaistow, with 718
#14: Exeter, with 724
#13: Merrimack, with 782
#12: Laconia, with 794
#11: Hudson, with 858
#10: Derry, with 934
# 9: Seabrook, with 967
# 8: Dover, with 1122
# 7: Hampton, with 1122
# 6: Salem, with 1160
# 5: New Castle, with 1195 (surprise to me!)
# 4: Somersworth, with 1199
# 3: Portsmouth, with 1326
# 2: Nashua, with 2813
# 1: Manchester, with 3316
Compare Manchester, NH's most populated city, to Somerville, Mass., with 18,868 people per square mile. Big difference! If you've moved to NH from somewhere else, what is the population density like there, and do you find NH's less crowded cities and towns a breath of fresh air, or do you find it to be isolated and too quiet for your tastes?
im surprised keene didn't make the list...the city's only what 20 square some odd miles so its like 1000 or so per square mile..i dunno maybe i have my numbers wrong... I thought it was like the 5th largest city in NH
If you've moved to NH from somewhere else, what is the population density like there, and do you find NH's less crowded cities and towns a breath of fresh air, or do you find it to be isolated and too quiet for your tastes?
More like two lungfuls of fresh air. This is something I periodically think of writing about when I am out tooling around, but then forget when I get home.
Just for fun, here is a comparison of the county I moved from, and the county I reside in now. From the Census Bureau website:
Orange County, California
Population 2010: 3,010,232
Land area, 2000 (square miles): 789.40
Persons per square mile, 2010: 3813.3
Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Population 2010: 295,223
Land area, 2000 (square miles): 694.96
Persons per square mile, 2010: 424.8
Yes, I know that Orange County is 95 miles larger, but just the county alone has 1,693,762 more people than the entire State of New Hampshire, which had a population of 1,316,470 people in the 2010 census. That makes a huge difference in quality of life, for me at least.
I am still, seven years after moving here, amazed at how simple so many things in NH were that were an enormous pain in California. Just a few things:
I had to have blood drawn last week, on two different days. There was no traffic to get to the lab in Bedford, I had to wait 10 minutes to be seen, and was out again in another 10.
I went to the doctor on Wednesday, no traffic to get there, waited five minutes, my doctor and his nurse spent an hour and a half with me.
I went to have xrays taken at Catholic Medical Center, I parked easily in the parking structure, I was the only one in Radiology and walked right in and was out within 15 minutes.
I went to the DMV around 10 a.m., had to wait behind one person, and was out within fifteen minutes.
In all of those circumstances in California, I would have waited hours, especially at the DMV. I have always had to take half-days from work in California to go to the DMV, it takes hours and hours. To just walk in the door here without having to push past lines of people going out into the parking lot just blows me away. I always stop and look around and wonder where all the people are.
The only place I ever encounter stop and go traffic is if I try to go through Nashua around 4-6 p.m., and it is slow, but if I can avoid those times, it is fine.
I have driven on highways on Saturdays and not seen another person in front of me or behind me for miles and miles and miles. I drove up to the Annual Craftman's Fair in Newbury twice in August, both on Saturdays, not on the major highways, meaning 93 and 89, but still on highways, 114 and 103, and had the roads almost completely to myself. As I love to drive and going on drives through the country is what I do the most here, that lack of people on the roads is my absolutely favorite thing.
Until you have lived for a long time in that kind of crush of humanity, I don't think you can truly appreciate how wonderful it is to live in a much less densely populated area. It is really stressful to live among wall-to-wall people and it makes people grumpy. I used to drive 130 miles round trip for work in SoCal, in some of the worst traffic in the U.S., I can guarantee you it is highly stressful and probably took years off of my life.
And since I am typing this, I might as well say that I don't agree with those who say that people are unfriendly here, to the contrary, I am very happy to report that 99% of the people I have met or just see out in public are always friendly, down to the people that work at drive-through windows. The people, several of them, that work at my pharmacy know me, and are incredibly helpful, even when I don't ask them for help. They just saved me $180 dollars on a prescription that I could get the equivalent of OTC that I didn't know about. I think part of that friendliness can be attributed again to the lack of hordes of people that they have to deal with, you simply have a lot more time to be thorough and friendly, like at the hospital, or in Macy's, or pretty much anywhere. Even though we have a lot of people to the south in Massachusetts, they don't really affect us here as they aren't using our services.
What I miss most, though, about California, is the plethora and number of choices for restaurants, especially for Mexican food. Then again, as I have some health issues that keep me home most of the time, it is no longer such an issue. And this isn't a knock about California either, there are lots of good things about it, and I miss a lot of it, especially the nature aspects, I truly miss the deserts and the mountains and the coastal areas that are so different from the coast here. But I don't miss the incredible crush of humanity at all.
Hey, the slideshow that I posted (a link) didn't stick when I made my original post earlier today! Here it is:
List: NH's Most Crowded Cities, Towns - Photos - WMUR New Hampshire (http://www.wmur.com/slideshow/news/29442345/detail.html - broken link)
These are the numbers that WMUR is using in the slideshow, and I believe they are going by the recent census. There is always a question as to where these students actually live. Though they are part-time residents, they want to vote here, etc. I suppose when you look at skewed numbers, students are a huge factor in places like Durham, Keene, etc...
C2C, I enjoyed reading through your post, and once again feel happy that I made my way back to New Hampshire
We just moved here from San Diego and wow! I haven't been to DMV yet but will look forward to it after reading your post!
I had bought a car from my sister in CA and had it over 2 years - every time I went to DMV to transfer the title, I got so stressed out after 10 minutes, I gave up. I ended up selling it without having changed the title before we moved!
If you're from the OC, I can definitely see how the people here in NH would be friendlier!
Haha.
I am loving the less people per square mile here, let me tell you! A real pleasure!!
Leisa
Quote:
Originally Posted by C2ShiningC
More like two lungfuls of fresh air. This is something I periodically think of writing about when I am out tooling around, but then forget when I get home.
Just for fun, here is a comparison of the county I moved from, and the county I reside in now. From the Census Bureau website:
Orange County, California
Population 2010: 3,010,232
Land area, 2000 (square miles): 789.40
Persons per square mile, 2010: 3813.3
Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Population 2010: 295,223
Land area, 2000 (square miles): 694.96
Persons per square mile, 2010: 424.8
Yes, I know that Orange County is 95 miles larger, but just the county alone has 1,693,762 more people than the entire State of New Hampshire, which had a population of 1,316,470 people in the 2010 census. That makes a huge difference in quality of life, for me at least.
I am still, seven years after moving here, amazed at how simple so many things in NH were that were an enormous pain in California. Just a few things:
I had to have blood drawn last week, on two different days. There was no traffic to get to the lab in Bedford, I had to wait 10 minutes to be seen, and was out again in another 10.
I went to the doctor on Wednesday, no traffic to get there, waited five minutes, my doctor and his nurse spent an hour and a half with me.
I went to have xrays taken at Catholic Medical Center, I parked easily in the parking structure, I was the only one in Radiology and walked right in and was out within 15 minutes.
I went to the DMV around 10 a.m., had to wait behind one person, and was out within fifteen minutes.
In all of those circumstances in California, I would have waited hours, especially at the DMV. I have always had to take half-days from work in California to go to the DMV, it takes hours and hours. To just walk in the door here without having to push past lines of people going out into the parking lot just blows me away. I always stop and look around and wonder where all the people are.
The only place I ever encounter stop and go traffic is if I try to go through Nashua around 4-6 p.m., and it is slow, but if I can avoid those times, it is fine.
I have driven on highways on Saturdays and not seen another person in front of me or behind me for miles and miles and miles. I drove up to the Annual Craftman's Fair in Newbury twice in August, both on Saturdays, not on the major highways, meaning 93 and 89, but still on highways, 114 and 103, and had the roads almost completely to myself. As I love to drive and going on drives through the country is what I do the most here, that lack of people on the roads is my absolutely favorite thing.
Until you have lived for a long time in that kind of crush of humanity, I don't think you can truly appreciate how wonderful it is to live in a much less densely populated area. It is really stressful to live among wall-to-wall people and it makes people grumpy. I used to drive 130 miles round trip for work in SoCal, in some of the worst traffic in the U.S., I can guarantee you it is highly stressful and probably took years off of my life.
And since I am typing this, I might as well say that I don't agree with those who say that people are unfriendly here, to the contrary, I am very happy to report that 99% of the people I have met or just see out in public are always friendly, down to the people that work at drive-through windows. The people, several of them, that work at my pharmacy know me, and are incredibly helpful, even when I don't ask them for help. They just saved me $180 dollars on a prescription that I could get the equivalent of OTC that I didn't know about. I think part of that friendliness can be attributed again to the lack of hordes of people that they have to deal with, you simply have a lot more time to be thorough and friendly, like at the hospital, or in Macy's, or pretty much anywhere. Even though we have a lot of people to the south in Massachusetts, they don't really affect us here as they aren't using our services.
What I miss most, though, about California, is the plethora and number of choices for restaurants, especially for Mexican food. Then again, as I have some health issues that keep me home most of the time, it is no longer such an issue. And this isn't a knock about California either, there are lots of good things about it, and I miss a lot of it, especially the nature aspects, I truly miss the deserts and the mountains and the coastal areas that are so different from the coast here. But I don't miss the incredible crush of humanity at all.
In the twenty five years we have been here Londonderry went from really convenient to "Where in hell did all this traffic come from?" I have really noticed the increased crowding. The increased shopping opportunities does not make up for the increased annoyance. I have also noticed the cost of living here is about 120% of the national average.
We are, well mostly me, as my wife has deeper social roots in town than I, considering moving to a place where the county has wat less than 3 people per sq mi. It also has a COL of 85% of the national average.
Addendum:
The city I am considering has about 600 people per sq mi so it is about 2/3 as dense as Derry in the downtown section but deserted otherwise. The county calculates to be about 1.5 people per sq mi.
Last edited by GregW; 10-28-2011 at 06:55 AM..
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