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I like the Cape......but have you looked at Yarmouth? It has a nice community feel with a town center and village.....still close to Portland and has one of the highest rated school systems in Maine.
CE is considered the exclusive suburb of Portland. Falmouth runs a close second. Both are close to/on the ocean. Neither town's schools are considered as good as Yarmouth's and Cumberland's, but they are considered good. Gorham and Scarborough are other alternatives with more of a mix of incomes.
Cape Elizabeth has higher standardized test scores than Yarmouth and Greely (Cumberland). Cape HS also has a higher graduation rate and has significantly more students go to top colleges than Greely. So, I think that opinion is baseless.
Also Cape and Yarmouth are the two Portland suburbs excluded from the school district consolidation law because of high performance. That got brought up a little ways back. The schools may change in other parts of Maine, in Cape they will remain very strong.
As a recent CEHS grad I was very happy growing up in Cape. You have to go to So. Po. or Portland to do anything, but that's just a 10 minute drive. I think terms like "tony" are hard to use because they are relative. People will likely judge the feel of Cape differently if they come from areas surrounding New York or San Fransisco than if they come from the mid-west.
Cape Elizabeth has higher standardized test scores than Yarmouth and Greely (Cumberland). Cape HS also has a higher graduation rate and has significantly more students go to top colleges than Greely. So, I think that opinion is baseless.
Also Cape and Yarmouth are the two Portland suburbs excluded from the school district consolidation law because of high performance. That got brought up a little ways back. The schools may change in other parts of Maine, in Cape they will remain very strong.
As a recent CEHS grad I was very happy growing up in Cape. You have to go to So. Po. or Portland to do anything, but that's just a 10 minute drive. I think terms like "tony" are hard to use because they are relative. People will likely judge the feel of Cape differently if they come from areas surrounding New York or San Fransisco than if they come from the mid-west.
This is a common criticism from residents from surrounding towns. I never experienced that much snobbery, if that's a word, but I guess if I lived in South Portland, Portland, Scarborough or another surrounding town I might take this approach if I was a little too self conscience. I think the interpretation has very little to do with actual experience and a lot to do with cars, house size, wealth and prevailing stereotypes about attitudes. O the whole people from Cape are about as nice as you're going to find in the Northeast. For every lawyer, doctor or banker, there's an equally well thought of private contractor, nurse, teacher or lobsterman.
^These sentiments are all relative. Cape Elizabeth is one of about 4 towns that people told me were "snobby" in Maine (the others being Scarborough, Hampden, and Falmouth). In my experience none of them are even close to "snobby."
In fact, I would say that unless you come from a VERY rural part of the country, you would feel the same way. Cape's average household income is above the Nat'll average, but not too significantly and I've lived in towns considered "blue-collar" with higher averages than that. It's pretty and it has lots of nice waterfront property (much of which is vacation property for out-of-staters), but it's not snobby. It's no more conceited than any middle class suburb around any small, medium, or large city in the nation; and it's not even CLOSE to the REAL wealthy suburbs like Greenwich CT, Weston, MA, Beverly Hills, Dellwood MN, etc, etc, etc. The truth is, you can go to any metro-area with a population the size of Portland's or larger and find something MUCH more exclusive and expensive and it'll likely contain a large number of snobs.
Again, it's all relative and I can see how someone who grew up in Gorham, Saco, Bangor, Augusta, etc would call Cape Elizabeth, "rich" and "snobby" but when you compare it on a nation-wide scale, it's not even close to that. I've always gotten a kick out of what a lot of people up here will call "rich," and like nordi said, much of it is based on prevailing stereotypes. If someone in Maine drives an Escalade, many people will call them rich while in much of the rest of the nation (particularly around cities and on the coasts) that's a typical middle-class soccer mom ride.
For all of those who consider Cape to be "snobby," just be grateful that you don't have to live somewhere where you go to high school and if you're not driving a BMW, Mercedes, or better you'll get laughed at. There are many towns like that, even here in New England. Cape Elizabeth isn't one of them.
I love both of your posts! It's all a matter of what/where you come from, what you've seen and experienced. I hate it when people stereotype towns and the people in them as rich or snobby. Personally I find it ridiculous and if one tends to do that, then have just stereotyped themselves as less than. I hate people that are so class conscious.
^I agree. Overly class conscious people (particularly those who look down on those with less than them) are EVERYWHERE in the large metropolitan areas in this country and it's incredibly frustrating. In Maine, there's a lot less of it (part of what makes it such an attractive place), but the class consciousness that DOES exist tends to be the reverse of what you see in the bigger cities. What I mean is that many people who have less than someone else will consider that other person "snobby" or "rich" regardless of how true that actually is. Again, it's much less rampant here, but it's SO annoying. I agree, FLM, that those who do it have stereotyped them selves even worse.
I guess what I'm asking is how wealthy/exclusive Cape Elizabeth feels. There is certainly got some significant wealth in Berkeley - even a small house in a transitional neighborhood will sell for 600-700,000. However, Berkeley is kind of a comfortable, schleppy sort of a place.
As I look at real estate postings, I think that we'd be looking at houses in Cape in the 300-350 range. Nice, but not fancy or on private beaches. Does that put us in the "poor" category? It seemed to me when we drove around town that there were plenty of regular looking family homes, so the description of town as "wealthy" seemed at odds with what I saw. But then, I don't have a frame of reference for the town, don't know how it's changed over the years.
Basically, I'd like my kids to grow up someplace where the community puts a strong value on education, but that there is not so much money floating around that life gets out of whack. What other places should we check out? What are South Portland schools like?
I believe Your price range of $300,000 to $350,000 is just fine for Cape Elizabeth. If you go on the realtor.com site you can find nice 3 to 4 bedroom homes, colonials and capes. There are of course homes with much higher price tags but they are usually closer to the water or the square footage is larger.
Although Cape Elizabeth has an exclusive reputation as do Falmouth and Kennebunkport here in Maine; we don't even come close to the real estate prices in wealthy places such as Greenwich Ct. Several people will move here from a wealthy community in another state and just love Maine because they can find that exclusive home town feel for a much better price and get twice the house. I actually know several people who have done just that. Good luck with your search
Cape Elizabeth has higher standardized test scores than Yarmouth and Greely (Cumberland). Cape HS also has a higher graduation rate and has significantly more students go to top colleges than Greely. So, I think that opinion is baseless.
Also Cape and Yarmouth are the two Portland suburbs excluded from the school district consolidation law because of high performance. That got brought up a little ways back. The schools may change in other parts of Maine, in Cape they will remain very strong.
As a recent CEHS grad I was very happy growing up in Cape. You have to go to So. Po. or Portland to do anything, but that's just a 10 minute drive. I think terms like "tony" are hard to use because they are relative. People will likely judge the feel of Cape differently if they come from areas surrounding New York or San Fransisco than if they come from the mid-west.
Cumberland and Yarmouth have excellent standardized test scores and a very impressive graduation rate as well as Ivy league college acceptance. The numbers are not too far from Cape Elizabeth, not enough to count them out as an exceptional choice for a school system.
From what I've read, Cape Elizabeth actually leans Democratic. It voted for Barack Obama by 2/3, and its state legislators are all Democrats. Falmouth is far more Republican than Cape E.
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