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We are looking to relo to a suburb of Rochester. We visited different towns. We were just blown away by the beautiful scenery. We have an outstanding night life , the finest dining , walkable neighborhoods and not to mention some of the highest educated residents in the world. The rat race is just getting hard on a day to day basis. With all this we have in NYC the QOL has become an issue. We have young children and prefer to support public schools.we want to be in a non cookie cutter community, but within walking or biking distance of a grocery store, coffee shop and atleast a few places to eat. We are conservative and hand on parents who want our kids to grow up in a safe but real community. Worries- we hear a lot of negatives regarding living to far outside the NYC area. Examples , poor education , lackluster entertainment and the low quality of the food, registering a 2 out of 10 with 10 being the best at most. Also I have read many negatives about Rochester on this forum. Examples , horrible winter weather , neighbors who are not friendly and a dismal summer season. Also I was told the economy is largely confined to big box stores and temporary agency's. Please any advice would be appreciated.
Don't believe the things you've heard and visit the area for yourself. Given what you are looking for, I think you would like Brighton or maybe in/next to villages like Pittsford, Brockport or Webster. If you don't mind something further out, places like Canandaigua and Geneseo may work too. There may be some others that may work as well.
Rochester's metro educational attainment is above the national and top 100 metro average. Here are some jobs in the area: Jobs in Rochester, NY - Indeed Mobile
Rochester is a wonderful place to raise children! And adults, too! Outstanding schools, some of the best in the state mind you! Your quality of life will go up, trust me. Do yourself a favor and look at Pittsford, Brighton, Fairport, Victor. Nice villages, good restaurants, great sense of community. The beauty of Rochester is that within 15 minutes you can be in the heart of downtown, or in the country. Can't do that in NYC. If you don't mind a little drive, check out Canandaigua.
If I was going to consider living anywhere besides my "home turf" of Chautauqua or Cattaraugus Counties, it would be Canandaigua. In a lot of ways it's like a more modest version of Saratoga Springs -- a resort town that's not overrun with tackiness ala Lake George Village, Rockport, MA or Myrtle Beach.
I love Sonnenberg Gardens and the City Pier and the whole lakeside area, but the neighborhoods full of old Victorian homes around Sonnenberg Gardens are to die for to those who love Victorian architecture.
If you do move upstate, like others have said consider areas like Brighton (12 corners area), Pittsford, Greece around Long Pond Rd, Gates past 104, and Webster. Avoid the city as much as possible outside of areas like Southwedge. Avoid moving anywhere within a 2-4 mile radius of downtown, S Clinton, Jay or Ames, Avenue D, etc. Also avoid the Monroe Ave area. Wife and I have lived inside the city (Monroe/Chestnut area and E Main towards Winton) and can't wait to move out of the city for good in a couple months.
Car has been broken into (glass smashed right out, even when the inside is empty) 3 times, our apartment before this one was broken into twice and in my time working inside the city a kid was shot and killed 100 ft from our door and at the bus stop outside of my old workplace.
Suburbs are good for family living, city is definitely not.
New York City is America's largest and most dynamic city. It is also probably the most unique collection of people in the world. Coming from NYC, it will take you a while (a year or so) to get accustomed to certain things such as large stretches of undeveloped land and some pockets of undereducated and underexposed people in the outlying counties.
With all this said, I would HIGHLY recommend a move to the Rochester area. To address some of your concerns:
1) The suburban public schools are not just decent but rather some of the best in the country. This comes as no accident given that the metro area is considered highly educated on a national level (in the same ballpark as Portland, OR, Hartford, CT, and San Diego)
2) The arts and entertainment scene is very vibrant. The Eastman School of Music is on par with Juilliard, the Jazz Festival has become one of the largest in the country, and art galleries/art festivals abound. Offerings at one local theater have included The Book of Mormon, Bill Maher, and Russell Peters.
3) Food will never compare to NYC, but the restaurant scene is very solid. Emphasis on local produce is made easy by the abundance of local farmland.
4) The winter is fine. Probably one of the most over-hyped and over-blown aspects of the area. Many lake-effect flurries (not large storms) lead to high snow totals. Rochester has been rated as one of the safest weather cities in the U.S. The spring, summer, and fall are beautiful.
5) Neighbors seem very friendly to me - obviously bad apples everywhere. In general, the metro area is very community oriented and known for volunteerism.
6) There are tons of local/mom and pop type places throughout the metro area. Big box stores are also present, but many other shopping options exist if so desired.
I haven't even mentioned the recreational opportunities, scenery, manageable cost-of-living, wineries, etc. etc. An amazing place to raise children but also a great place for adults to explore new interests.
I personally think Brighton would be a great transition down from NYC - a pretty densely populated, diverse, broad-minded suburb which abuts the nicest part of the city of Rochester.
We are looking to relo to a suburb of Rochester. We visited different towns. We were just blown away by the beautiful scenery. We have an outstanding night life , the finest dining , walkable neighborhoods and not to mention some of the highest educated residents in the world. The rat race is just getting hard on a day to day basis. With all this we have in NYC the QOL has become an issue. We have young children and prefer to support public schools.we want to be in a non cookie cutter community, but within walking or biking distance of a grocery store, coffee shop and atleast a few places to eat. We are conservative and hand on parents who want our kids to grow up in a safe but real community. Worries- we hear a lot of negatives regarding living to far outside the NYC area. Examples , poor education , lackluster entertainment and the low quality of the food, registering a 2 out of 10 with 10 being the best at most. Also I have read many negatives about Rochester on this forum. Examples , horrible winter weather , neighbors who are not friendly and a dismal summer season. Also I was told the economy is largely confined to big box stores and temporary agency's. Please any advice would be appreciated.
We moved to upstate NY from northern NJ in hopes of findinga better quality of life too. We lived in Saratoga County just north of Albany and lived there for 6 years before moving back to northern NJ. Albany is not Rochester and northern NJ is not NYC but there are similarities so I thought I’d share our experience with you.
We found the schools to be OK at best even though they were very highly rated. The schools we left in NJ were much better, and the schools that we moved back to in NJ (two different towns) are also much better. The differences were very noticeable.
We met some really great people there but on average the people are not very friendly and outgoing at all which has been discussed quite a bit over in the Albany forum. It was just ranked as the 7th least friendly city in America in some survey mentioned in the Albany Times Union newspaper recently and it’s definitely true. The people in general just don’t seem very happy. I did do business in Rochester quite a bit however and found the people there to be a lot friendlier. It felt very Midwestern friendly there.
We found the winter weather to be incredibly dismal and depressing even if you are used to a NYC winter. It’s only a few degrees colder but it’s incredibly cloudy and gray from Nov to April. Winter also starts 2 to 3 weeks earlier than NYC and ends 2 to 3 weeks later so you have an additional 4-6 weeks of winter. We love winter sports but the long gray winters still got to us.
The economy is very small and very limited which was the main reason we moved back to NJ. The Albany area however is a boomtown compared to the rest of upstate NY. The vast majority of upstate NY is an economic wasteland.
Good restaurants, something you take for granted down here in theTri-State area, are very few and far between up there. We would get great recommendations for restaurants, go there, and it would be so-so at best.
On the plus side, you can buy a lot more house up there for a fraction of the cost down here and the summer weather is great with a lot less humidity. The lack of any real traffic is also a huge plus and the area has great outdoor recreational opportunities close by. There are other pluses but for us the negatives far outweighed the positives.
^What may help in terms of the Rochester area is that it has 2 of the top 3 school districts in Upstate NY, according to the Buffalo Business Journal and that its overall COL is generally lower than Albany/Capital Region.
I just relocated here from San Francisco. It's been surprisingly nice. The summers here are a bit cooler and less humid from what you have in New York. The winters are cooler but you prepare for it. I'm not sure what NY winters are like but I didn't see the sun for the first three weeks that I moved here in January. Crazy! It was mostly cloudy in the winter with an occasional sunny day. However that pattern changed around mid March. I live in the Southwedge and haven't had any problems with crime. My neighborhood is walkable and I am close to the Park Ave area. My first choice would be the Park Ave area which is a really nice section of the city and walkable. You need to but crime into perspective. The suburbs will have less crime than the City. The City itself has less crime than NY or SF and I have never felt concerned here like I would in SF or Oakland.
While it's not NY (or SF), there are at least a variety of restaurants, some pretty good. The mexican restaurants have been a let down from what I am accustomed to. The suburbs will have mostly chain type restaurants where as the city typically doesn't. You would want to stay close to or in the city to get something similar (on a smaller scale) to what you have now. The closer to the city, the more you are apt to find walkable neighborhoods.
The people here seem nice enough. There is a weird apparently local custom thing going on where many people won't make eye contact with you. It's the weirdest thing. Some actually look the other way to avoid you. I find it mildly humorous and sometimes trip them up by speaking to them <g>.
All in all, it's exceeded my expectations so far. Good luck.
Hi -- thought I'd join this post as my husband and I are also considering relocating to Rochester (probably in summer 2014). We're currently living in steamy Bangkok, and I'm getting tired of the incessant heat.
We lived in the Binghamton area for 5 years in the 90's, so are used to snowy weather and cloudy days, although we've lived in the Asian tropics for the last decade. I was wondering if someone could compare the two cities for me? For instance, Binghamton would get cold, but it was a bearable cold because it wasn't really windy -- the small mountains surrounding the area seemed to cut off a lot of wind. But, I was thinking that being right next to the lake there, Rochester might be windier (in addition to having more snow). Can anyone comment on that?
We have family in Binghamton, and were planning to move back there; however, we have a severely disabled child with complex health needs, and when we started looking for the nearest university hospital with specialists in his areas of need, we found that we'd either have to travel to NYC or to Rochester (if we lived in Binghamton), so then I was thinking -- well, why not just live in Rochester? The Mary Carrioli school is also there, which is a plus for us.
With regard to friendliness, we found folks in the Binghamton area (we rented in Endicott for a year, and then bought a house in Johnson City) to be extremely friendly, very neighborly and very community minded -- I was surprised by that. I'm hoping to find something similar in Rochester?
One thing we have in mind is real estate investment (rental housing) in Rochester. We'd value any comments, advise on that.
Thanks!!
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