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OK, so with so much back and forth about how terrible everyone is in Rye, Scarsdale, Bronxville, Pelham, Larchmont, etc. is, I have to ask...where the heck do yuppies with courteous non-spoiled brat kids live in lower Westchester that find the River Town's TOO laid back (and with obscene tax bills)?
Mamaroneck? Harrison?
I truly don't believe that a whole town is good or bad, but I have certainly found that you are going to have a higher proportion of jerks in towns with a lot of name recognition.
Is there a certain area that attracts less emmigrants from NYC in favor of corporate transfers in lower Westchester with great schools...or do they tend to cluster in the central county and above since commuting isn't an issue?
OK, so with so much back and forth about how terrible everyone is in Rye, Scarsdale, Bronxville, Pelham, Larchmont, etc. is, I have to ask...where the heck do yuppies with courteous non-spoiled brat kids live in lower Westchester that find the River Town's TOO laid back (and with obscene tax bills)?
Mamaroneck? Harrison?
I truly don't believe that a whole town is good or bad, but I have certainly found that you are going to have a higher proportion of jerks in towns with a lot of name recognition.
Is there a certain area that attracts less emmigrants from NYC in favor of corporate transfers in lower Westchester with great schools...or do they tend to cluster in the central county and above since commuting isn't an issue?
Everywhere attracts the NYC emmigrants, it's just a fact of geography. Farther norht this is less true because more poeple work in other employment centers (White Plains, Stamford, Rt 119 corridor, etc).
Anyway, normal people live in all the places you mention. In fact MOST of the people in these places are just great. It's just that there are enough of the brats to stimulate a lot of discussion. And it's rarely the people living a given town that complain about it, they think it's terrific. It's more like non-B'villians complaining about how racist B'ville is or somebody in Larchmont castigating Scarsdale for the over the top Bat Mitzvah circus.
Larchmont and Rye are both wonderful communities, on the water (important for me and the Hudson doesn't count) with plenty of down to earth people. If I needed to live in southern westchester I'd live in either in a heartbeat.
I agree with kletter1mann, if I were looking to be in Lower Westchester, I'd look to the Sound Shore communities. In particular, Rye Neck and Larchmont are where I would focus; however, if you need the train, Larchmont. Most of Rye is a nice area, and I would only hesitate because of the parking situation at the train station, as it is extremely limited parking. Compounding this, the wait list that is years long, though some drive to Port Chester to catch the train, or have someone in the household drop them off at the station, because of this problem.
Harrison is a somewhat of an economically diverse town, from middle-class housing development style houses, to those in the eight-digit price range. As such, it is more relaxed than those areas where people move for the "name." Purchase would be a consideration, but Harrison tends to be a driving town, not one where you can stroll to the local town center, go to the theatre, eat dinner, catch the train, etc.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
Is there a huge difference between Larchmont and Mamaroneck? They all feed into the same schools, and although I know MM has some dicey areas, we really wouldn't be too close to them. Or is it unavoidable?
Rye Brook is too far out there (might as well push to CT at that point) and Rye Neck had a little more economic diversity than we wanted.
Mamaroneck has similar "economic diversity" as Rye Neck. Larchmont and Mamaroneck feed into the same high school. But apart from the high school, Larchmont is far more upscale than Mamaroneck. Larchmont is very much yacht-club, while Mamaroneck is a bit more historically working class. I wouldn't define Mamaroneck as having many "dicey" areas, but it certainly has some less wealthy areas.
Mamaroneck has similar "economic diversity" as Rye Neck. Larchmont and Mamaroneck feed into the same high school. But apart from the high school, Larchmont is far more upscale than Mamaroneck. Larchmont is very much yacht-club, while Mamaroneck is a bit more historically working class. I wouldn't define Mamaroneck as having many "dicey" areas, but it certainly has some less wealthy areas.
All true. Mamaroneck ain't chopped liver, as they say. If it weren't sandwiched between Larchmont and Rye - 2 of the most affluent and upscale suburbs in the country - it would fare very very well indeed. The diciest it gets is some working class, blue collar neighborhoods with an abundance of hispanic laborers, not slums or gangs or anything like that.
The taxes in Larchmont, Rye and Harrison are all ridiculous. Don't know about Mammaroneck. But White Plains has some of the lowest taxes in Westchester, walkable downtown, 35 minute trains to GCT which run every 5 min at rush hour. The other towns mentioned are great, but I just couldn't justify paying that much in taxes.
Rye and Harrison have some of the lowest taxes in Lower Westchester (still obscene for the rest of the country but a steal compared to Edgemont and the River Towns). If we didn't have kids we would consider White Plains but we'd happily pay an additional $5-10K a year to send our kids to a better school.
We've dealt with sub-standard public schools for the past 2 years in LA and will not ever do it again. Besides, I think that you have to pay an additional 1% income tax in White Plains...which starts eating up the savings.
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