My sister-in-law will soon be going to graduate school at Yale, so she and my brother will be moving there next year. I mentioned this to my good friend in Danbury, CT.
She said Weeeelll, they may not want to live in New Haven proper. It’s a pit and plagued with gang violence.
But I’m skeptical (hey, I’m a Doper!), because that is exactly what people who live near my own fair city say about it. Those who live in my fair city know it’s a great place with a few bad sections. And, like New Haven, it has a bad reputation AND a big fancy university (Duke)
Although I have never lived in or near New Haven, one of my cousins and her family did (while her husband was going to Yale). From what I can remember (it was 3 or 4 years ago, and I did not visit as much as I should have), they lived in West Haven, about 0.5 miles from the Yale Bowl. Very nice place. From what they said about the city proper, the description your friend gave seems on the money.
The Yale campus and the immediate environs are pretty nice. There’s a bunch of decent places to live that are within a pretty easy commuting distance. Downtown New Haven, though? It’s gotten better in the last few years, and it’s still plenty bad enough to deserve its reputation.
Really, though, as long as they can afford to live in a decent neighborhood, it’s not that bad a place to be, because it’s an easy train ride into NYC to have any and all of your city needs fulfilled. So the utter crappiness of much of New Haven ends up not mattering all that much if you can monetarily afford to avoid it.
CT, and my house is about a mile from the RI border and three miles from the MA border. Well, my parents’ house - this is a temporary thing (hopefully). If you frequent the area, you know how ridiculously boring it can be; I’m longing to get back to city life as soon as possible. It was a pretty good place to grow up, but it’s a pretty terrible place to be a twenty-something.
My friend is at Yale law and she says the area right around the university is fine. You can go down certain streets where the neighborhood will become sketchy in the space of a block, but apparently they’re easily avoided.
Like the OP says, I feel a lot of universities are like this - I’m at UChicago, and contrary to what a lot of people have told me I feel reasonably safe living here. There are certain streets you avoid after dark, but as long as you’re careful it’s not a huge problem.
Regarding the pizza, the two best-known establishments are Sally’s Apizza and Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, both of which are on Wooster Street, although my favorite is Modern Apizza on State Street. When you visit your brother and sister-in-law, you must insist that they take you to these restaurants.