They certainly have all of that stuff in the Natick/Framingham area besides the ex-pat Chicago bars. I don’t know of any of those but there are some Chicagoans around. What most people are calling suburbia here is what what would be true city in many areas of the country . The Boston area is a little different from most places because it is so old so you have all these towns that were once colonial villages only a couple of miles apart that got swallowed up by urbanization. They still have thriving town centers with restaurants and shops but still retain some of their older character and have vastly different price-tags depending on prestige. Finding any type ethnic food or shopping within a few miles is certainly not a problem in that area although it may not always be the best on earth. Ken’s Steak House is in Framingham and well known but there are lots of others.
There aren’t any truly bad towns in the MetroWest area of Boston. Framingham has the sketchiest of the bunch and it still isn’t bad at all. It is all affluent by national standards and the schools are all good.
I still don’t think you are getting it and that is understandable because Boston isn’t all that much like Chicago. The towns and area have lots of options really close to one another assuming you have a car. How would you rank these options?
Urban versus suburban versus semi-rural
Driving to entertainment spots rather than walking
Strong sense of community
Smaller schools versus large ones for kids
Housing preference: Standalone house with a yard, duplex, apartment, or condo?
Own versus rent
Answering those may lead to some more targeted suggestions.
Except that kids were mentioned. The schools are vastly better in the MetroWest area as opposed to most of the urban public schools. If kids are involved like they were with me, it is MetroWest living all the way. You don’t have to pay for private schools and the kids can learn a sense of community.
Otherwise, it is a good suggestion. I lived in the Brighton area of Boston and commuted to Framingham by car for a while. It was an easy reverse commute and got the benefits of both but I was in my 20’s and wouldn’t do it now.
I live in Somerville and have all of that within walking distance except for the German and Pakistani restaurants; I’d need to take the T for that. But I do have Nepali, Cambodian, and Brazilian to make up for it.
You’ll find the majority of that in all of the Metro West burbs, but you’ll have to drive to get to most of them. There’s not a lot of walking distance stuff in those towns. You’d need to move in a bit closer to the city to get that, maybe near Moody St in Waltham or Lexington Center, but both of those are more expensive.
I think there’s a bit of a Brazilian expat community in Framingham, which is right next to Natick. Don’t know how that manifests in restaurants and markets.
As near as I can tell, there isn’t a decent German restaurant anywhere in Boston. I hear good things about one in Springfield that I plan to try the next time I’m out that way.
Boston is a small city, and Natick is close by, except during the rush hour traffic. Then it may as well be on the other side of the planet. But off hours getting into Boston is a breeze. There are plenty of places to live north, south, and west of Natick, so you don’t have to be looking at just that town. I live in Rhode Island, and it would take me an hour to get to Natick. That might be further than you want to go. But that’s how long it could take someone living in Natick to make their way into Boston during rush hour.
Also, there are some gorgeous old houses in that area if you like that kind of thing. The price tag is steep, but I think the Boston area held onto housing value better than the rest of the country during the recent mortgage crisis.
More than a bit of Brazilians. There are a shit-ton of them in Framingham and the general area so South American food is not an issue. There are aren’t too many other ethnics groups of many numbers around that area though other than the ones you see running the restaurants. It is basically American white and Brazillian.
I think he means geographically especially compared to the rest of the country. Boston proper is only about 48 square miles and you can walk across the interesting parts in an hour or less. That is very different from Chicago, LA, Houston, or Dallas which have individual suburbs many times larger geographically than that.
I have worked in places that had car commuters who made a daily round-trip from 5 different states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine. New England is small relatively speaking and that little portion of is extremely compact so you have to adjust your scale down if you are using another part of the country as a mental reference.
Boston itself is a tiny, tiny thing. But it is surrounded by other tiny cities and suburbs that all run together and are all part of the “Greater Boston Metro Area”. In any other part of the country all of it would be the same city, with Arlington, Wellesley, Somerville, etc. being just names for neighborhoods, but for historical reasons they developed as separate, independent cities that are now contiguous and for the most part indistinguishable.
I happen to have aviation sectional charts of both Boston and Denver hanging on my wall. If you were to judge the cities solely by the amount of urbanized area around them, they’re close to same size. Denver is slightly larger, but not by much.
Brighton is part of Boston.
The rest most certainly are not. Somerville is the least Boston-like of the list, and Cambridge is nearly militant about not being Boston.
You have kids - strong community ties, great schools, safe
You are around the MA median income of about $100K after taxes
You are Jewish - other Jewish areas near Boston are obscenely expensive
You like suburban life - you will drive
Framingham is going urban with all the problems associated with a low income transient population.
Other Rte. 9 towns (Wellesley, Newton, Needham) are $500K + for a moldy ranch.
Come check out the area! We just moved to the suburbs of Boston and we are loving it, but we are finding that it is different than anywhere we’ve lived before. There is a lot to do! We’ve been here for almost a month and we’ve done a lot of historical walking tours, national parks, beaches, etc. We’ve yet to go to a movie theater and we haven’t been lacking in entertainment. That being said, we aren’t really near Natick and I can’t say anything about whether or not that would be a good area to live. We came here primarily because of the schools but all the rest has been pretty awesome so far as well.
Somerville is the least Boston-like of the list, and Cambridge is nearly militant about not being Boston.