Anybody have experience of living in or around Boston?

[alarkaspree]

Dh has just got a new job to the north of Boston and we will be moving there from NYC in the summer. Does anybody have any recommendations of neighbourhoods to live in, good schools, etc.? We have been assuming that we'd live in the city, but everyone I've spoken to seems to assume we will be looking at suburban towns. Does nobody live in the city with children?

Our children are 7 and 5.

My nephew lives there and loves it. There's a MNer named mananny who was there for several years. Not sure if she still posts.

Thanks Jabberwocky. How old is your nephew?

I remember mananny from the living in America threads but she doesn't seem to have posted in the last few months.

Any other thoughts?

TIA

To the north of Boston could mean Cambridge or up in Vermont of New Hampshire, you might a little better response if you said where work is

He'd be working in New Hampshire but I don't want to live there, it's too rural for me. So we want to live in or near Boston and dh drive to work. But that would tend to rule out South Boston as making the commute longer than it really needs to be.''

Nephew is 29 or 30, can't remember which and has lived there for a number of years. He is single but actually went out for a drink with mananny when she was taking care of the twins there (at least I think they were twins).

New Hampshire! The traffic in the greater Boston area is hideous, really. If you have to commute, it's probably better to live in suburbia. Or, there are actual cities in NH, yanno.

I honestly think a commute from Boston itself to NH is a bit crazy, you don't say where place of work is but the state line with NH is going to be an hour in GOOD TRAFFIC. There are plenty large conurbations in NH such as Nashua and Manchester, ok not Boston but nothing wrong with living there. Plenty of private schools there, if you want to be able to choose where to go to school.