[WhereInCT]

Hi all,

My wife and I are currently living in Ledyard, CT in a rental. We have been here for a year as a trial to see if we liked our new jobs, and now that we do, we are looking at more permanent neighborhoods. We are both physicians looking to settle down and start a family. We are looking for great schools for our kids and a town with at least some semblance of a town center with restaurants/shops, and a friendly community. We've been looking at houses in Lyme, Old Lyme, and East Lyme and looking for opinions about these places. We are eager to get out of Ledyard.

Lyme/Old Lyme seem pretty rural and isolated. Is this fair to say?. We are both suburbians at heart (raised in the suburbs), and recently lived in NYC for 7 years but looking for something less busy. Lyme and Old Lyme, while having nice houses, seems to just not have much in terms of a 'town'. How are the communities here?

East Lyme seems better for bars/restaurants/shops down on Main st with also having great schools. The houses seem to be nestled into little developments which would be good for our eventual kids. How are the people in East Lyme; friendly and welcoming? What, in general, is the political climate in these places? We are pretty liberal.

Thanks for the help!

[NewJeffCT]

I can't speak too much to Lyme, but Old Lyme generally skews a little bit older than East Lyme. East Lyme has more economic and cultural diversity than Old Lyme. OL seems to be more white collar and retirees, with a small amount of blue collar, while East Lyme is a mix of white collar and blue collar, with fewer retirees. The Asian families in the region seem to prefer East Lyme over Old Lyme/Lyme

The schools are very good in both towns (Lyme & Old Lyme share a school system), but East Lyme is a bigger school system overall and will offer a student more choices in terms of courses, sports and other extracurricular activities. (Salem sends their kids to East Lyme HS as well) I know East Lyme high school has a swim team and a football team. Lyme/Old Lyme has a combined football team with Valley Regional (Deep River/Essex/Chester) - the top 4-8 kids at East Lyme HS every year tend to do very well for colleges (two years ago, they sent two kids to MIT and one to Harvard, or vice versa, and a few more to elite schools)

I'd say that the people in both towns are fairly friendly overall. I'd agree with your assessment on EL having more "neighborhood" like areas with subdivisions of nice homes that are good places for families with kids.