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We live in Arlington and we drive to work in downtown Boston. It takes us 25 minutes--Rt. 2 to Storrow Drive. If the traffic is really, really bad, it might take us 35-40 minutes, tops.
You have obviously not been to very many cities if you can make this statement. Boston's streets are filthy and slimy and disgusting. All the little alleyways are just plain NASTY and there's nothing like the stench of all that steam pouring out of those sewer holes on a hot day! Have you noticed how many homeless people there are? The Common is completely full of them and they are lined up on every street, especially in the downtown crossing area. They are the first thing that greets you when you get off the highway and they stalk you at just about every traffic light. Most every single parking garage in the downtown area smells like someone just pee'd all over the stairwells. Oh, it's real nice! Portland Oregon is a nice city as is Chicago and San Diego, Boston is a freakin' toilet!
I disagree. For the most part, Boston is very clean. Take a walk through Manhattan or Philly and then look at Boston.
You have obviously not been to very many cities if you can make this statement. Boston's streets are filthy and slimy and disgusting. All the little alleyways are just plain NASTY and there's nothing like the stench of all that steam pouring out of those sewer holes on a hot day! Have you noticed how many homeless people there are? The Common is completely full of them and they are lined up on every street, especially in the downtown crossing area. They are the first thing that greets you when you get off the highway and they stalk you at just about every traffic light. Most every single parking garage in the downtown area smells like someone just pee'd all over the stairwells. Oh, it's real nice! Portland Oregon is a nice city as is Chicago and San Diego, Boston is a freakin' toilet!
That's hardly the case. Outside of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco how many cities have what Boston has to offer? How many museums in San Diego? One, and it's pathetic. Portland is the same. Who has a great symphony? Again, San Diego and Portland? Right. Boston has had it's share of problems, but when you look at the total experience: history, moderate winters (compared to Chicago and helped by the Gulf Stream), beautiful landscape just a half hour from town, some decent local beaches (despite your bias, there's Revere and Nantasket, not the beach at La Jolla granted, but serviceable), an hour from the Cape, four hours from New York, close to skiing (not my favorite, but what the heck), great restaurants albeit some are expensive, The Red Sox, Patsies, now (again) the Celtics, an NHL franchise - the sorry Bruins, a wonderful public library, the best concentration of medical facilities in the world, and myriad other attributes not found in most other cities. Boston is also has more institutions of higher education than any other city, thus bringing some of the greatest minds into its environs. And, it has the Boston Globe. If YOU have been to other cities you would have noticed that the newspapers are far inferior - just look a the sports page for example. San Diego has a puny right-wing rag that's just this side of toilet paper. Portland is decidedly better. San Diego took real good care of their homeless situation - the jackboots simply herded them up and threw them out of town and arrested them if they returned. Great solution. But that doesn't stop San Diegoians (?) from stopping by the roadside to hire day laborers to work in their gardens and for other menial jobs. Hypocrites all. San Diego has the Gaslamp district - district! It's one street of older buildings - lots of character there if you like plastic. Portland does have Powell's and a fairly nice downtown, a much superior place to San Diego, but still more limited than Boston because it's smaller. I have never seen more panhandlers anywhere like Portland - mostly young, and on skateboards, begging from everyone. It must be the slacker capital of the world. You can see Mt. Hood from there so that's interesting. Portland's climate is okay if you don't like sun, but it's better than Seattle. Now on to other places like Baltimore, need I say more, Philadelphia (crime rates through the roof and talk about trash, wow), DC (except for NW you wouldn't really want to be there unless you are an urban pioneer, but Bethesda is nice if you have the $), Pittsburgh (if yuns have a reason to be there), Cleveland (love the museum, R&R Hall of Fame, Corky and Lenny's and the rest one can do without), Atlanta (I reject all southern cities out of hand because I can and because they cannot compare to real cities in the North(east), and have you ever driven in Atlanta?), Dallas (big money, big hair, Delfrisco's [very good]), Houston (spread out, way out and not much there except the big oil headquarters) and the Menil). Denver (you can see the Rocky's, big whoop, and there isn't any there there), Kansas City (um, nothing, really, nothing), St. Louis (just like KC), Phoenix has the Suns and the sun but 115 degrees is hot no matter how dry it is. Nice yard, oh, it's painted on. I'm certain that among the other cities I've been to or lived, that each has its unique something (Milwaukee has...beer!), but comparing all to Boston (I leave out NYC because no other city is in the same league) is unfair and a losing proposition unless you're the shallow superficial type who thinks Disney was an architect. Yes, I have experienced many other cities, and yes, I'll take Boston any day, even Mayor Mumbles. I only wish I were there now. I'm the only thing missing from Boston, but that's just me. Oh by the way, you should see someone about that paranoia, no one is stalking you, but it's abundantly clear you should get out of town as quickly as possible. San Diego needs you.
LOL. Good post! I have to take exception to your opinion of newspapers though. Boston has a lot of great things to offer, but I just can't get my head around the Globe being one of them!
I notice you didn't say much about the climate. That's probably the other 'nuff said' issue.
We're looking to get out but not because we hate it here. It's because we have some long term financial goals we will not reach here.
LOL. Good post! I have to take exception to your opinion of newspapers though. Boston has a lot of great things to offer, but I just can't get my head around the Globe being one of them!
I notice you didn't say much about the climate. That's probably the other 'nuff said' issue.
We're looking to get out but not because we hate it here. It's because we have some long term financial goals we will not reach here.
The Globe offers excellent national reporting by very good writers, but it's not as good as it was before the NYT imes bought it. I didn't include the climate matter because other than extremes of the cities discussed (Chicago/SanDiego) I wouldn't use that as a determinant since cities should be more than what it's doing outside. I can certainly understand your financial considerations. We're trying to move back but our finance might not be up to the task - we'd like to live as close in to town as possible. But, we're in a sellers market and Boston right now is a buyers market so we'll just have to see what transpires. Our backup location is Philly - 90 miles from NYC and 5 hours drive from Boston (the way I drive) and has great history and cultural institutions, and some great houses for considerably less. The crime issue remains, but good sense keeps one from a lot of trouble. Good luck; I hope you settle on a place that will give you everything you want and need.
One last comment on other cities with which I'm familiar - Detroit. In the forties and fifties Detroit was a truly great city, but over the decades the city had grossly declined culminating with the '67 riots and going down ever since. The geographical spread was too much for the city to handle in it infrastructure (police/fire/schools) and the lost tax revenue has killed it. There are suburbs, mostly to the north, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, Troy (to a lesser extent), that offer wonderful amenities and access to Detroit's cultural gems - the Detroit Symphony is still one of the best and the Detroit Institute of the Arts is great, but a lack of funding has limited what it can do. Michigan can be a terrific state and Ann Arbor (A2) is as close to a "Cambridge" feel as you will find anywhere. The Univ of Michigan is thought of as the Harvard of the Midwest, although they think that Harvard is the Michigan of the East. I think that covers other cities in reply to WHEELZ and my not being familiar with other cities and answering his two whiny complaints (what is he doing in the alleyways anyhow?). I hope NChomesomeday gets back to North Carolina eventually where it's almost too beautiful to imagine.
The Globe offers excellent national reporting by very good writers, but it's not as good as it was before the NYT imes bought it. I didn't include the climate matter because other than extremes of the cities discussed (Chicago/SanDiego) I wouldn't use that as a determinant since cities should be more than what it's doing outside. I can certainly understand your financial considerations. We're trying to move back but our finance might not be up to the task - we'd like to live as close in to town as possible. But, we're in a sellers market and Boston right now is a buyers market so we'll just have to see what transpires. Our backup location is Philly - 90 miles from NYC and 5 hours drive from Boston (the way I drive) and has great history and cultural institutions, and some great houses for considerably less. The crime issue remains, but good sense keeps one from a lot of trouble. Good luck; I hope you settle on a place that will give you everything you want and need.
Wild horses could not drag me back to Philadelphia. But you didn't spend the first 18 years of your life there.
Wild horses could not drag me back to Philadelphia. But you didn't spend the first 18 years of your life there.
I can appreciate that. Thanks. I grew up on the other end of the state and wouldn't go there on a bet or by your same group of wild horses. As I know from the strong desire of most high school kids who want to go to a college or university away, where one is raised isn't always the most attractive option in adulthood. I spent a good part of 40 years in Boston and loved every minute of it after my first 15 in Western PA. It (PA) was a great place to be in a very safe environment growing up, but safety doesn't get one to go places and experience other phenomena, or to have the confidence of exploration and learning. Oh, and when I write "Boston", I mean the metropolitan area as a whole not just the city. Just like Philly - I don't necessarily mean in the center city either. What're Jenkintown and other similar areas like? I'm glad I found this site and it promises to be educational.
The suburbs of Philly are gorgeous, especially the Main Line (= MONEY). Jenkintown might as well be part of Philly. It's just outside the city border on Old York Rd (Rte 611) and in fact, the only way to get in town (not "downtown" but "in town" or "center city") is to go right through the heart of North Philly, the worst bombed out, boarded up, drug ridden, violence crazed slum in the USA, bar none. And public transit takes the same route. Well, I guess you could go out of your way and head north instead of south and pick up the Expressway, but that's ridiculous too. So I'd stay away from Jenkintown, Mt. Airy, Abington, etc., all for the same reasons.
Let's see, if I were to move back to Philly, where would I go?.......
Well, if I wanted to be close in, I'd move to Chestnut Hill (also spendy, but very pretty) or, on the other side of the city, right outside Northeast Philly, is Melrose Park. Lots of old homes and parks. On the western side, there's Bala-Cynwyd and Overbrook, right off City Line Ave. If you can afford it, main line towns like Media and Merion are nice.
But this is a forum about MA and I digress... Sorry mods!
You have obviously not been to very many cities if you can make this statement. Boston's streets are filthy and slimy and disgusting. All the little alleyways are just plain NASTY and there's nothing like the stench of all that steam pouring out of those sewer holes on a hot day! Have you noticed how many homeless people there are? The Common is completely full of them and they are lined up on every street, especially in the downtown crossing area. They are the first thing that greets you when you get off the highway and they stalk you at just about every traffic light. Most every single parking garage in the downtown area smells like someone just pee'd all over the stairwells. Oh, it's real nice! Portland Oregon is a nice city as is Chicago and San Diego, Boston is a freakin' toilet!
You have a completely corrupted and uninformed view of cities in general and Boston specifically. Portland has more panhandlers than any city in the country, some of them homeless and some just middle-class kids looking for something for nothing. The "Rose City" requires a car to see the damn roses because there's only one little trolly that loops a small downtown area. Homelessness, whether in San Diego or Boston, is not really a choice but a terrible situation partly caused by states that have closed state mental facilities, partly by the loss of jobs though the exporting of manufacturing jobs for greater profit, and partly because of people, I would venture, people like you who just want the homeless to go away instead of helping them in whatever way possible. San Diego had an enormous homeless problem until they simply banned people from congregating in the downtown area and shipped San Diego's problem to outlying areas and towns. Homeless numbers in Boston are no more proportionally than any other large city, and to use it as a criticism is weak and shows an opinion not based on fact. What Boston has that few cities can claim is its respect for its history (and the history of this country) and the vast array of cultural institutions, college and universities, ethnic and multicultural festivals, international events (Boston Marathon, Head of the Charles, exhibitions at the MFA) and the most successful sports teams in this decade, save the Bruins. A walk from Tremont Street through the Common and Public Garden and Back Bay provides one of the most pleasant strolls to be found among any city in the country - where can you walk in San Diego (city) except for Balboa Park, the five-block Gas Lamp District (they say it's 16 blocks but it's really only one street spanning five blocks? Chicago's lakeside is nice but boring; the architecture of the loop is great, but no real history to speak of despite the size of "Chicagoland". And what is that smell? Left over from the slaughterhouses? Steam from manholes? Ever been to Manhattan? Apparently not. The heat rising from manholes and subway grates raises a summer temperature from 90 to 98 quickly in New York, but Boston actually has cool air blowing up from the "T". Your view is similar to many suburbanites who mistaken think that by living in Framingham or Reading or Walpole that they have everything they need and never have to go into Boston. Those folks miss the opportunities to live a rich and full life of the mind and a life of cultural investigation by separating themselves from the city. They believe they've eaten Asian food because they have a relatively cheap generic Cantonese fast food restaurant (with a buffet of course - quantity over quality). They think that the local high school has plays and musical performances that rival the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Huntington Theatre Company. They won't go to Cambridge because they were there once and the traffic was just horrible. They never been to free public lectures at the BPL, Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Boston College (oh yeah, they think BC is as large and varied as BU, not even understanding that BU has a larger Catholic population among the ten times more students it enrolls in undergraduate and graduate programs, because they've never been on Comm Ave beyond Kenmore Square and Fenway Park (and, oh the traffic during Red Sox games, as if there's never traffic at any other major league park). Jacobs Field in Cleveland handles traffic well because there's not much else happening around that part of downtown. But you probably have some bias against Cleveland too, which happens to be one of the best kept secrets in the country - low housing costs, great symphony, first-class (free) museum, some of the best healthcare anywhere at the Cleveland Clinic, and beautiful tree-lined streets in Cleveland and Shaker Heights, not to mention the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I'd suggest any number of wonderful and very authentic Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, but you'd be appalled at the streets there too, so I'll just recommend a McDonald's in Natick, Lynnfield, Whitman, or Milford to you - it's likely the height of dining to you. Give me Boston any day and you can keep the vapid, reactionary San Diego, the one-note Portland, and I'll visit Chicago but I wouldn't want to live there...
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Philadelphia
