Medium-density vs low-density suburban neighborhoods (Boston, Cambridge: condos, house, buy)

[maclel]

We currently live in Lincoln but have lived in the past all ranges of density, from super-high (mid-town Manhattan) to high (Brentwood, LA) and medium (Chestnut Hill). We are super happy with our decision. I would say most of the cons you have listed are not real cons for places close to route 128 like Lincoln and Weston. For example, I can get food delivery to our house, I have a Costco, Home Depot, Market Basket, etc. within seven minutes of my house - and it's always seven minutes, because there aren't any traffic jams - the drive to school from my house is five minutes & I have FiOS 1Gb in my house (there is also the infrastructure to get higher speeds when Verizon markets them). I do not think that people are any less neighborly than in higher density towns at all, more like the opposite in my experience to be frank. I think this is the result of this being a town of ~5,000 people excluding Hanscom, you just get to know a lot of of folks over time as you bump against them - this is truer if you have school-aged children. I lived in a high-rise in Manhattan for over 3 years and I barely knew anybody.

In my opinion the only real con in your list is the ability for children to interact with other children. You can get lucky and your children can live very close to other similar-aged children, but does not always happen. This means that they are more dependent on you setting up playdates. This is not so much of an issue for us because we have three children within 2 years and can play independently, but it's something to consider. Having said that, as another poster mentioned, given all the extracurricular activities and 7-hour school days, they already spend plenty of time with other kids.

The other con is obviously commute if you work in downtown Boston - although a lot of the medium-density suburbs don't necessarily have better commutes (see Lexington). Most people I know, including myself, are looking at very reduced commute schedules post-pandemic, which makes lower density suburbs even more appealing.

My two-cents is that if you are the kind of person who likes privacy and contact with nature, moving to a low-density suburb is a no-brainer.

[GeoffD]

I grew up in a suburban coastal village and moved back a decade ago. As a kid, I walked to school. I wasn’t dependent on parents shuttling me around to everything. I rode my bicycle to little league games.

My sister lives in Vancouver BC. Her lot is 33’ wide. House, 3’, fence, 3’, house. Parking and garage in the alley behind the house. Very leafy so lots of hedges trees, and natural barriers. Really high walk score. You could easily get by with only occasional use of a car. To me, that’s an ideal density.

[thinkingotherthings]

Thanks to everyone who has chimed in so far – the responses have been extremely helpful, and great points have been raised in favor of both low-density and medium-density neighborhoods!

I would ask folks to please refrain from further discussion on the definition of "low" density and whether Weston qualifies. When I say "low" density I just mean that houses are far enough apart that you typically don't see or hear many (or any) neighbors from your own house; and that most houses are not in walk-friendly areas with a "neighborhood feel" (often due in part to lack of sidewalks, as others in this thread have noted), and you won't usually bump into people just walking around your neighborhood.

Regardless of whether you agree with this definition, please roll with it for the sake of this thread, or use another term that you think better captures this notion; but the correctness of my definition of low-density is not the focus of this thread.

[mdovell]

I think you might even have to start to look a little bit closer an actual neighborhoods rather than specific towns. I've lived in Easton Mass on the South Shore and also in western Mass and I'm now and Eastern Connecticut. The town I'm in has a relatively low population. However about 40% of a town lives in one of the neighborhoods. Bad neighborhood gives me access to public water and sewer that most outside of it does not have. I get trash and recycling is part of my property taxes which would cost extra if I didn't live in that neighborhood. I also have streetlights and sidewalks which should be much harder outside of that neighborhood. I have a coffee shop literally walking distance from me along with a typical drug store and a pizza place and a few Artsy areas. On the bed I have a main road and I hear road noise on a pretty consistent basis. It's not a heavy traffic but if there's a truck you can definitely hear it. My backyard is a open and I can probably see maybe up to eight different properties from it. No one has fences here. Sometimes when there's people in a quiet area they are there because they like the choir other people are actually loud and like being allowed but they can't do it in the higher populated area because he'll get more complaints. They believe it's easier to pacify fewer people. Let's put it this way if somebody was riding a four-wheeler in the middle of downtown Lexington they'd get kicked out in 2 seconds. But if they did that in most of Halifax it might still get complaints but it'll be far fewer complaints.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

My sister lives in Vancouver BC. Her lot is 33’ wide. House, 3’, fence, 3’, house. Parking and garage in the alley behind the house. Very leafy so lots of hedges trees, and natural barriers. Really high walk score. You could easily get by with only occasional use of a car. To me, that’s an ideal density.

That kind of housing is part of the reason why house prices are insane in many parts of the country.

[NewfieMama]

Oh, one more thing I meant to add to my bulleted post earlier is about Halloween, since that is relevant this time of year. Given that we live in a low-density town (like you said, I'm not sure if my town is "technically" low-density, but we all live on >1 acre plots, most areas don't have sidewalks, the town is heavily wooded, so most of us can't see our neighbors, etc. compared to neighboring towns with sidewalks and houses that are generally on half acre plots or less), anyway, trick or treating can be something you need to plan out. We are lucky that even though we are on a street with no sidewalks, we are only about 100' from two neighborhoods so we can just walk over there for trick or treating. But many of my friends in town have to plan out trick or treating. There are certain neighborhoods that are known to be good trick or treating spots, so you either know somebody who lives in that neighborhood and they host a trick or treating party or you have one parent drop off to trick or treat, then come back later to pick up. In the 11 years we've lived in our house (road with no sidewalks), we've never had a single trick or treater--they all find their way to the neighborhoods where it's much easier and safer to trick or treat.

[huff100]

Originally Posted by thinkingotherthings

Hi folks,

As my family continues to refine our house search criteria, one margin we've been thinking a lot about lately is neighborhood density. By "medium" density I have in mind typical neighborhoods in Winchester or Belmont, for example. By "low" density I have in mind typical neighborhoods in Lincoln or Weston, for example. (I don't want to fixate on the particular towns given in these examples as my question is more general; and I am aware that neighborhood densities may vary within a town.)

Initially we were gung-ho on a medium-density neighborhood – both my wife and I grew up in higher-density places, and while we know we don't want to live in a high-density neighborhood, the thought of living in a low-density neighborhood feels a bit isolating. However, we've come to question whether our enthusiasm for medium density is founded in measured analysis or simply in fear of the unfamiliar. As several wise posters pointed out in a previous thread I started, you don't typically forge meaningful friendships with your neighbors by living in close proximity to them – more practically, we expect to grow our friend circle through our kid's school and other kid activities (we currently have a baby), or town activities we get involved in.

So with that in mind, I am hoping to hear what people think are the pros and cons of living in medium-density vs low-density suburban neighborhoods. My current perspective is:

Medium-density PROS:

• shorter commutes (to school, grocery store, restaurants, shops, parks, etc), in general – but of course depends on exactly where you're going and how much traffic there is
• in line with the first point, easier for our kid to walk or bike to his friends' houses
• feels less isolated (but I think this is more psychological than of practical consequence)
• greater access to delivery services (Amazon, groceries, restaraunts) and ride-shares

Low-density PROS:

• Quiet! – zero chance of a loud neighbor moving in right next door who blasts music or has a kid in some garage band or mows their lawn at 5am on Sunday mornings
• more scenic / more greenery
• privacy? I think medium-density neighborhoods are private enough, but I suppose it can be nice at times to have even more privacy

One other requirement of ours is reliable access to high-speed internet. I'm not sure if that is less prevalent in towns with lower average density?

P.S. Astute readers might recall from previous threads I started that I had wanted to be close to a walkable downtown – I have long since given up on that as a criterion given my criteria and budget. Although I would still like to be a short drive to a walkable town center, which I think I can achieve in either a medium-density or low-density neighborhood.

I really wanted an isolated "country" road when we were house hunting (about 7.5 years ago). We actually found a neighborhood (in Stow) that was much more dense than I wanted. I was pregnant at the time with our first child and my husband and I thought it might be nice and tried it! We actually had some trouble making friends in the town and neighborhood. for some reason we were meeting really nice people but they did not really want to make plans and hang out (even with kids). Our kids are super social and just this summer our next door neighbors moved and we became great friends with the new neighbors right near us! (kids around the same age).
Sometimes I think that people already have a social network and family and do not want to have more people entering it and are already busy. We were looking for friends closer to us. I would say move where you want and not where you think you might find friends. I would have been happy on an isolated country road and probably got more land. We have less land and privacy in a neighborhood but we lucked out and the new next door neighbors are amazing friends but it took over 7 years to meet them!

[Guineas]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

My sister lives in Vancouver BC. Her lot is 33’ wide. House, 3’, fence, 3’, house. Parking and garage in the alley behind the house. Very leafy so lots of hedges trees, and natural barriers. Really high walk score. You could easily get by with only occasional use of a car. To me, that’s an ideal density.

I'm in Seattle now and it's pretty similar to Vancouver. Lots are about 4000 sq ft (35' wide) with front yard and backyard and alley with garage in the back, houses only a few feet apart. There is, however, plenty of natural hedges and fences between the neighbors for privacy. Leafy streets with wide sidewalks. People have well kept gardens and yards. Walk score over 80. My kids walk to school, have friends in at least 5 houses within walking distance. Bus stop two blocks away. Several parks, dozens of coffee shops and restaurants within 10 minute walk. I agree that this is a great density. It's like the dense part of Brookline, but with single family homes and yards. Not super common in New England. Maybe pondside JP or parts of Quincy. With Greater Boston though, the quaint town centers are often not particularly exciting other than some banks, a diner, Pilates studios and real estate offices, and also not easy to walk to unless you live right next to it due to the road layouts.

Originally Posted by maclel

In my opinion the only real con in your list is the ability for children to interact with other children. You can get lucky and your children can live very close to other similar-aged children, but does not always happen. This means that they are more dependent on you setting up playdates. This is not so much of an issue for us because we have three children within 2 years and can play independently, but it's something to consider. Having said that, as another poster mentioned, given all the extracurricular activities and 7-hour school days, they already spend plenty of time with other kids.

Schlepping kids into cars for pre-planned, scheduled activities is some of my least favorite things to do in parenting. It's so much easier and more spontaneous when you can just put on some rainboots and go for a walk to some place interesting.

My wife grew up in a woodsy metrowest town and always hated the car dependence growing up. Worse when it snows and there’s no sidewalks in the neighborhood, just snow banks.

[zoeyjane]

In low density, you're more likely to hit a house that has septic, not connected to natural gas, have fewer services (recycling, trash pickup), no sidewalks, etc. My suburban friends complain they don't even get trick-or-treaters...

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by thinkingotherthings

As several wise posters pointed out in a previous thread I started, you don't typically forge meaningful friendships with your neighbors by living in close proximity to them – more practically, we expect to grow our friend circle through our kid's school and other kid activities (we currently have a baby), or town activities we get involved in.

I completely disagree with this point. It's very possible that you can forge very meaningful relationships with your neighbors. In fact, I would say if you get the right neighbors that those can be some of your closest relationships. In a less dense suburb, you'll likely have less interaction with your neighbors and it's less likely that you'll have close relationships with them. There's no guarantee you'll have awesome neighbors but being someplace more dense opens the door to it.

Originally Posted by Apple Country

I've had Instacart and Roche Brothers deliveries and I see Amazon trucks all day and have never had trouble getting rideshare.

My in-laws live in Dover. They absolutely get deliveries from Instacart and Amazon. This being said, meal delivery is next to impossible. Uber Eats, Door Dash, etc. all will not deliver to her house. Plus, there are no restaurants in town (except the one pizza place) and none of the restaurants from surrounding towns will deliver to her house.

Originally Posted by Guineas

Sidewalks is huge. Low density places like Weston often don’t have sidewalks. That makes it much harder for you or your kids to go out for a walk etc.

I've never understood why so many people here on C-D are so obsessed with sidewalks. IMO, it's not just about sidewalks. It's about traffic levels on the street. For example, in my neighborhood we have sidewalks but no one uses them. Everyone walks and bikes in the street because all the entrances in the neighborhood are on side (so no cutting through) and generally the streets are extremely low traffic. So, if the sidewalks went away no one would care.

Originally Posted by Lampert

That kind of housing is part of the reason why house prices are insane in many parts of the country.

Do you mean a lack of that kind of housing? We definitely don't have a lot of that around here. Where my parents live in FL that's what their neighborhood is like. You can practically reach out the window and touch the neighboring house.

Originally Posted by zoeyjane

In low density, you're more likely to hit a house that has septic, not connected to natural gas, have fewer services (recycling, trash pickup), no sidewalks, etc. My suburban friends complain they don't even get trick-or-treaters...

More likely . . . I would agree and don't forget there are many low density towns that also have no public water service so your house would have a well. This being said there are plenty of examples of medium density towns where you encounter these things as well. For example, here in Needham about half the houses in town have access to Nat. Gas. There are definitely some small sections of town with no town sewer as well and the town does not offer trash pick up either.