Comments on: Big City Brawl

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:56:12 +0000

Kathy – I’m not that far out, only like 12 miles, but I drive 4 miles down route one to park at Huntington Station, then take the yellow line from Huntington to Pentagon, transfer to the Blue line at pentagon and take it to Farragut west. It’s 1 1/2 hours every day. I do work at a big firm, maybe that’s why I can’t find anyone my age I can relate to. Most of the partners I work for are just now starting families. Maybe it’s just the firm lifestyle. Because of the hours, I don’t meet many people who aren’t lawyers.

By: jenney

jenney — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:28:52 +0000

to reply to the comment above… yes there are lots of asians in the boston area but try being asian or an inter-racial family its not so appealing. We know more white families with chinese kids than asian or asian/white families with asian kids. There are 4 asian kids in M’s school (including him). 1 kid is from an AM/WF family like ours and the other 2 are adopted. My husband doesn’t really like the vibe here, he says he definitely feels like an outsider. That being said I love the area I just wish it was more “minority friendly”. Though we lived in Toronto so we are just spoiled by asians being the minority-majority.

By: Deirdre

Deirdre — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:38:16 +0000

Your list of what you like about your area is very similar to what we like about our area.

Our extended family, however, is mainly still in California so we have to have the Big Discussion every single time we visit. The endless real estate talk whenever we go there drags me down – Houses in my husband’s friend’s new ‘hood have dropped more than our entire house cost but we still couldn’t afford it (neither can the friend, who lives with his father). I used to be desperate to move back to CA but now, with kids, I fear that it would someday be necessary (e.g.: when the imploding of MI’s economy turns it into an actual black hole).

Of course, beyond housing prices, part of it is the same claustrophobic feeling from being smack in the middle of large urban areas.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:39:35 +0000

Sarah (comment above) must live pretty far out, because from where I am, a metro ride to downtown DC is only about 40 minutes (that includes time to drive to the metro, park, and wait for the train). To drive in would be anywhere from 20 minutes to 45, depending on traffic.

The cost of living is high, I guess, but you get used to it and I assume it’s comparable to other big cities. I’ve been living in the DC area for over 10 years, and am not a lawyer, and light-years away from making a lawyer’s salary. My husband is a lawyer, but not a well-paid, big-firm lawyer. Anyway, we’re able to live quite happily on our piddling salaries.

Also, since the public schools are all so good, you’d be saving a lot of money that way — other cities you’d want to consider private schools. And at least when I was paperchasing, I had found that the schools in my cluster had somewhere around a 15% Asian population.

Re: the age of first-time moms, I think it varies a lot. Yes, there are many older first-time moms (35-40+). But there are also a lot of younger, “traditional-aged” moms as well. They just travel in different circles. Especially since they can’t afford the expensive housing close in, like the older moms can.

By: Andi

Andi — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:04:55 +0000

That is a pretty awesome list of amenities. If anybody was ever able to drag me south of the border, I’d probably move to your city!

As it is . . . for what you have now, all I can think of to suggest is that Mr A may want to consider applying for a position in southern Ontario, maybe Mississauga or Toronto! I am kidding, mostly, but . . . that was the only even possibly-constructive suggestion I could think of. In Mississauga you can get a 4 bedroom nearly-new build in the 400k (CAD) range, and there are even suburbs in Toronto where 400-500k is still an asking price! As for Toronto itself, the diversity is pretty dazzling . . . of course, I assume if those locations were options you’d have mentioned them! Still, it’s something to consider; you’ll find mls.ca has pretty comprehensive listings if you’re even idly curious.

Whatever you do decide, though, I hope that the choice only gets easier from here.