Looking for better info about towns around here

my opinion? if you want to know what a town is like, read the local paper, go to the parks, attend town events, attend a couple of town board or committee meetings? people can tell you what they want, but it is all subjective in the end. my town is considered "desireable" but i HATE living here. it is homogeneous and elitist and dull and small-minded. the schools are good only because of the town demographics, and the education levels of the parents -- if your kid is an "outlier", beware.

my town is not on your list, and i am not giving the name, because there are thousands of people who live here and many who want to live here, who would be happy here.

visit where you want to live. house-sit there for a week or two if you can. a place to live needs to fit who you are.

How about his "novel" idea? Rent a house/apartment/condo in the town you *think* you'd like to buy. If you love it, then buy. If you don't, move to a new town at the end of your lease.

Chloe is right on. Too many people move to places they think they should be living in, and not nearly enough consider their lifestyle and what they enjoy doing on a day-to-day basis.

Find a town that you can breathe in. That causes your blood pressure to go down, not up.

If all you find is hectic traffic, stressed out suburbanites, draining commutes, then query what in the world is in it for you? for your health? for your kids?

We're never going to have this type of info in one good source. As many people suggested, you need to get "troops on the ground" before you can really know a town. Grocery stores tell you a lot.

i think in this day and age, we might be thinking that everything we need to ever know can be found on the internet. so not true...

i like that, jwb22 -- grocery stores DO tell you a lot. so does "Celebrate "Hometown"" Day" :)

My wife and I have been renting in Melrose for a little less than two years now, and we're still scratching the surface. To summarize Melrose in a single phrase: it's residential. Very residential. As far as I know, there is little to know industrial space in the city, and there are very few chain restaurants. Few to no chain retail stores. If you drive along Main Street you get to see the extent of it. There's a Shaw's supermarket, a Foodmaster, some pharmacies, and a number of local restaurants and businesses.

The city is pretty good about doing events at its parks, primarily targeted at younger children. There fitness walks / activities, a local farmer's market, and there's also the Melrose Symphony, although I have not attended any of their performances.

Aside from the recent incident on Main St. where an elderly driver hit someone crossing the street, it's pretty safe. The Melrose police force seems quite good about patrolling the area. Between the Orange Line (Oak Grove), the 3 commuter rail stops, and the MBTA buses public transportation seems to be pretty good.

The downsides for my wife and I is that there isn't much in the way of nightlife; you can only go to the restaurants on Main Street so many times. It doesn't help that there are currently no stores licensed to sell alcohol in town (apparently a few licenses were just granted) and drinks at restaurants requires you to buy food after the first one. We end up driving to neighboring cities for much of our shopping or entertainment.

The other downside is the cost of owning a home there; the median sales price is about $350,000 (about $20K to $120K more than neighboring cities). As a first-time homebuyer I cannot afford to live in Melrose and have had to look elsewhere.

My impression of Malden is not as favorable; it's much more congested and has quite a few industrial/commercial areas.