City Living's Great - But Where's My Yard?
Adam Gaffin pointed to this post this morning, and I so share Eric's sentiment that I wanted to highlight it, too. Now that my kids are 3 & 4, I want them to have a yard, just like I did. My wife points out some urban benefits: the T, the Esplanade, the playgrounds in the neighborhood, the Children's Museum, the Science Museum, the Frog Pond, and walking to school. Many things my kids think of as part of their daily lives are but occasional field-trip treats for suburbanites. But there's something about that yard. We talk about this every week. When we moved here, our compromise was that we'd live in the city for her and spend weekends on the Cape for me. So the boys have some of each. But I'm with Eric: there's something about a yard outside the back door.
That's why my wife and I love Quincy... We're a short walk from the red line, easy access to the freeways, close to the beaches, all the amenities of the city minus the taxes, and oh yeah... Our big back yard!
Posted by: Jason | June 27, 2005 at 10:00 AM
So I'll make the same offer I made to Eric: Move to Roslindale or West Roxbury (or even Hyde Park). Lots of yards, but, well, OK, same public-school system (but there *are* good public schools in the West Zone, at least up through sixth grade).
Posted by: adamg | June 27, 2005 at 10:49 AM
Adam, I'm sure you'd make a great neighbor. But that strikes me as neither here-nor-there; like living in Brookline. It's not really the city and its not really the suburbs. That said, I could talk myself into Brookline, at least, where the kosher deli is a couple blocks down and Coolidge Corner sort of looks urban. But my wife would never go for it. She's all brownstone: Back Bay or Upper East Side. Whichever. It sure is cheaper here, though.
Posted by: carpundit | June 27, 2005 at 11:21 AM
OK, OK, so Rozzie isn't quite the urban hotspot (we only just got our first Thai restaurant a couple months ago). It's our version of your compromise: I'm from the Big City (you know, that place to our south); my wife is from Small Town, Ill. I get the pleasure of paying Boston property taxes; she gets her yard :-).
Posted by: adamg | June 27, 2005 at 10:04 PM
Hmm, I'm making plans for building a roofdeck. Maybe you could buy up some adjacent roofs and make a roofyard?
Posted by: eeka | June 30, 2005 at 03:15 PM