calling all people of the Boston area...
 

can you give me some info about the city? what kind of city atmosphere? what is there to do?
out of the different areas in Boston, can you break down type of area it is....for example: very wealty side of town, middle class, and then the rough areas....

i am wanting some background on the city. it seems like such a gorgeous place

Hmmm...I'll try to explain as best I can, and if you need more info/specifics, you can PM me. Nicole will definitely be able to add to this, as will Rob.

It's generally a chill atmosphere, mainly college students and young professionals. Most older people live in the suburbs, so the city itself is fairly young. There are tons of restaurants, bars, clubs and similar places where you can go out at night, but there is also theatre, art and music to find your cultural side. The Theatre District (not a nice section to live) has much of this culture, but there's also the Boston Pops, the Museum of Fine Art and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

For sports, there's the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins, plus the Patriots out in Foxboro (a suburb, 30 min ride from Boston).

The areas are broken down like this, although realty prices in the area are high, so you'll never find anything cheap:

Nice/wealthy areas: Brookline/Chestnut Hill, lower Commonwealth Avenue, Beacon Street, Beacon Hill.

High middle class: The Fens, Back Bay, Coolidge Corner, parts of Southie, the North End.

Rough areas: Dorchester, parts of Southie

There can be quite a bit of drop-off from the nice to the not-so-nice. Some areas, like Allston/Brighton and Cambridge have some really nice places to live and a solid mix of people, while also having rougher areas. In general though the city is highly segmented.

Honestly though, you can find nice apartments/places to go in the sketchy areas. The above is just a rough sketch.


I'll get to more as I think of it, PM me with any questions; Nicole probably knows more than I do about this topic.
Collin

Collin--

Is it still true that one out of every four Boston residents is a college student?

that sounds about right. i swear, half the time, it seems like there are more college students than not here.

Probably - as was said, there are a massive amount of college students in the area; in the summers you can definitely tell the difference from school time. Sometimes it truly feels like I'm the only post-collegiate person in the city.

This is especially true on Friday and Saturday nights; some bars I feel like one of the oldest people there.

my friend and i left the avenue pretty quickly last weekend for that exact reason! we went down to tonic where we didn't feel so old!

Places like White Horse and T's Pub can get like that too, although those places also have their fair share of 20 and 30-somethings who are out of school.

Now if you were to go to a place like Kinvara; THAT will make you old.

i have never been to Kinvara. that was the first time we felt like that at the avenue, and we go there pretty often, since it's so close to where we live. we went to the sail loft this weekend and i definitely felt pretty young there.