Educate me on Connecticut!
Having just received my secondary teaching credentials from the state of Connecticut, I'm curious as to any practical and anecdotal advice people might have concerning my move.
In particular, information on areas with solid schools, affordable housing/rent, and areas of interest would be tremendously helpful. Also, feel free to include any general moving or renting advice, as I may have to leave on short notice.
I have been to the state once, mostly seeing the area around Danbury. Overall my impression of the state was positive, as it seemed to include a nice mixture of outdoor and cultural activities, as well as having a nice mix of urban and rural areas within a short distance. For reference, I have grown up in a small community in Michigan (high school graduating class of 80 people) that in general lacks diversity, but is a nature laden area that is a rather picturesque place to grow up due to lack of violent crime and a tight knit community. The closest major city, Chicago, is nearly
6 hours away. For this reason, I'm looking for a comfortable transition to a larger area without being overwhelmed in an urban environment, thus my interest in Connecticut. Is my impression of the state correct in that I should find a nice community to live in but also be a train ride from major cities and events?
In short, tell me about Connecticut. My thanks in advance.
EDIT: Update post (July 23, 2007).
EDIT: Update post (August 7, 2007).
EDIT: Update post (August 10, 2007) below.
Posts
Note this not saying areas are crime ridden or anything (new london/groton would be an exception though) and they are pleasant geographically if you're into beach/coastline areas. I'm just saying i didnt have a thrilling time living in that area (having come from Cape May NJ), and wasn't a fan of too many people. The schools in my town (East Lyme) were ok I guess but they have done some goofy handling with budgets and departments.
Honestly I'd recommend finding a town in New Haven County, or perhaps Hartford. Basically the closer you get to NYC or Boston the better people seem to be. Just don't go near the southeast.
Also let me be one of the first to tell you a lot of people can't drive properly for shit.
Im moving closer to work in Norwalk, which is in Fairfield county. Fairfield county is way more expensive along the coast because it's 45 mins or so to the city with no traffic. Places like Danbury, New Milford, and Gaylordsville (real place I swear) have awesome deals. I went to school in Kent which is close to the border of New York state. People call it God's country. Seriously, I love northwestern CT and I hope one day to buy a large plot of land there and start a family.
If you live close any Metro-North station a ride to the city is easy, relatively cheap (considering gas and !parking!), and fast. Check craigslist for apartments, and pick up apartment guides from a Stop and Shop and you should be able to find a good place in your price range.
As far as cities go:
Stay the fuck away from Bridgeport both as a place to work and a place to visit. Awful crime rate (top 3 in a bunch of categories for small cities), nothing redeeming as far as culture, downtown completely shuttered.
New Britain is rust belt central, plus ESPN and a lot of regional sports events. My friends at Wesleyan never went off campus.
Stamford, as far as I can tell, doesn't have much of a downtown you'd want to explore, just large satellite buildings for NYC corporations.
Hartford is a mixed bag, there's some pretty good cultural stuff and the city is slowly getting better, but there's still significant crime downtown. West Hartford is a nice upscale area, and I think some of the other suburbs are coming along nicely, a couple of them might be to your taste. However, not particularly convenient to larger cities. 2+ hours to both Boston and NYC by car, 1 hour to New Haven.
New Haven has cleaned up tremendously, it's got tons of culture thanks to Yale sinking money into the community but there are still horrible sections if you go 15 blocks in the wrong direction. My parents have moved there recently and are loving it, there is always something to do. If *I* were in your shoes I would try to get a job in the suburbs of New Haven and live as close to Yale as I could afford, that whole area is the ideal walkable, cultured, urban small city and the train runs right through there. Almost every bar is filled with Yalies, for better or worse.
Norwalk has several nice streets with bars, restaurants, a big aquarium, etc., and is maybe 50-60 minutes from both New Haven and NYC. I would bet it gets the job done as far as things to do, and I have the impression that it's sort of the social center for twentysomethings in Fairfield County, but it's in an entirely different weight class than Hartford or New Haven.
Regarding transportation: Metro-north costs $20, does not run late, and takes about 1.5 hours from New Haven to NYC. I wouldn't use it to go into NYC for the night, more for a full day/weekend every couple of months. If you are living in the suburbs in CT and going to a city in CT, you are driving, period, but parking is generally free/very cheap and pretty easy to find.
Here are my impressions of school systems in Fairfield county that come to mind, let me know if you want details on any of them.
Greenwich: Large, super rich, great academics.
Westport: Pretty large, super rich, very good academics. Pricks.
Fairfield (where I grew up!): Very large, moderately rich, very good academics. Not sure how the recent school split is playing out except the athletics suck now.
Darien: Medium size, super rich, very good academics.
Wilton: Medium-small, medium rich, good academics.
Easton: Very small, pretty rich, very good academics.
Trumbull, Seymour, Ansonia: Very large, medium to medium-poor, mediocre academics, football is king.
Stratford: Very large, medium-poor, mediocre academics. Bad vibes (moved away to avoid going there.)
Stamford: Very large, medium-poor, mediocre academics.
Norwalk: Large, poor, mediocre academics.
Bridgeport: Hell on earth. As bad as the bad parts of NYC if not worse.
Litchfield: Small, medium rich, decent academics, in the middle of nowhere.
Bethel: Medium small, medium poor, rural, pretty rural. Lowest teacher salaries in the county iirc.
Danbury: Hmm, not sure. I think it's fairly middle of the road.
There are also a pretty large number of private schools due to all the money floating around, many are very solid although none outside of (hotchkiss?) in New Haven are obviously better than the best of the public schools.
Edit:
Ah, as far as community... there's no "small town" feel pretty much in any of the coastal towns in Fairfield county. Maybe Darien, Westport, or Easton... but they're heavily commuter towns and still part of the continuous, giant suburb that runs from NYC to NH. Come to think of it, I've been to Danbury a couple of times, and if that's what you liked stay the heck away from the coast.
Like anywhere, there seems to be areas that are favorable and areas to avoid. But at the end of the day, I'll have to take whatever position best suits my professional needs.
All states, at least that aren't desperate for teachers, require their own licensing requirements. I did a bit of research on the New England areas and the states in regards to their education programs and overall lifestyle, and Connecticut just seemed like an excellent compromise on all accounts. Obviously though it's great to hear first hand accounts, as statistics and educational reviews don't ever come close to telling the whole story.
In short, I really appreciate this guys. I've naturally been nervous I may have made the wrong choice, moving out East on a whim like this, but hey, that's how it goes. Anymore details are more than welcome, and as my search narrows, I may have more specific questions.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
-Lowest cost of living of surrounding towns (except Norwalk, which isn't anywhere near as nice of a place to live)
-~20 minutes from 10+ top private schools (K-12)
-~20 minutes from some of the best public schools in the country (Greenwich, Darien, and New Canaan)
There are some very quiet areas of Stamford, like the one I live in. It was also rated the safest city of its size in the nation a few years ago by the FBI, and not much has changed then. The Stamford train station is a hub for both MTA and Amtrak, and the train ride to Grand Central in Manhattan averages about 45 minutes (don't ever bother trying to drive, it will be a huge pain in the ass and cost you 3-4 times as much). You're also only a little over an hour away from Hartford, which is probably the only other city in the state that you would ever want to go to.
That said, I honestly don't know much about life in other parts of the state. Towns in the "quiet corner" (northeast area - Tolland/Windham counties) will probably be tiny and have a small-New-England-town kind of feel to them, but I imagine the public education system would be good in the more wealthy towns, and there are several good private schools in that area, as well as south-central Middlesex county. One thing to consider would be the boarding secondary schools in the area - I attended one for two years and pretty much all of the teachers that I talked to about it said they would never teach at a non-boarding school again.
Oh, and gas is a BITCH to pay for in this state. The cheapest here in Stamford is $3.23 right now, but that was closer to $3.45 a month or two ago. It goes up as you move into wealthier areas. As I recall, we have the highest state tax on gasoline in the entire country.
I do object to the idea that the only other city you'd visit is Hartford. That might have been true 10-15 years ago, but these days New Haven has some great museums related to Yale, constant speakers/symphonies/other campus events, and a metric ton of great restaurants. It's also 30-40 min from Stamford; Hartford is definitely well more than an hour away.
You might also visit Norwalk and Mystic for their aquariums, and Bridgeport and New Britain have minor league baseball.
By the way, some parts of Norwalk are also relatively suburban and perfectly pleasant, you just have to know where to look.
Also, I'm embarrassed I forgot New Canaan in my town rundown. They were a reliable whipping boy in athletics. Small, rural town, rich, strong academics.
Overall the state sounds favorable, is that what I'm reading?
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
It's favorable if you don't like the hustle-bustle of metropolitan life, which seems to be what you're looking for.
Having lived in Newtown for the last 13 years of my life (a small/large town right outside of Danbury, depending on who you ask; largest acreage in Fairfield County, with a population spread very thin). I also lived in Darien for 7 years before that. Basically, if you want a quiet place to settle down, the 'burbs can't be beat.
Personally, I can't wait to move out; I'm heading to NYC at the end of the summer, because CT is a rather boring place. If you're in a small town, most mentionable places take a bit of driving to get to, and it's very easy to feel rather poor when you're surrounded by so much flaunted money. Kids tend to be spoiled at the elementary level, and it generally lasts beyond, at least from my experience. YMMV.
That being said, New Haven is pretty much the place to be in CT. Yale's great for having invested so much. And Toad's Place is always a good time. Just don't head north of Hartford unless you're going to UConn for some awful reason. Nothing but cows and farmlamd for miles.
All truth here.
I've lived in New Haven county for almost my whole life, so unfortunately I can't offer much as far as comparisons go. If you're thinking of New Haven county, it seems to have a good mix of suburbia, "the woods" and the city. New Haven itself has a mix of housing types, and kinds of areas - some are very nice, and very expensive, others are in bad parts of town, run-down, and very very cheap. It wouldn't be too hard to find a compromise, though, and find a nice living situation for a decent price ("decent price" when compared to other parts of CT...Greenwich, Darien, etc...mostly everything that Nissl said seems spot-on). The culture there is really nice, though, (New Haven also throws a huge Arts Festival in the summer) and it tends to be a place that a lot of us small-towners flock to in times of excessive boredom.
Just as a side-note - good thing you got your teaching credentials in CT...I heard the req.'s are really tough here, and it's hard for out-of-state teachers to find jobs, as they don't meet CT standards. Finding a teaching job in other states with CT credentials seems to be much easier though, should you ever take that route.
Overall, I've had a nice experience living here...everything seems pretty close by (especially when all the states in the North-East are this small! I can't imagine what living in a large state must be like)...there's the beach, parks, hills, farmland, skiing (and in VT...woo!), Canada, NY, RI, MA...all within a decent driving distance - at least in my personal opinion. I'd recommend it. It's a nice state.
So I have an interview with a school in Fairfield. Horay!
I'd like to make the impression that I'm highly interested in the area and schools, and I am, but I'd like to get some good information that goes outside what I can find on the city website. I see a few posters in this very thread have a lot of Fairfield experience, so that's awesome.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
Almost all commerce happens around black rock and post roads, they are giant strip malls that have grown up over time but are still a bit of a pain in the ass to navigate with modern traffic flow. Everything else is suburbia with a few neighborhood stores here and there. I heard they put in an urban development by the new train station.
Not *much* to do at night outside of knowing people, albeit this is from a high schooler's point of view. A couple of decent movie theaters in the surrounding areas, some restaurants (Avellino's was good when I was there but I heard their chef quit), 3-5 small, scattered bars mostly filled with Fairfield U students and fairfield HS alums taking their time about leaving home. There's summer concerts on the town green, the usual rich-town arts stuff, etc., but there isn't really a going twentysomething scene per se. But then Norwalk and New Haven aren't incredibly long drives.
So I have received a position in Fairfield. Great news, except apartment hunting is killing me. I've made a tentative budget, and if I'm to live alone I either have to exceed 33% of my net income or commute. Or find a roommate, which is less desirable.
There's lots of places available in Bridgeport, but that area looks pretty hit or miss. Thoughts? Advice?
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
Having an initial budget is good, but how much experience do you have with the area? I currently live in Stamford and lived in New Haven for a year last year(moved straight out of university) and the one thing that struck me was how fucking expensive it is to live up here (coming from much further South). If you can work on making your initial budget more conservative, that would be a good thing. Also, remember to factor in state taxes, personal property tax (if youre going to have a car) and/or commuting expenses for public transport.
I've factored in higher taxes and my rent, in terms of items that will cost more. My budget also includes food, transport, clothing, personal, savings, and medical. All based upon percentage cost after taxes. Food costs are going to be comparable. I'm currently eying a place within a few miles of school and I drive a Toyota Camry, thus transport and insurance will hopefully be minimal, well below 15% of my net monthly pay. Clothing should also be comparable, as I'll probably stick to the same stores I shop at now. Personal will be a bit more, but in my first year teaching I'll be spending plenty of time on work for the first half year. Not fun, but cheap! And my medical expenses, barring injury, will be below 8% net monthly.
Basically, because my transport is cheap, I have no debt, and I'm a single guy... I can swing the higher rent and still make out pretty good. Am I missing something? If you see anything I appear to be overlooking, that would be rocking to know.
I guess the question that comes to mind here is: Why would one be uncomfortable with the area?
I actually called a real estate agent recommended by the school today to get a real feel for the lay of the land. As mentioned, I can hopefully get a place just under 2 miles from the school I'm working at which is a great neighborhood without totally breaking my bugdet. It's really at the wall of my budget, though. But nearly every place is, so I think I just need to accept that's how it is!
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
The main reason to avoid Bridgeport is that it has historically been a gang- and drug-infested hellhole completely devoid of anything worthwhile. I hear the city may be a bit better than it used to be, and apparently they're throwing $8 billion at commercial development down near U. of Bridgeport. But I mean, there is nowhere in Bridgeport that I'd walk down to the corner bar or cafe at night. There probably aren't even cafes. If you do move into Bridgeport, your best bets are the north end by Sacred Heart (one of my HS teachers lived there) or the new development by UB. You might also think about other towns, say Stratford (slightly run-down suburban, nicer than BPT) or Norwalk (if you want to do the quasi-urban thing... I had the impression that there's a good deal of cheap condo/apartment housing in neighborhoods that are much safer than Bridgeport).
I'm guessing your school is near the post road? That would be the best place to live in Fairfield if you want to live close to nightlife/community events, but it's only a 5-10 min drive between there and black rock turnpike (the other center of economic activity in town.) And yep, by anything other than New York and Coastal California standards, coastal Fairfield County is expensive. It's the first or second richest county in the country after all.
So I spent some time driving around Fairfield and Bridgeport. I also looked at the online listings for Norwalk and other such areas, and basically the price wasn't cheap enough to justify the drive, even if it is modest.
I ended up grabbing a place right next to where I work, actually walking distance on nice days. The neighborhood is immaculate. And I'm pretty close to downtown Fairfield (just 2 miles to Post Road). I'm excited, to say the least. My place is modest, especially considering what I'm paying... but the location is prime. I'll be able to run around my neighborhood, tennis courts nearby, etc. It's a dream come true for me.
Thank you all for the input and advice. It's been invaluable. And it's so nice to see that since my first post I now have exactly the job and the location I wanted when I imagined my new East Coast life.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf