I WOULDN'T HAVE STAYED FOR 20 YRS OTHERWISE!
-
7/16/2018
My husband and I moved to CT 20 years ago. He was headhunted by a firm in Hartford, and they made a good enough salary offer to bring us here. Oy, the sticker shock! There went THAT raise...
That being said, CT has been a good choice for us. Honestly, we get what we pay for here. When you call the cops, they show up promptly. When you put the garbage out, it gets picked up. The town has mixed stream recycling, too! When a road cracks, it gets fixed (eventually). When disaster strikes, the local hospital can patch us up, or if it's SERIOUS, airlift us to Hatford Hospital, a Trauma I ranked facility. When it's time for children to enroll in school, our local Public school system is great, at least in Manchester! The vintage school buildings in town are currently undergoing a major retrofit, to improve systems and add space. There is the Magnet School option for any budding little geniuses, too.
When it snows, there are plows clearing the roads. If you're bored, there are LOTS of green spaces, State Parks, public beaches, hiking trails, biking trails, skateparks (this varies by town), dog parks, and a local Rec Dept. that is free to children, and extremely affordable to adults. Ours has sports leagues, public and private swim lessons, exercise classes, crafts of different kinds, etc.
Manchester is part of what I wryly call the Hartford Greater Metro Area. It is handy to fun stuff in central Massachusetts, bright lights/big city NYC and Boston, and beaches and cultural events in RI. It's a full 4 seasons here, but I will firmly state to anyone that it is VERY MILD Winter here, as compared to Northern WI, where I was born! Fall foliage is gorgeous here, and blossoms in Spring have their magic, too.
We arbitrarily chose Manchester because it was halfway between Hartford and Storrs, where I was commuting to classes at Uconn at the time. It is a small city of around 50,000 or so people, and has been good enough that we haven't left! Manchester is a former mill town, so there's a broad choice of neighborhoods and architectural choices to choose from for living. We paid $147,500 in 2003 for our 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath corner lot Eastlake Victorian house, which has appreciated to around $225,000. So, not bad at all! Of course, the real estate taxes are high, around $5000 annually, and car taxes are assessed twice yearly.
There's a mix of all faiths here too, if that is important to you! Again, this varies by town. Oh, and colleges are plentiful here in CT too. Public, private, trade schools, Liberal Arts, you name it we got it.
Our youngest child is 9, so we'll be here for at least another 10 years for sure!
Macola | Manchester, CT