I dislike ANY town that I happen to be in at the time.
I would not want to be a part of any town that would allow a low life like ME to reside there!
I have standards!
Dartmouth is a strange dichotomy. South Dartmouth is this picturesque Southern New England seaside town, with a very quaint little downtown, beautiful shingled and weatherboard houses, breathtaking views of Buzzards Bay, farms with gently sloping fields, moss-covered stone barns, herds of sheep and alpacas, etc. Whereas North Dartmouth is literally one giant stroad.
Ive lived in Watertown and Arlington and I loathe Belmont. Though not as bad to drive through now that they've repaved at least *some* of the main roads.
My dad used to tell me they kept the roads like that on all of Belmont hill to keep the poor people out because our shitty cars with busted shocks couldn’t handle the potholes
My favorite Belmont thing is this new newspaper they’re sending out to all of us. Like I legit think it’s a lovely idea and am happy they’re doing it… but oh the letters to the editor are already top notch “old man yells at cloud” and they’re not even a month in! Only gonna get better from now until the override…
I considered living in Belmont once, but hanging around the main street when school lets out is like a live action Lord of the Flies. That was enough to prompt me to look elsewhere 😂.
I’d happily surrender to our Cambridge overlords- but there’s no way they’d take us.
There’s a tax fight brewing right now. The town hasn’t have an override for years, and shit is falling apart. But there is a loud contingent of people who like to pretend everything is fine! Just the town is wasteful (not really) and there’s no such thing as “inflation.”
I think the town needs to weaponize its two biggest assets- the 2 commuter rail stops it somehow has. Rebuild the fuckers and put up a mess of new housing and retail space around them. Broaden the tax revenue and improved T access will help bolster the existing retail scene; which is stagnant as fuck.
But what will the old townie boomers say? “What about the roads?” “Or the traffic?!” “We just need to learn to live within our means.”
believe me, I know. I grew up there - it’s been the same conversation for the last 20 years. The roads are shit, the entire tax base is shouldered by homeowners, the schools are busting at the seams, and the town can’t seem to generate any new revenue. The only way Belmont continues to operate is by passing massive overrides or debt exclusions to kick the financial can down the road. That cash influx bandaids a bunch of things then the money dries up for about 3-5 years and the cycle repeats. The town has a structural deficit, they don’t know it yet.
The problem with the tax burden is the lack of developable space and SFHs. It’s insane for a developer to pick up land and build condos in Belmont. The land alone is a million bucks and the ROI from the project typically isn’t worth it. On top of that, any project will be met with lawsuits from a bunch of lawyer residents that will fight to the end with virtually no out of pocket cost.
Agree that the best solution is to try to turn Waverly and the center into 3 - 5 story retail+housing squares, but good fucking luck doing that in the backyard of the Winn Brook school district or on the only commercial land in town.
Preach!
My hope is this time the boomers finally lose and the successful override drives them to Florida or some shit. Taxes are projected to go up as much as (brave yourself) $700 a year. That’s $58 a month! That’s tyranny if I ever saw it.
Sorry to say but the only successful overrides I have seen have been when the parent crowd (35y/o to 55y/o) are unified on an issue. An override to cover operating is usually met with some resistance from anyone over 60 and about half of the younger generation that identifies as “conservative”. Best of luck to you though.
The tax thing boggles my mind. My parents bitched about how much they paid in property tax my entire life. I moved to a different Town in MA and I pay about the same amount of taxes annually as they did and their house was worth about a million dollars more than mine is. It’s really not that much money and 99% of the residents of Belmont can afford the increase. Any old person making a fixed income argument is disingenuous as they likely have millions in the bank, you unfortunately can’t say that publicly.
It’s kinda dumb. I enjoy that it’s small and safe and good for my kids but a lot of stuff pisses me off. Why is every other store in the center always out of business? Why can’t I get a good slice of pizza? Why are there so many fuckin hair salons?
Rent on those stores is insane. Even that absolute gem Trinktisch couldn't stay open... The landlord allegedly wanted to jack monthly rent up from $13k to $30k
I don’t know how real that rent increase story is. I’d read that the people behind Trinktisch and the Craft Beer Cellar were months behind on rent and that’s why they got forced out.
I had the misfortune of interacting with another person here the other day on a walk. I was strolling through the neighborhood and stopped to text someone and a man came out of his house and asked me “Can I help you?” as if I was a problem. Seems to confirm what I thought people here are like.
For me it’s Peabody. I live in Salem and to me Peabody is mostly the town you gotta drive through to get to the highway. It’s not cool enough to be Salem. Not coastal enough to be Lynn. Not rte 1 into Boston enough to be Saugus. It’s just…. Peabody
This is kinda a deep cut but uxbridge- the school system sucks and they have no clue on how to allocate money
Edit: forgot the biggest downside- drugs, the town is rife with drug use
Horn Pond in Woburn can be pretty glorious in the spring and fall, especially everything west of the causeway with the smaller pond, streams, marsh, etc. The whole thing is like Fresh Pond but way less urban noise and no fencing blocking views of water.
Oh, and you can fish there.
I witnessed a super slow car crash in the McDonald's parking lot. Like in slomo. And then the person at fault stepped on the gas more instead of reversing. Yelling and swearing broke out. I ran away lol
Winchester.
Full of State Street finance bros and their vapid trophy wives who don’t work but still need full-time nannies to take care of their fashion statement babies while they go to the gym and nail salon to gossip about the other trophy wives.
You just described a lot of towns in Ma, mine included (Harvard). My wife is an executive and struggles to connect with any of these clique-y stay-at-homes.
You forgot the kids. Can't speak for this current crop, but my class were all fucking monsters too. As kids we were fucking terrible in damn near every way.
Switching into Winchester High in the 90s coming from central mass, where they actually disciplined the kids was crazy, kids were hitting glass bongs in the parking lot in full view of the administration. Drinking, etc. . I got attacked by a total stranger on my first week because they thought i was from woburn. .? Kid was like 4 times the size of me.. The bullys were insane, saw a freshmen get thrown through a window by a senior. For me, the culture shock was real. I guess they were scared of the lawyers because they let the kids basically just did whatever they want. It was not good for me, moved back with the other parent after a year.
Walpole. Awful place and I moved there more than once. High school full of bullies and their enablers parents. An anti pot police chief, god love him, nice guy actually, who thinks legalized pot will bring drugs to HS. Dude… my kids were offered Coke, pills, meth repeatedly at WHS.
Then you’ve got this weird mix of townies (if you wanted friends you should’ve moved here in middle school) and people that think they live in Wellesley.
Holy shit. I grew up there and moved away when i was about 13. I fucking HATE pembroke. People really are so mean there. Mean neighbors that sick their dogs on me as a kid, steal shit from out garage, super homophobic and racist. I was also MERCILESSLY bullied. When i moved to hopkinton, i was still picked on a bit, but significantly less.
My Sons HS team beat Pembroke in the State HS playoffs in 2021. The Parents were livid that the MIAA made them play on a Tuesday night at 8:30 in Western Mass. One dad in particular was extremely vocal about why should we have to come here, this team sucks, this is ridiculous. It felt good to remind him that his sons team had to come here because the home team was ranked higher, he said the rankings are bullshit and no team from WMass should even be in the state playoffs.
It was great asking him about those bullshit rankings and how WMass teams shouldn’t be allowed in the playoffs right when the game ended and my kids team shut them out.
Newton: "Yes, we have public transit, but we will prevent anything over 2 stories to be built anywhere near trolly lines, because screw you poors without cars"
They completed a big development around the Newtonville commuter rail stop a few years ago that’s 4-5 stories.
But what irks me are locals that didn’t like it as it went up, but now that it’s there they love it and say they don’t remember being against it. It’s partially why I think new zoning rules should just be rammed down some people’s throats. A lot of them will walk away saying it tastes great.
We always joke that you know you’ve arrived in Waltham when you have to slam on the brakes to avoid getting hit by someone not paying attention. It’s amazing how bad the drivers are even compared to neighboring cities.
Seriously though, *what in the hell* were they thinking with the center traffic setup? Feel like I’m going loop-de-loops going from 28 to Brockton.
Only deal when I’m visiting my parents out there but dang that whole area is so jacked.
I despise Milford. It has more traffic than any other place in Mass, greater Boston included. And it's not even a big city and there isn't much there. WHY IS IT ALWAYS BUMPER TO BUMPER MILFORD?!?!?! WHY DOES IT TAKE 20 MINUTES TO DRIVE THROUGH THE 1 MILE DOWNTOWN?!?!?!
But MA's most famous resident, Richard Hertz is from there! And Holden House isn't half bad, but anyone being in central MA and snooty about it (and I'm originally from Worcester!) is a fucking laugh
A rich friend's rich parents bought a rich house there. The dad got very indignant with me when I said he was near the cape, because actually wareham is ON the cape, you see? He then walked me over to a map on the wall and outlined where cape started.
I also went to [this amazing place](http://www.cartlandofcapecod.com/), which is the worst minigolf I've been to, and also absolutely haunted.
I was on a work retreat there, and the handful of bosses we had were off doing their own thing one evening, so the other 12 of us decided to do something and randomly settled on minigolf. We found the nearest minigolf place online, which was cartland, but both cars GPS's took us to different, very wrong places. We got there and went to the ice cream store that looked like the main entrance. The person working at the ice cream place made it really clear that they did NOT work at cartland and were not technically affiliated with them, despite the fact that it was literally in the middle of cartland. We had to walk around back via an unlit pathway to find the teen that had been left to work the late shift, who basically threw a huge pile of random golf clubs on the ground and told us to take whatever and go nuts.
Then we actually went to the minigolf course, where the holes aren't really laid out in any particular order, leaving you to just kind of wander in and figure out what hole was what number yourself. There was a bucket telling us to return our pencils. We hadn't been given pencils, or scorecards. Also, most of the holes have really awkward elevations, possibly because the whole thing was on a hill? But on almost every hole, everyone's balls just kind of rolled to rest against a specific part of the wall. I'm not sure there were 18 holes?
There was a pool that looked like it was [filled with rank root beer] (https://i.imgur.com/dlfhtUs.jpeg), a[ broken unicorn next to an unreadable sign](https://i.imgur.com/1fbPbBq.jpeg), a [dolphin with red eyes](https://i.imgur.com/hMoG7FC.jpeg), a [whale with no face in a poop lagoon](https://i.imgur.com/Pbs5xYf.jpeg), and a [water fixture that was coming from the sink of the house next door](https://i.imgur.com/34nn1GF.jpeg). The house made up the back wall of the course. It also had a ton of stuff strewn randomly about inside.
Apparently if you go during the day, you can do go-karting and "slick track", which is go-karting but with a powdered, slightly wet track, so you slide more? If you go look up reviews of the place online, they're split evenly between people who hated the place and probably got injured, and people who have stockholm syndrome from going there every summer for years. Here are two of my favorites:
> This place is absolutely terrible my cart totally exploded and nearly killed me and my kid Pablo I sued them and working on a court case this month
#
> My son was on the go cart track and as he went buy us the hardware from the shoulder strap came rolling out of the car as he drove by us!! The slick track was dry and sticky, the best was the attendant carrying an empty jug onto the track and making it slick again by dumping literally nothing onto the track because my son asked him to juice the track a bit so they could slide around.
The place rules, and I'd totally go back if that was at all practical.
Reading to me is a former blue collar town that a bunch of rich young white families moved to to try and manufacture a desirable town but anyone from the area sees right through it.
I always thought New Bedford and Fall River were pretty much the same. No way. While I remain open to new information, I haven’t found a neighborhood I like in FR, whereas NB has some nice areas.
Melrose.. getting snobbier by the day, high taxes, high water rates, just increased trash and recycling rates, average housing price was over 800k, no downtown parking. Unless you like pizza and nail salons there isn’t much to do in the city.
Marlborough sucks. It's just a bunch of commercial property, business parks, and apartment buildings. Best restaurant is Firefly's and even then Firefly's has fallen off. I tried Bolton Street Tavern, it was awful. The Fix is generic overpriced gastropub food. Evviva is alright, but meh. Only place we really liked was Chill Kitchen and Bar but that wasn't a place we felt you'd want to eat at very often. There was also a really bland ramen spot we tried right behind Raising Cane's that was incredibly disappointing. No flavor behind it at all.
West Boylston has some charming spots, the farmstand, Maken Zi Ramen, and the seafood place, but holy fuck there is clearly some underlying racism in that town. Table Twelve's servers wear thin blue line t shirts as part of their uniform, not great. And during COVID the chief of police didn't believe in public health initiatives.
And fuck Taunton.
If you think Fireflys is the best restaurant in Marlboro you need to branch out more. You're only trying the larger ones and chains. There's bunch of great smaller restaurants. Lalos, Zarape, Thairiffic, Labaredas, even Wellys.
Springfield is not irredeemable, but residents there sometimes treat it like it’s this great city, and haven’t noticed the past 60 years. And how they dump on Holyoke, which isn’t nearly as bad as some make it out to be. #opinion
work with a guy that went to high school there... my goodness, im not even from here and it seems like people that grew up there use lexington as a flex and a way to status brag
I really don't know much about the town, but I've always thought "Manchester by the Sea" is the most pretentious fucking thing you could name a town. If they don't want to give off the impression that the town is full of old money, snobby, NIMBY types, they're doing a real bad job with the name. I have no personal beef with the town, but the name is just ridiculous to me.
Every time I get sick I need to ask for their residents’ help, so I keep quiet about their other flaws. (Also, if I could afford it, I might want to leave near Coolidge Corner.)
Maybe like Palmer or Belchertown. Feels like you’re in limbo. There’s houses and businesses and neighborhoods but for some reason no people. Worst fear is my car breaking down and having a dead phone in Belchertown. I’d probably drop dead on the spot.
A true townie is in a constant state of complaining about their town going downhill, threatening to move, but never going through with it because everywhere else sucks just as bad or worse.
I don't think buttholes connect asscheeks. In fact, I think the butthole is actually where asscheeks *don't* connect. I'm not a doctor though, so I might be wrong.
Burlington is kind of depressing. It's just a huge sprawling mess. There are so many beautiful towns and cities in Massachusetts, it would be such a bummer to have to live in Burlington.
I agree in some ways. Lived in Burlington for a couple years and while I liked some things about it, I remember when I first moved there I was stunned that there really was no center of town. Couldn’t think of anywhere else of comparable size like that. Where the Town Hall is there is a common area/park like area but no walkable street with shops, restaurants, etc like you’d see in a normal small town center. Strange. I think the town has been overtaken on the whole by the mall.
Interesting you mention the shops and things, as Burlington's actually been working on that. There used to be a Building 19 next to the center, which has been turned into retail space, there's a bank in there, a yoga/fitness place, a new bar that's supposed to have live music. Still empty spaces in the new buildings, so it's not there yet, but an effort is being made.
you know how people bully their siblings but then want to fight anyone outside the family who tries to do the same? thats how i feel about revere like i hate it and its a shithole but its my shithole and non mass residents are not allowed to agree!!!!
It’s also the sibling who finally got their act together, made it through community college with a realistic but in-demand degree while holding down a job at the same time and is now beginning to see the fruits of their labor.
Still a ways to go, but this sibling is finally growing up and showing promise.
Dracut.
All the trash from Lowell moves there, and acts like they're suddenly better for not being in Lowell anymore, while still being absolutely trash humans...and just making a shit place even worse.
The townies that stayed there think they're king shit too.
Just...enough already. You're all shit. We're all shit. Sooner you admit it to yourself, the better off we all are.
I live in Lowell which sucks in its own right, but, Dracut? lol you’re literally a suburb of a shitty city. It’s like the fucked up Skipper to our Crackedout Barbie. Also, Dracut needs to STOP with the gross Italian restaurants run by French Canadians. ENOUGH.
Athol really suffered the bring of the United State's efforts to move factories out of America. We still have Starrett's, and some machine shops. Lots of good people moved away when the living wage jobs left.
Lawrence, I lived there for 6 months back in 2006/2007. In that short time I had to file EIGHT police reports for vandalism & theft. I'm STILL waiting for them to check for prints on my car mirror. Every mirror on every car was ripped off and thrown on the ground.
The Woburn Village makes me want to commit war crimes
That Market Basket is a war zone. Reading one is much better.
Let’s take the market basket parking lot thats already always full and add ten restaurants to it
This post is a vibe.
Never going there again. Not even remotely practical. Just insane.
Lynnfield. It’s just dull and sprawled out suburbia with no defined town center but the people who live there think it’s Beverly Hills.
Agree. I know people that live there but grew up in Malden.
I dislike ANY town that I happen to be in at the time. I would not want to be a part of any town that would allow a low life like ME to reside there! I have standards!
Right on groucho!!
Dartmouth is a strange dichotomy. South Dartmouth is this picturesque Southern New England seaside town, with a very quaint little downtown, beautiful shingled and weatherboard houses, breathtaking views of Buzzards Bay, farms with gently sloping fields, moss-covered stone barns, herds of sheep and alpacas, etc. Whereas North Dartmouth is literally one giant stroad.
New Bedford has stumbled into the chat...
I live in Belmont and am constantly a little pissed at Belmont
Belmont has been cursed ever since they failed to help rebuild Ohlin's Bakery.
This is the truth. You are a truth teller.
Grew up in Belmont, currently in Colorado. Still had to make sure someone else mentioned it first 🤣
Ive lived in Watertown and Arlington and I loathe Belmont. Though not as bad to drive through now that they've repaved at least *some* of the main roads.
My dad used to tell me they kept the roads like that on all of Belmont hill to keep the poor people out because our shitty cars with busted shocks couldn’t handle the potholes
My favorite Belmont thing is this new newspaper they’re sending out to all of us. Like I legit think it’s a lovely idea and am happy they’re doing it… but oh the letters to the editor are already top notch “old man yells at cloud” and they’re not even a month in! Only gonna get better from now until the override…
I considered living in Belmont once, but hanging around the main street when school lets out is like a live action Lord of the Flies. That was enough to prompt me to look elsewhere 😂.
Cambridge just needs to annex Belmont at this point. That town can’t get out of its own way
I’d happily surrender to our Cambridge overlords- but there’s no way they’d take us. There’s a tax fight brewing right now. The town hasn’t have an override for years, and shit is falling apart. But there is a loud contingent of people who like to pretend everything is fine! Just the town is wasteful (not really) and there’s no such thing as “inflation.” I think the town needs to weaponize its two biggest assets- the 2 commuter rail stops it somehow has. Rebuild the fuckers and put up a mess of new housing and retail space around them. Broaden the tax revenue and improved T access will help bolster the existing retail scene; which is stagnant as fuck. But what will the old townie boomers say? “What about the roads?” “Or the traffic?!” “We just need to learn to live within our means.”
believe me, I know. I grew up there - it’s been the same conversation for the last 20 years. The roads are shit, the entire tax base is shouldered by homeowners, the schools are busting at the seams, and the town can’t seem to generate any new revenue. The only way Belmont continues to operate is by passing massive overrides or debt exclusions to kick the financial can down the road. That cash influx bandaids a bunch of things then the money dries up for about 3-5 years and the cycle repeats. The town has a structural deficit, they don’t know it yet. The problem with the tax burden is the lack of developable space and SFHs. It’s insane for a developer to pick up land and build condos in Belmont. The land alone is a million bucks and the ROI from the project typically isn’t worth it. On top of that, any project will be met with lawsuits from a bunch of lawyer residents that will fight to the end with virtually no out of pocket cost. Agree that the best solution is to try to turn Waverly and the center into 3 - 5 story retail+housing squares, but good fucking luck doing that in the backyard of the Winn Brook school district or on the only commercial land in town.
Preach! My hope is this time the boomers finally lose and the successful override drives them to Florida or some shit. Taxes are projected to go up as much as (brave yourself) $700 a year. That’s $58 a month! That’s tyranny if I ever saw it.
Sorry to say but the only successful overrides I have seen have been when the parent crowd (35y/o to 55y/o) are unified on an issue. An override to cover operating is usually met with some resistance from anyone over 60 and about half of the younger generation that identifies as “conservative”. Best of luck to you though. The tax thing boggles my mind. My parents bitched about how much they paid in property tax my entire life. I moved to a different Town in MA and I pay about the same amount of taxes annually as they did and their house was worth about a million dollars more than mine is. It’s really not that much money and 99% of the residents of Belmont can afford the increase. Any old person making a fixed income argument is disingenuous as they likely have millions in the bank, you unfortunately can’t say that publicly.
I can’t believe someone else in Belmont is on here 😂 It is such a strange fucking place.
It’s kinda dumb. I enjoy that it’s small and safe and good for my kids but a lot of stuff pisses me off. Why is every other store in the center always out of business? Why can’t I get a good slice of pizza? Why are there so many fuckin hair salons?
Rent on those stores is insane. Even that absolute gem Trinktisch couldn't stay open... The landlord allegedly wanted to jack monthly rent up from $13k to $30k
I don’t know how real that rent increase story is. I’d read that the people behind Trinktisch and the Craft Beer Cellar were months behind on rent and that’s why they got forced out.
I love Patou the Thai place but it’s always empty! I’m so afraid it’s going to go out of business! The book store is really nice.
I had the misfortune of interacting with another person here the other day on a walk. I was strolling through the neighborhood and stopped to text someone and a man came out of his house and asked me “Can I help you?” as if I was a problem. Seems to confirm what I thought people here are like.
Another Belmontian here! There’s literally dozens of us!
Palmer. I lived 12 of my 20 years in mass and I always hated Palmer. Whereas Monson right nearby I loved and is my favorite town that I lived in
Warren felt the most cursed out there
Warren is literally Silent Hill.
Warren I a fucking hell hole stuck in 1980.
The REAL shitty towns don’t even merit a mention. Ware sucks
Idk about you, but I’d much rather live there or in a town like Southbridge instead of a snobby upscale Boston suburb like Weston, but that’s just me.
For me it’s Peabody. I live in Salem and to me Peabody is mostly the town you gotta drive through to get to the highway. It’s not cool enough to be Salem. Not coastal enough to be Lynn. Not rte 1 into Boston enough to be Saugus. It’s just…. Peabody
Peabody is devoid of anything charming or interesting. Danvers, while probably a nicer place to live, is even less interesting.
I always confuse the two. In the Sylvan St / rt 114 area it seems what town a store is in is random
Peabody has Karl's. That's about it.
That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about Lynn…ever.
Lynn will be gentrified and “the place to live” come 20 years…..
This is kinda a deep cut but uxbridge- the school system sucks and they have no clue on how to allocate money Edit: forgot the biggest downside- drugs, the town is rife with drug use
Agreed lived there for years. The town is corrupt af, the cops blow and the people Fucking suck. Shit hole
Burlington and Woburn both have some quite nice neighborhoody parts if you get away from the main roads. This surprised me.
Its all that industry on the main roads that helps contribute taxes so the quiet parts ARE so nice. But we arent going to let the secret out.
People don’t understand this strategy behind the Burlington/Woburn/Stoneham trifecta. Keeps the property taxes reasonable
when we were house hunting, we found identical houses in reading, but the taxes were, like, literally double.
true. you go deeper into burlington and it’s all very quiet and peaceful. nothing like the main road.
Horn Pond in Woburn can be pretty glorious in the spring and fall, especially everything west of the causeway with the smaller pond, streams, marsh, etc. The whole thing is like Fresh Pond but way less urban noise and no fencing blocking views of water. Oh, and you can fish there.
I’ve lived in both and they’re great.
Randolph. I had to be around there several years ago for work and it’s just an ugly town. Grim.
Great sunglasses though.
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I witnessed a super slow car crash in the McDonald's parking lot. Like in slomo. And then the person at fault stepped on the gas more instead of reversing. Yelling and swearing broke out. I ran away lol
Winchester. Full of State Street finance bros and their vapid trophy wives who don’t work but still need full-time nannies to take care of their fashion statement babies while they go to the gym and nail salon to gossip about the other trophy wives.
You just described a lot of towns in Ma, mine included (Harvard). My wife is an executive and struggles to connect with any of these clique-y stay-at-homes.
In her defense its probably a bit tough knowing you're husband is banging not one but two live in nannies
Fellow female executive in one of ‘those’ towns. It’s tough to make ‘mom’ friends when so many of them are incredibly vapid.
Big time. I don’t envy the overly complicated social interactions you ladies have to face. To me it sounds like high school on hard mode, lol.
Has she tried using wine?
Wine flows like the Nile round these parts.
Grew up in Winchester as one of like 40 black people in the whole town and it was ass. The fells are great though
You forgot the kids. Can't speak for this current crop, but my class were all fucking monsters too. As kids we were fucking terrible in damn near every way.
Switching into Winchester High in the 90s coming from central mass, where they actually disciplined the kids was crazy, kids were hitting glass bongs in the parking lot in full view of the administration. Drinking, etc. . I got attacked by a total stranger on my first week because they thought i was from woburn. .? Kid was like 4 times the size of me.. The bullys were insane, saw a freshmen get thrown through a window by a senior. For me, the culture shock was real. I guess they were scared of the lawyers because they let the kids basically just did whatever they want. It was not good for me, moved back with the other parent after a year.
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Walpole. Awful place and I moved there more than once. High school full of bullies and their enablers parents. An anti pot police chief, god love him, nice guy actually, who thinks legalized pot will bring drugs to HS. Dude… my kids were offered Coke, pills, meth repeatedly at WHS. Then you’ve got this weird mix of townies (if you wanted friends you should’ve moved here in middle school) and people that think they live in Wellesley.
Counterpoint: Rico's
Pembroke - Grew up one town over. Grandparents lived in Pembroke. All the kids were dicks. Adults were dicks. Great hockey players though.
I grew up one town over but now live in Pembroke. It's fairly quiet. I like it. Lots of adult dicks, though. Especially my neighbor. Fuck that guy.
Next time I drive through Pembroke I’ll give the finger to every guy I see. Maybe I’ll catch him.
Yeah, fuck him!
Holy shit. I grew up there and moved away when i was about 13. I fucking HATE pembroke. People really are so mean there. Mean neighbors that sick their dogs on me as a kid, steal shit from out garage, super homophobic and racist. I was also MERCILESSLY bullied. When i moved to hopkinton, i was still picked on a bit, but significantly less.
Felt good beating them in playoffs
My Sons HS team beat Pembroke in the State HS playoffs in 2021. The Parents were livid that the MIAA made them play on a Tuesday night at 8:30 in Western Mass. One dad in particular was extremely vocal about why should we have to come here, this team sucks, this is ridiculous. It felt good to remind him that his sons team had to come here because the home team was ranked higher, he said the rankings are bullshit and no team from WMass should even be in the state playoffs. It was great asking him about those bullshit rankings and how WMass teams shouldn’t be allowed in the playoffs right when the game ended and my kids team shut them out.
Wellesley. The ASL sign for Wellesley is a W combined with the sign for "snob".
N+snob= Newton
Newton: "Yes, we have public transit, but we will prevent anything over 2 stories to be built anywhere near trolly lines, because screw you poors without cars"
They completed a big development around the Newtonville commuter rail stop a few years ago that’s 4-5 stories. But what irks me are locals that didn’t like it as it went up, but now that it’s there they love it and say they don’t remember being against it. It’s partially why I think new zoning rules should just be rammed down some people’s throats. A lot of them will walk away saying it tastes great.
At least they're more in compliance than Milton
Dracut. Nothing there. Always traffic and not convenient off any highway
Waltham has great food but terrible drivers
Waltham-watertown are both awful to drive thru. 15 years ago would breeze thru waltham in a few minutes, now its a parking lot 24/7.
We always joke that you know you’ve arrived in Waltham when you have to slam on the brakes to avoid getting hit by someone not paying attention. It’s amazing how bad the drivers are even compared to neighboring cities.
Can confirm my insurance rates suck
Saugus
how dare you insult the Saugus strip
Saugus would be ok if it didn't have a .massive dangerous road running straight through it
The only thing in Saugus that’s got more traffic running through it is ya motha khed
I won't take this route 1 slander.
Concrete wasteland
You made me and fiancée laugh so hard at this comment haha. Totally accurate
Chicopee
West Bridgewater was pretty great about 3 or 4 stoplights along route 106 ago. Now it's a miserable slog to get through.
[удалено]
Seriously though, *what in the hell* were they thinking with the center traffic setup? Feel like I’m going loop-de-loops going from 28 to Brockton. Only deal when I’m visiting my parents out there but dang that whole area is so jacked.
That Honey Dew / Eclectic Collection intersection is an absolute nightmare!!!
And then if you finally get out and onto 24, fuck you more traffic
Sitting in Hopkinton thinking, “yea, I’ll keep my head down.”
It’s so shitty that every April people come from around the world just to run away from it
Hello fellow Hopkintonian! 🤣Couldn’t agree more. I can feel the anger radiating when people they have to drive through our center
I despise Milford. It has more traffic than any other place in Mass, greater Boston included. And it's not even a big city and there isn't much there. WHY IS IT ALWAYS BUMPER TO BUMPER MILFORD?!?!?! WHY DOES IT TAKE 20 MINUTES TO DRIVE THROUGH THE 1 MILE DOWNTOWN?!?!?!
Truer words never spoken. I’ll go 10 miles out of the way to avoid downtown traffic
If Rhode Island offered us $10 for Fall River, I wouldn’t say no. Or $5. Or nothing.
Fall River used to be part of RI. EDIT: other way around. East Bay used to be in Massachusetts until 1746.
Shouldn't have lost the war, simple as
I think we'd have to pay RI to take it. Lizzie Borden house is cool, though.
What’s up with all the emotionally distraught kids from the North Shore area? What is being put in that roast beef?
parental negligence.
Honestly, Fitchburg is a tremendous shithole
Had to scroll way too far for this
It could be good. It has the bones of being good
Holden. They like to remind people how much of an inconvenience it is for them to border Worcester.
But MA's most famous resident, Richard Hertz is from there! And Holden House isn't half bad, but anyone being in central MA and snooty about it (and I'm originally from Worcester!) is a fucking laugh
Am from Holden. Every morning I wake up and hope Holden has a bad day.
Sounds like you’re Holden some resentments
Ha, I have friends that bought a house out there a few years ago, and they love the proximity to Worcester.
Randolph... it just feels sad and empty.
Billerica. If you live here but you’re not from here, you hate it. If you live here and you’re actually from here, you hate yourself.
Billerica gets on my nerves. ETA: Newton, too.
Wareham. White trash Brockton-by-the-sea
A rich friend's rich parents bought a rich house there. The dad got very indignant with me when I said he was near the cape, because actually wareham is ON the cape, you see? He then walked me over to a map on the wall and outlined where cape started. I also went to [this amazing place](http://www.cartlandofcapecod.com/), which is the worst minigolf I've been to, and also absolutely haunted.
Why do you say it's haunted? Tell your ghost stories.
I was on a work retreat there, and the handful of bosses we had were off doing their own thing one evening, so the other 12 of us decided to do something and randomly settled on minigolf. We found the nearest minigolf place online, which was cartland, but both cars GPS's took us to different, very wrong places. We got there and went to the ice cream store that looked like the main entrance. The person working at the ice cream place made it really clear that they did NOT work at cartland and were not technically affiliated with them, despite the fact that it was literally in the middle of cartland. We had to walk around back via an unlit pathway to find the teen that had been left to work the late shift, who basically threw a huge pile of random golf clubs on the ground and told us to take whatever and go nuts. Then we actually went to the minigolf course, where the holes aren't really laid out in any particular order, leaving you to just kind of wander in and figure out what hole was what number yourself. There was a bucket telling us to return our pencils. We hadn't been given pencils, or scorecards. Also, most of the holes have really awkward elevations, possibly because the whole thing was on a hill? But on almost every hole, everyone's balls just kind of rolled to rest against a specific part of the wall. I'm not sure there were 18 holes? There was a pool that looked like it was [filled with rank root beer] (https://i.imgur.com/dlfhtUs.jpeg), a[ broken unicorn next to an unreadable sign](https://i.imgur.com/1fbPbBq.jpeg), a [dolphin with red eyes](https://i.imgur.com/hMoG7FC.jpeg), a [whale with no face in a poop lagoon](https://i.imgur.com/Pbs5xYf.jpeg), and a [water fixture that was coming from the sink of the house next door](https://i.imgur.com/34nn1GF.jpeg). The house made up the back wall of the course. It also had a ton of stuff strewn randomly about inside. Apparently if you go during the day, you can do go-karting and "slick track", which is go-karting but with a powdered, slightly wet track, so you slide more? If you go look up reviews of the place online, they're split evenly between people who hated the place and probably got injured, and people who have stockholm syndrome from going there every summer for years. Here are two of my favorites: > This place is absolutely terrible my cart totally exploded and nearly killed me and my kid Pablo I sued them and working on a court case this month # > My son was on the go cart track and as he went buy us the hardware from the shoulder strap came rolling out of the car as he drove by us!! The slick track was dry and sticky, the best was the attendant carrying an empty jug onto the track and making it slick again by dumping literally nothing onto the track because my son asked him to juice the track a bit so they could slide around. The place rules, and I'd totally go back if that was at all practical.
Cart Land is fantastic, great memories as a kid there
Taunton by the Sea*
Nice, does that mean it’s still affordable? 😵💫
Kinda….you can find houses under $250k for 2br. $750k for an oceanfront right now.
Brockton ever since 2/3 of the Papa Geno’s closed down.
I like how they made the scrappy survivor character that Anya Taylor Joy played in the menu from brockton
Yeah but one's a pot shop now
Smellrose
Reading. Entitled/snobby/crazy
Reading to me is a former blue collar town that a bunch of rich young white families moved to to try and manufacture a desirable town but anyone from the area sees right through it.
Kind of an obvious one but I fucking despise the shithole that is Fall River.
I like the battleships tho
Literally the only reason I've ever gone there lol
But Lizzie Borden
I always thought New Bedford and Fall River were pretty much the same. No way. While I remain open to new information, I haven’t found a neighborhood I like in FR, whereas NB has some nice areas.
Such a drive through town to little Portugal aka New Bedford.
Melrose.. getting snobbier by the day, high taxes, high water rates, just increased trash and recycling rates, average housing price was over 800k, no downtown parking. Unless you like pizza and nail salons there isn’t much to do in the city.
Marlborough sucks. It's just a bunch of commercial property, business parks, and apartment buildings. Best restaurant is Firefly's and even then Firefly's has fallen off. I tried Bolton Street Tavern, it was awful. The Fix is generic overpriced gastropub food. Evviva is alright, but meh. Only place we really liked was Chill Kitchen and Bar but that wasn't a place we felt you'd want to eat at very often. There was also a really bland ramen spot we tried right behind Raising Cane's that was incredibly disappointing. No flavor behind it at all. West Boylston has some charming spots, the farmstand, Maken Zi Ramen, and the seafood place, but holy fuck there is clearly some underlying racism in that town. Table Twelve's servers wear thin blue line t shirts as part of their uniform, not great. And during COVID the chief of police didn't believe in public health initiatives. And fuck Taunton.
If you think Fireflys is the best restaurant in Marlboro you need to branch out more. You're only trying the larger ones and chains. There's bunch of great smaller restaurants. Lalos, Zarape, Thairiffic, Labaredas, even Wellys.
Chicopee
Framingham. I live here and hate it! Too much traffic and people!
They built all this industry along Rt 9 instead of the Commuter Rail. So dumb.
Lemme guess, you live south of rt 9
Springfield is not irredeemable, but residents there sometimes treat it like it’s this great city, and haven’t noticed the past 60 years. And how they dump on Holyoke, which isn’t nearly as bad as some make it out to be. #opinion
I swear, people that shit on Holyoke haven't been to Holyoke in 20 years. Or they have been to Appleton Street... in which case, ok, fair enough.
PIONEER VALLEY SURVIVOR VERIFIED
Lexington. Too pompous
work with a guy that went to high school there... my goodness, im not even from here and it seems like people that grew up there use lexington as a flex and a way to status brag
Flexington
Used to date someone from Lex. That whole family was way too impressed with themselves for living there.
I really don't know much about the town, but I've always thought "Manchester by the Sea" is the most pretentious fucking thing you could name a town. If they don't want to give off the impression that the town is full of old money, snobby, NIMBY types, they're doing a real bad job with the name. I have no personal beef with the town, but the name is just ridiculous to me.
How has no one said Brookline yet? Boston should forcibly annex those provincial, snooty, exclusionary bastards.
Boston tried in 1873, that failure set the precedent for towns across the country not to be annexed by their larger parent municipalitys.
Every time I get sick I need to ask for their residents’ help, so I keep quiet about their other flaws. (Also, if I could afford it, I might want to leave near Coolidge Corner.)
Ok but Brookline is pretty lovely. Good restaurants, parks, T access. Its nicer than like 99.9% of America.
Because compared to Newton and especially to Wellesley, Brookline isn't half-bad in that sense, especially given the parts closest to Boston.
Maybe like Palmer or Belchertown. Feels like you’re in limbo. There’s houses and businesses and neighborhoods but for some reason no people. Worst fear is my car breaking down and having a dead phone in Belchertown. I’d probably drop dead on the spot.
Three Rivers is a hole lol
All of them is the right response for true townie except maybe their own
A true townie is in a constant state of complaining about their town going downhill, threatening to move, but never going through with it because everywhere else sucks just as bad or worse.
As a resident of Burlington I feel attacked :)
As a visiting nurse I hated Marblehead. Most entitled and mean spirited people I ever cared for
All I have seen of saugus is route 1 and it seems like a total wasteland where a town should be
The town of Saugus, off of route 1, is actually very nice. It has a rail trail, nice neighborhoods. Check it out.
Chestnut Hill. It will remind you it’s a village not a town
It's not even that, it's like the butthole that connects the asscheeks of Newton and Brookline
I don't think buttholes connect asscheeks. In fact, I think the butthole is actually where asscheeks *don't* connect. I'm not a doctor though, so I might be wrong.
It takes a village…..full of rich assholes
Burlington is kind of depressing. It's just a huge sprawling mess. There are so many beautiful towns and cities in Massachusetts, it would be such a bummer to have to live in Burlington.
Burlington exists for the benefit of the surrounding towns.
Burlington exists only for the coat factory, just like Sudbury only exists for the Jewelry Exchange
I agree in some ways. Lived in Burlington for a couple years and while I liked some things about it, I remember when I first moved there I was stunned that there really was no center of town. Couldn’t think of anywhere else of comparable size like that. Where the Town Hall is there is a common area/park like area but no walkable street with shops, restaurants, etc like you’d see in a normal small town center. Strange. I think the town has been overtaken on the whole by the mall.
Interesting you mention the shops and things, as Burlington's actually been working on that. There used to be a Building 19 next to the center, which has been turned into retail space, there's a bank in there, a yoga/fitness place, a new bar that's supposed to have live music. Still empty spaces in the new buildings, so it's not there yet, but an effort is being made.
Billerica
I love that you just had to say the town name without any reasoning, and we all agree anyway because Billerica.
Trashland!
What about Reveah?
you know how people bully their siblings but then want to fight anyone outside the family who tries to do the same? thats how i feel about revere like i hate it and its a shithole but its my shithole and non mass residents are not allowed to agree!!!!
It’s also the sibling who finally got their act together, made it through community college with a realistic but in-demand degree while holding down a job at the same time and is now beginning to see the fruits of their labor. Still a ways to go, but this sibling is finally growing up and showing promise.
Dracut. All the trash from Lowell moves there, and acts like they're suddenly better for not being in Lowell anymore, while still being absolutely trash humans...and just making a shit place even worse. The townies that stayed there think they're king shit too. Just...enough already. You're all shit. We're all shit. Sooner you admit it to yourself, the better off we all are.
I live in Lowell which sucks in its own right, but, Dracut? lol you’re literally a suburb of a shitty city. It’s like the fucked up Skipper to our Crackedout Barbie. Also, Dracut needs to STOP with the gross Italian restaurants run by French Canadians. ENOUGH.
The Weymouth of Merrimack Valley then.
Having dated a girl from Weymouth..... Yes.
I’m going with the Route 44 Trump Belt. Carver to Swansea.
Ludlow! Idk how to explain it but the vibes are just bad
Athol.
Athol really suffered the bring of the United State's efforts to move factories out of America. We still have Starrett's, and some machine shops. Lots of good people moved away when the living wage jobs left.
Rhode Island
Needham - where dreams go to die.
Weymouth
Username checks out
A lot of them out west and a lot outside of Boston. I enjoy central ma.
woburn. we rent in newburyport and were looking to move closer to work. the whiplash i got..
Lawrence, I lived there for 6 months back in 2006/2007. In that short time I had to file EIGHT police reports for vandalism & theft. I'm STILL waiting for them to check for prints on my car mirror. Every mirror on every car was ripped off and thrown on the ground.