Submitted by IllustriousAd3838 t3_y79k5y in massachusetts
Currently living North of Boston in Peabody, but planning on moving to the Berkshires. Since I have a soon-to-be school aged toddler, I'd like a safe area with a good school system for him.
What would be the best and safest areas to buy a house?
Most of the Berkshires? It really depends what you're looking for since "safe area" is really subjective and broad. I feel safe wandering around most of Lowell and Springfield, especially in areas people find/codify as "unsafe".
I'm not sure safe is subjective or broad. And AFAIK, Lowell and Springfield aren't a part of the Berkshires.
No they aren't, and safe is very broad and subjective. Safe is based on personal feeling, if you feel safe you're probably safe, crime stats don't really give you info outside of how policed an area is.
It is absolutely subjective. The number of innocent victims of violent crime by strangers is vanishingly small damn near everywhere. What people usually mean by "safe" is "do my neighbors look scary", and what they really mean is "are they poor or brown skinned".
No, but... can my child play at the local parks without me having to pick up needles... Will my car and house get broken into to fuel heroin habits? Is fentanyl going to be something I have to worry about? Western mass is a highway for a lot of trafficked drugs. You can almost draw a straight line from where it originates from in Mexico to Quebec.
This is a highly unlikely scenario. But Rutland Vt was/is known as a major trafficking point.
We worry more about bears in season than anything else...
Yeah, all the parks in the Berkshires are chock full of junkies haphazardly tossing needles all over the place. That's totally a real thing you should be very worried about. People don't rake leaves this time of year, they rake needles.
And don't even get me started on the dangers of fentanyl. I heard about this one guy who became an addict just by being in the same building as fentanyl. It's that bad. Fentanyl can kill a grizzly bear at 100 paces. Fentanyl slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. All those youtube videos and facebook posts are completely true and you should spend your entire life utterly terrified of absolutely everything.
Well, that's why I'm asking... Furthest west I've lived in Mass was Lawrence. I've also lived in Portland Maine and Cape Cod where this is an issue.
Pittsfield is in news all the time for drug field crimes, and since that's fairly close to the area I'm considering I'm curious as to how much of that leeches out
I suspect answer for you is that you would feel unsafe in most of northern Berkshire county. Note that you would not be actually be unsafe. But even in the nicer towns and best neighborhoods, you'd need to go into Pittsfield or North Adams to get groceries and stuff. You would see people panhandling, maybe a run down building. You'd know that there are homeless encampments out there, somewhere, too close for comfort. If you think there are problems on the Cape or in Portland, you certainly aren't going to like driving down Tyler St.
Now if you go to south county, you will likely feel very safe. Everything is quaint and idyllic looking. All the bad stuff will (allegedly) be up north, far away. You can even cultivate a hyper-local disdain for the less-than inhabitants of Lee and Housatonic.
Note that you will not actually be any safer in south county. You might even be less safe. People seem to get run over in Great Barrington pretty frequently. You're much further away from the region's only real hospital if you have a medical emergency. I can assure you there is plenty of opiate addiction there too, just like everywhere else. But you will feel safe.
Almost all of those crimes in Pittsfield happen in a few specific neighborhoods.
Yeah, you're going to hate Western Mass. Better stay in Boston where it's nice and safe.
I never said I was in Boston... Or was from Boston?
Apparently it's a crime to want a safe and quiet town... With good schools, and a low crime to raise a family. I imagine as a father, this is something we all want for our children, no?
Why can I not ask simple friendly questions, without getting lambasted?
I love Pittsfield and I'll vouch for it being significantly safer than its reputation, but I've also heard the school system isn't the best.
Any of south county should be fine (Lenox and south), or if you want to be in central Berkshire county I've heard good things about Waconah regional for a high school. Waconah is the regional high school for the towns of Becket, Cummington, Dalton, Hinsdale, Peru, Washington, and Windsor.
Any of those towns are perfectly safe, and out of them I'd probably recommend Dalton. It's next to Pittsfield, so you have plenty of amenities (supermarkets, big box stores, restaurants, culture, etc...) but it's also a little more suburban/rural. You'd also have the benefit of being right in the center of the county, so you'd be 35 minutes to Great Barrington and 35 minutes to North Adams, and there's plenty to do in both of those directions.
The Berkshires are great, and going from what my friends with kids say (I live here, but my wife and I don't have kids), it's a great place to raise a family.
I would add a Lanesborough to the list of safe but close also Greylock Regional Schools are really good as well
If you can afford it, Lenox has great schools, a central location -10 min to pike, 15 to Great Barrington, 5 to Lee, and 10-15 to Pittsfield.
I don't think you'll find too many really bad areas in the Berkshires.
Your biggest issue will be proximity to schools.
The most ”run down” areas are North Adams and Pittsfield but they are no where near as bad as some places
If your from Boston stay out of the Berkshires we have enough idiots
If your from Boston
Stay out of the Berkshires we have
Enough idiots
- AssBlastingAutism
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Read that statement again, and tell me who the idiot is.
I guess your reply, gives me some anecdotal evidence regarding the quality of education out west.
They probably meant that sarcastically as a "don't turn the only remaining truly rural area of the state into suburban sprawl" kind of thing.
Although with the East-West Rail project I'm afraid it'll end up happening anyways...
It's kind of a running joke that we try to discourage others from discovering our hidden little piece of western mass. We hope people love it here, but many fear it will become too crowded, expensive, crime will increase, etc.
To the point SoCo voted against an exit on the Mass Pike in the middle of that stretch between Westfield and Lee where there are no exits for 36 miles. It could have opened up the region for housing for people who worked in the Westfield/Springfield area but too many people were afraid of the potential for change...
School system in Pittsfield is totally fine. Don't let people scare you. Live south east and the path thru Egermont, Herberg, PHS is just as good as MGRHS without the snobbery of Williamstown (source: I went to both systems and had just as good an experience, if not better, in Pittsfield).
Dalton is a nice area. Close to Pittsfield (the “city”) but with a small town feel. Hinsdale is also a close second but a bit more rural.
Peru, Washington and becket are pretty safe but they are out in the boonies. wahconah is a great school. Usually have some good sports teams and classes are a bit smaller than Pittsfield or taconic
Dalton or Lee are anong the best somewhat reasonably priced options in the county. South county is becoming a bit more expensive lately, Lee is starting to fall into that trend as well. Great Barrington has already become expensive.
Oh, Williamstown is pretty nice, too. Nothing like having one of the best colleges on the planet in a picturesque small town. But it's in the NW corner and far from everything. But the college has tons of cultural opportunities.
I'd take a few weekends and travel the area. So much to love out here...
Lee is a great town to raise a family
I remember way back in the day when I had facebook and there were 'groups', is that still a thing? Anyways I always felt it was comical that Wahconah's group page was spelled incorrectly. It made me proud to be a 'Joey'.
Technically not the Berkshires but Easthampton is exploding lately with young families like yourselves.
Shh, next folks will be coming for our decriminalized shrooms + hot donuts…
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I'd be more worried about reliable internet than crime.
I have faster internet in the Berkshires in my town of less than 5k people, than I do at my house in suburban CT, and our house in suburban Minneapolis!! Go figure.
Most larger towns have access to 400MB internet. Pittsfield has gigabit Internet available.
joelav t1_istay1l wrote
It’s pretty safe everywhere there. Avoid Pittsfield directly for school systems of you are going to public schools. Lenox has a good public education system with a reported 100% hs graduation rate (vs 89% in Pittsfield).