First, diversity in New Jersey typically comes in two flavors; economic or ethnic. Rarely both. You may find people of different ethnic backgrounds in both those towns, but most of them ain’t hurting, financially.

Second, Montclair and South Orange are on different rail lines so you should check the train schedules to make it works for your own schedule. South Orange is only a few stops from the city or Hoboken. Montclair has (I think) 7 stops just in town and the ride can be quick or interminable, depending on the train you catch. If you’re going to the financial district, and depending on your income level, I assume you’ll head for Hoboken over Penn Station and take either the expensive but very fast ferry, or the cheaper but longer/sardine packed PATH.

Sorry for the salty discourse. Just a grumpy old bastid.

If you drop the need for a single family home then Hoboken or Jersey City would work.

>but the downtown area appears very congested with car traffic

I mean, this is going to be everywhere in Jersey within commuting distance of fidi. It sounds like you want a city but without the city and that's a hard ask.

Excellent. Love a salty (yet helpful) comment.

Thanks, good perspective. Ultimately, we’d be happy with a town that had a good cafe and a few places to eat if the other factors were good, ie walking distance etc. Commute only 2 days, so okay if not ideal.

Got a dog and kid, and if we wanted the apartment life would prob go to BK.

Maplewood is both in heavy demand, and IMO overrated.

Montclair is lovely in general, but as you point out has similar issues.

Little Falls is next door and is worth a look—walkable Main Street, plenty of bus service to NYC (and Montclair) while still within reach of big box retail.

Wherever you go, check flood maps carefully. Both Montclair and Little Falls are subject to flooding.

Couple things about Maplewood/South Orange:

1. Maplewood has several sit-down cafes, both in the downtown area and on Springfield avenue. There’s also other satellites like True Salvage, Yellow Rose, etc. You’re wrong about that.

2. Downtown (Maplewood Avenue) gets quite active during rush hour and on weekends. If you’ve visited recently, try to catch one of the local community events in warmer weather; lots of locals come out from both towns. It is indeed a bit small and quiet, but it has its moments.

3. Speaking of which, Maplewood and South Orange are extremely close. They share a lot, including a school district. You basically get the best of both when you move to either. SO has slightly less expensive homes so I’d start there, but again they are so close that you’ll find yourself looking at properties in both.

4. Yeah traffic in South Orange is a nightmare at times. The area is pretty decent for cycling, it’s also quite walkable in general.

Buying in Little Falls is insane considering the flooding.

You’re on the right track - take a walk through Rutherford and Nutley as well. Great access to transport and good schools, nice downtowns and $750k will actually buy a home. Montclair/ Essex County taxes can get insane.

Yes. I’m in EO and on weekends that I don’t want to go into the city or to Hoboken/Jersey City I go to SO or Maplewood to walk around and get lunch, dinner or drinks. Love it there. Main St in EO has tons of potential but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Montclair has 4 “downtowns,” by train stations. 3 of them are small but still have some good stuff. From south to north, it’s Bloomfield Ave (big), walnut, watchung, bellvue. In general, the lots and houses get bigger as you move north, east and west.

I find walking around it’s pretty integrated, mainly by wealthier professionals of multiple racial/ethnic backgrounds. The south 1/4ish of the town is historically black. It’s not Queens level by any stretch of the imagination.

Rutherford fits what your looking for. Bus and train to the city, walkable downtown (park ave and west side), multiple parks with playgrounds, cafe’s, restaurants, community activities throughout the year, good schools, close proximity to just about any type of shopping your heart desires, big plus is that we are on the boarder of multiple counties so blue laws on Sunday’s is not a big deal.

> Buying in Little Falls is insane considering the flooding.

Little Falls has other areas besides flood-prone.

Eh, Brooklyn on under 750k would probably leave you with an annoying commute. Actually, a quick look in my neighborhood in JC shows some SFHs under 750k, so you probably could swing it.

Thank you. Haven’t spent time on Springfield Ave, will do so. Understood re Maplewood/SO being close, which is great and a important factor. Ultimately, though, I’m interested in the community I can walk to - wake up, head out for coffee, see some friends and shops, etc.

re traffic, I don’t understand why towns make the main shopping area also the main driving area. Burlington Vt and Boulder Co do it right - a walk only main drag is good for everyone. But sounds like the traffic issue is mostly a wash in nj.

Thanks! In what ways would you say Maplewood is overrated? I feel like that’s a less common perspective that I’d like to hear more on.

To expand on u/PracticableSolution 's comment on rail lines: Montclair has lousy weekend service. IIRC, the service is every two hours from Bay Street to Hoboken.

OTOH, weekend service from South Orange is hourly to Penn Station (give or take delays at the Portal Bridge).

Alright, thanks for the tip. Won’t dismiss it so quickly.

Thank you. Agree that the Singac neighborhood is problematic, as is the area along the Peckman, which is prone to flash flooding (see the video of the car dealership lot getting swept into the river).

Is aircraft noise, from Newark and Teterboro, an issue in Rutherford?

different county but kearny and NArlington for the kids.

Seems like Maplewood/So is also a slightly shorter commute in addition to more frequent on weekends.

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I’ve lived here my whole life so its either I’m used to it or its not a big deal. If anything I’ll hear teterboro planes depending on the flight path, and they pretty much fly directly over the house, I rarely hear Newark planes. Also to be honest anywhere in this whole area you will have air traffic. I don’t know anyone that complains about it other than some random ranting social media post.

Thanks for this - can you share what neighborhood your friends are in for reference?

Lived in South Orange for four years. Woke up to gunshots multiple times. Home was robbed 3 times in a year.

Can you share the neighborhood? Thanks.

Another vote for Maplewood- lived here for several years. The express trains into the city are wonderful. Like most, we moved out of the city with a growing family and are very happy. Love the people in our town. It’s definitely diverse (relative to Millburn for example). Another big plus is it’s extremely accessible by car too. Close to 287, GSP and Turnpike. South Orange had a slightly different flavor to it but shares a lot of similarities.

Montclair is also great, can’t go wrong with any of those choices really.

The robberies happened in the “Tuxedo Park” neighborhood, specifically S. Centre Street. Which is like a neighborhood with million plus dollar homes. But it borders Newark. The gunshots happened on Wilden Place and Ward Place. South Orange would be a nice town but it’s got trash ghetto towns on practically all sides. Newark, Irvington, East Orange, Orange - all horrible towns and right next door. I’m not a fan of Essex County in general because of the bad areas.

Thanks, good to hear re the people. Big fear is moving to a burb where we don't know our neighbors and there is no sense of community.

We lived in Montclair for seven years, then moved to South Orange two years ago, for a lot of reasons. To say we love South Orange and are happy with our move here is an understatement.

From what you’re looking for, especially item #2 and walkability, South Orange should be top of your list.

South Orange is much, much more integrated than Montclair or Maplewood, both of which can feel like highly segregated towns.

It’s also the most walkable town - mostly because of its tiny size. My wife no longer even owns a car. (Montclair and Maplewood can be very walkable also, but in certain neighborhoods more so than others. They’re just larger towns). In South Orange, unless you’re up in Newstead, you can walk to everything from everywhere - it’s a small town with a downtown right in the dead center of it: parks, pool, library, movie theater, supermarket, restaurants, etc. My kid is still young, but I can’t see him ever needing to own a car either. He can walk and bike to everything. There are always kids crawling all over downtown and the parks when schools get out.

It’s a HEAVILY involved, tight knit community also. Kind of place where everyone says good morning when you walk by (my wife calls it Sesame Street). Always activities for the kids (my favorite are the “South Orange Summer Nights” with free movies and concerts in Floods Hill. Whole town turns out for them) and the first town I’ve ever lived in where I feel like competent people with a vision are running it, and my tax dollars are getting put to actual good use. Check out the master plan on the town website to see what I mean.

And yes, lots of new, exciting business opening up in town, even since we moved here. SOPAC is a huge bonus too. But you move to Montclair for the cool businesses - you move to South Orange for the community. We made more friends here in six months than we did in seven years in Montclair. And everyone has kids.

Train system is far more frequent in SoMa than Montclair as well, including weekends.

Feel free to DM me or ask away with more questions,

Edit: Should mention too, we don’t find the downtown to be too congested, and find it a nice place to spend time, especially with the park being right there. But people also hang out all over on Sloan Street, and Spiotta Park. There is a plan to turn the Sloan Street parking lot into a pedestrian only piazza, which will make it even more amazing.

If diversity is a top priority I'd take nutley off the list. Having grown up there, it's always been pretty low key racist

I don't think you're being salty just realistic. NJ can still be insanely segregated despite having physical diversity.

There’s a great cafe in maple wood on Boyden/elmwood Ave

Funny you mention Burlington, I spent a few years there! Being a college town, it's uniquely walkable and laid out around that idea. I don't think the equivalent of Church Street exists anywhere in New Jersey.

Anyway, I think Maplewood/South Orange is among the closest in NJ you can get to that; I did a bit of research when initially looking for a house to buy a few years ago around New York.

Both train stations are very walkable depending on where you buy. From where I live, for example, Maplewood station is 15 minutes and South Orange station is 25. A few friends of mine from the city have also moved here, and I meet with them every week or so for coffee and whatnot in each town's downtown area. We eventually bought a car so we could interact with the rest of New Jersey, but in terms of local needs, a car is helpful but not at all required.

For me, at least, it's firing on all cylinders with your requirements, which are pretty close to mine. Had to pay a lot when I bought though, hopefully the market isn't as crazy for you now.

Another note: we vetoed Montclair not because of the prices, but because the train lines are worse. SO/Maplewood is on a line that is always really convenient. One stop further is Millburn, which you also may want to check out.

Ewww. I did not know that.

Rutherford then.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. Lived in Burlington for 4 years - not without its own problems but layout is pretty great.

Sounds like I'm on the right track narrowing in on Maplewood/SO. Just need to deep dive a little on the various neighborhoods. Very little inventory now, but i think that will change in the spring. So, see you at a local cafe in 2023!

I hope so, best of luck! We had to look for almost a year, but it was absolutely worth it. You got this!

> Maplewood is both in heavy demand, and IMO overrated.

I immediately think of this line from a Chris Gethard special on NJ.

As someone else mentioned, Montclair actually has multiple shopping/dining districts that you can walk to from multiple parts of town. And if you can’t easily walk to one of them, you can drive in less than five minutes.

One piece of advice I would give is that you should consider more where your child’s school and activities might be located once elementary school starts. There’s going to be a lot more driving or walking to those places than there will be to get coffee on weekends…

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If OP wants to avoid racist people, this map of how each town in NJ voted is probably helpful: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/o9YRC/9/

This is an incredible response. Will gather thoughts and DM you. Thanks!

Montclair, and now also South Orange and Maplewood, use magnet school systems, so where you live doesn’t dictate where your child will go to school. Not something you can plan ahead for in these towns.

Have you looked at West Orange at all? We live in the Lourdes section and can walk to a few restaurants right on main street in West Orange but it's also only about a 10 minute bike ride to Montclair's downtown. West Orange is one of the most diverse towns in the state and has a great school district.

Admittedly not the greatest downtown in the state but we enjoy it. The town is walkable in each neighborhood and the homes while not huge in this part of town are very nice and generally sell for less than 500k.

SoMa is really diverse in that you'll find really rich people of all colors and creeds. There's a huge community of young families who just moved from Greenpoint and Red Hook, so you won't be alone. Please buy someplace that's already expensive, rather than raising property prices in Essex County further.

I just moved to Nutley 6 months ago - I’d love to hear more. I’m not a POC so I would never know, though my neighbor has mentioned in passing that they had some bad (racist) eggs come and go through their years here.

Check out Bloomfield on the Glen Ridge side, and the town of Glen Ridge.

$750k would have been a stretch for our price range 9 months ago but we found that most of the houses in Rutherford we were looking at not far from that price had either big ticket issues or would have been death by a lot thousand cuts to fix up - just a symptom of the old houses there. We ended up in Nutley, and are quite happy with the house and town, we found the houses here were more affordable. If things were more equal though, we would have ended up in Rutherford - 100%.

Don't even bother with Montclair. It is extremally overhyped. I grew up there and honestly it is not really that diverse anymore. A bunch of yuppies from Manhattan have moved there and pretty much ruined the town. All they do is keep to themselves and brag to their New York friends about how great the town is. It aint all that believe me. There are a few good restaurants but they charge an arm and a leg. The parks are nice, that's a fact and honestly the greatest quality of the town. But the schools are terrible, the town government is a waste, and the taxes are higher than Snoop Dogg at a Willie Nelson Concert in Denver.

There are plenty of other towns in North Jersey that are priced appropriately and way more worth your time IMO but just wanted to put my two cents in.

You can rank your choices and most people in Montclair get top one or two. Point is that it’s more important than being able to walk to get coffee in the suburbs.

The way this person posted they would never live in Rutherford. I say that as someone who likes Rutherford.

Good to know and appreciate you perspective, thank you!

Been living in Maplewood for 6 years and I love everything about it. There are many cafes, True Salvage being our favorite. South Orange is also wonderful. Jackie & Co. and The Order are great cafes there. The train stations are one stop from each other and there is a Jitney service. The towns share a school system and depending on where you live, both downtown areas are very close to each other so you could enjoy both. The South Mountain Reservation is spectacular and is a short drive from either Mapso town. You can’t go wrong with either. I went to college in Montclair and enjoy going there but mostly for dinner at one of their restaurants. It’s crazy busy there on the weekends and parking is a nightmare.

Everyone has their own list of needs and wants when choosing a home. For us personally, being able to walk into town as a family and not use a car for most of our errands and leisure activities is a huge quality of life factor, and was a top priority. For others it may be less important.

Nice, appreciate your thoughts!

What makes you think rutherford wouldn’t be a good fit? Just curious.

Just the usual meathead white guy bullshit really, casual use of racist slurs in conversation, bitchin about "those people" ruining the area. You'll definitely see more trump trash (still) than in surrounding towns.

1. There is no middle class in Montclair. You're either super rich or dirt poor.

2. That combo I mentioned before, puts a strain on the educational environment.

South Orange Maplewood school system is better.

Not that it wouldn’t be a good fit but that this person would not find it shee shee enough.

Certain parts of town are directly under the Teterboro flight path and you can definitely hear the planes and they are loud but weirdly if you’re not directly in that path then you do not hear it at all. Newark planes not an issue.