New Hampshire Babies
cole179
member
NBR - Tell me about the Manchester area
cole179
member
DH's employer may have him move to their Manchester office so we have been looking at the area and realtor.com for homes in the area. We are pretty excited about the prospect of moving to NH! We probably wouldn't want to live in Manchester itself, so any of the towns surrounding Manchester...good for kids? Schools systems? Best or "worst" places? Etc...
TIA! 
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Re: NBR - Tell me about the Manchester area
Goffstown is nice, as is Bedford. Derry has some great schools including Pinkerton Academy. Amherst has a WONDERFUL school system, my friend's kid goes there and he is thriving, and the teachers are VERY involved. He is 8 if you need a reference of age, and he has been going to that school since 1st grade. New Boston is a bit more country but nice, I don't know anything about the schools though .
Hope that helps.
We live in Derry, and love it. You can get a bit of "country" while being only 10 minutes away from Walmart and lots of other stores. Country is defined by me, someone who grew up in the city, while my husband who grew up in the middle of no where (on a dart road off of a dirt road!) thinks its more on the city side, but is happy because of the yard space from neighbors that we have. Houses are reasonably priced in most of the areas, and the majority of them have 1 acre + lots, so you'll have a yard to play in. We chose the area for there school systems (some of the better ones in southern NH along an easy access highway (93)) and we're about 15-20 minutes from Manchester
Concord is a great, family-friendly (small) city. It's approx. an hour to Boston, the beaches, and the mountains!!! I grew up in/around Manchester then moved to So.Cal. After moving back several years ago, I lived in Concord with my fiancee and we love it. People actually smile at each other,look you in the eyes and stop to chat on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, you won't find that in Manchester. There are good aspects to Manch, but I wouldn't move back with children or put them in the school system.
Best wishes!
I wouldn't live in the city of Manchester, and I would be leery about choosing a town that feeds into the Manchester school system. With that being said, a lot of the towns that have been mentioned are great towns. I would also suggest Auburn or Litchfield (although I don't know what their high school options are). I have friends who have young kids in both towns and they moved there with the thought of raising their families in those towns. The nice thing about that part of NH is that there really aren't too many less than desirable areas to raise a family. Good luck!!