My mother taught in about a dozen high schools in Central and Eastern MA and she says that Dracut was the worst place she taught at. Although one of my good friends is from there.

There are a lot of people who say that some random town in MA is really Trumpy when in reality it isn’t. Dracut actually is though.

None

I think it’s one of the worst locations to access the highway.

It's not horrible. You can get to 93 in Methuen or Rte 3/495 via the Lowell connector.

What does she value? Nightlife, restaurants, access to walking trails, tax free shopping, single life, family friendly? Dracut, like any other town is a lot of things. It is also not a lot of things. Hard to share relevant thoughts without knowing what she is looking for. It has an active Facebook book page. She should check it out.

This is a totally strange way of phrasing a question tbh lol

what makes dracut worse? Is it worse than lowell schools?

I think Dracut just doesn’t value education as much as other places do.

No offense but Dracut is kinda a shit town. Not tryna be racist but a lot of white trash lives there. It does have its nice streets and nice neighborhoods but the white trashy parts overshadow it.

I grew up in Chelmsford and here are my thoughts in the area. Tyngsboro is a nicer town if ur in that area.

Lowell- ranges from poverty to some middle/upper middle class areas with everything in between, super diverse as well but the more affluent areas skew whiter, with the more poverty stricken areas skew more latino, whereas asian areas skew in between.

Dracut-lower middle class to middle/ upper middle class, 85 percent white, with the remaining 15 percent being an even split of asians/latinos/blacks

Tyngsboro-somewhere in between Dracut and Chelmsford income and race wise

Billerica-used to be lower middle class to middle class, but plenty of teardowns recently ,and home prices have skyrocketed, leading to it being pretty middle class with upper middle class now coming in, the lower middle class has been wiped out there tbh. Pretty overwhelmingly white though.

Chelmsford-small amounts of lower middle class with mostly being middle class and its fair share of upper middle class area and even 1 or 2 streets of 1.5 mil + houses. Mostly white as well with the minorities mostly being Indian or Latino.

Westford-solidly upper middle class town with some upper class, all families mostly white with a large asian minority, maybe 1 or 2 black or latino families in town though

Carlisle- upper class white town

The way I look at is like this, there are some trump supporters in Chelmsford but they tend to be the richer folk that don't want to pay taxes. The trump supporters in Dracut are full on MAGA forever, immigrants take our jobs type folk. Only town in Middlesex County where majority voted for Trump.

I worked for CVS there 2 years ago, and I can confirm the opioid epidemic hit the town hard, we were doing suboxone and oxycodone scripts left and right. The rudest fuckers lived there too. Granted Lowell is right there and ehhh im not gonna shit on Lowell cuz its actually not as shitty as people make it out to be.

This critique might be too harsh but after spending time there, I would never set foot there .

Excellent job answering OPs question. Some really valuable insight presented here about Dracut

>Not tryna be racist but a lot of white trash lives there.

If you weren't even trying, you may just have a natural aptitude.

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I don’t care

and another excellent contribution

For some reason my brain went 'Dracut St? Like, by ashmont station?'

Not... the actual.... town of dracut.

I have no real opinions on dracut. Its kind of out there - theres no real reason to go there unless you've got a friend there. And then you leave to do something.

You can cross the boarder easy for cheaper booze.

Says a weirdo who doesn’t add anything other than policing others “contributions” lol

I lived there for 2 years from July of 2020 to July of this year. As others have pointed out, getting to the highway was a bit of a drag, it would take 20 minutes or so to get to 495 in the morning. My wife frequently hated on Dracut as there wasn't very much to do. They do have a nice library and the police seem significantly better funded than Lowell's. Renting may be tough unless you are already looking though, my landlord tried to raise the rent by 700 on a small 2 bedroom, and we had so many problems with the apartment that it just wasn't worth it to us. I looked for 2 months in the area and couldn't find anything.

Dracut is like Connecticut. It's a place you drive through to get somewhere else. It's not a destination.

The farms, diners, Lazy river dispensary (not sponsored just my favorite one) and right to own livestock are my personal highlights but in terms of nightlife there’s not much going on besides visiting your local sports bar. Not knocking those venues, but if you are looking to bar hop with variety, Dracut doesn’t offer that. Culturally they try to keep the small town feel but there’s some McMansions popping up for development and not so many multi family housing. Hope that helps!

They’re Trumpers.

Is she committed to Northshore? If not some south shore areas have their charms.

We moved to Dracut in 2015 from Medford, and I've lived all over the state prior to that.

Pros: housing and taxes were cheap (less so now, but still relatively affordable imo). It's super convenient to tax free Nashua NH, where the Daniel Webster highway has any store you could ever need. If you commute to Boston during odd hours, it's really not bad at all.

I love that it has a rural, small town feel, but you're close to Lowell if you need more food/nightlife options. It's also a lot less snobby than some of the "better" towns I've lived in, which I prefer.

Cons: It's inconvenient because of the river, depending on where you're going. I spend most of my time in NH, so that doesn't bother me, but if you like to entertain...it can be hard to drag friends out here lol. I'm not a huge fan of the doctor or dental systems here, but I just pop over to Chelmsford for all of that, and Lowell general hospital is pretty good and close by.

The schools are okay so far, but my kids are still in elementary school so we'll see how that goes.

Overall, we're pretty happy here. And we got a nice new build on a lake for $340k so I'm probably never leaving regardless.

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I don’t care

>by massachusetts standards yes , saw so many trump signs back in 2020, which are downright rare anywhere else in the state.
>
>Billerica was MAGA land too but the proximity to Boston and the highway access have pushed the MAGA types out in favor of more educated people coming from the Boston area who can't afford closer in. Plenty of teardowns in Billerica.
>
>Billerica has plenty of trump supporters still though.
>
>You see some trump signs in Chelmsford and Tyngsboro, there's this one ridiculously nice house that still flies a fuck you biden flag, and that neighborhood had plenty of trump signs but thats the most affluent part of Chelmsford, and the people that live there according to my friend are a mix of landlords in Lowell, business owners, and some doctors. Basically the people that only vote red for the tax breaks.
>
>I

I mean education achievement also correlates with parents who are educated which correlates to wealth.

Dracut is the poorest of the 5 towns that border Lowell on average, so that already will lead to lower outcomes compared to Chelmsford or Tyngsboro for example.

Are the schools worse than Lowell??? Prolly not tbh. Know kids that went to Lowell High and they did fine, but compared to my education in Chelmsford it was definitely inferior, due to rowdy behavior in classrooms, and just all around more distractions.

Friend said there were multiple girls in his graduating class at Lowell that had kids or were pregnant, which just is gonna continue the cycle of poverty tbh. Also there were some fights that would happen in the cafeteria which is unheard of in Chelmsford or Westford, and theres more poverty stricken homes in Lowell or Dracut which is gonna lead to worse outcomes for kids.

Dracut schools will prolly still be superior to Lowell schools bc Dracut is not as poverty stricken as Lowell.

The difference is people know Lowell's kinda a dump in parts, there are nice parts of Lowell , so it already has the stereotype whereas Dracut is more like where is that ??

Are you actually referring to Dracut as being on the North Shore?

It is where Dracula is from, hence the name, short for Dracula's Hut. True story!

Live and grew up in Dracut. Education system and money spent towards it is bottom of the barrel. Worst money per capita in the entire state for education. Small town politics aka the good ol boy network hookups waste tax dollars. Dont move here, we’re all trying to leave