What do you love about New Haven?

Submitted by lavalamplass t3_yr1qxh in newhaven

Hi! My boyfriend (25m) just told me (25f) that he’s interested in moving to New Haven. I’d be moving from Ann Arbor and before that, Chicago. I know absolutely nothing about it besides that Yale is there. I want to hear what you love about New Haven! Is there good access to nature? Good art/culture? Food? Queer community?

Thank you so much!

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ayentelmen t1_ivrj0c7 wrote

I moved from East Lansing back in June, so IMO:

Pros: Way more hilly than MI, Yale Art Gallery, East Rock Park, you can visit NYC by taking a 2-hour train ($35-40 round trip), delicious pizza.

Cons: No weed (yet), the city has some rough areas, reckless drivers.

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hanginglimbs t1_ivrj59p wrote

Yes yes and yes. A pretty decent sized downtown area for a city of a bit over 100K. The culinary scene obviously can't compare to something like NYC, but there's good variety and quality. Obviously the pizza comes to mind. For art/culture, there are museums, venues that get national touring acts (think more 250-1000 seat-type bands, not arenas), etc.

One thing I love about New Haven is that with a relatively small amount of effort, you can be (within reason) wherever you want. It's a great launchpad to the surrounding area. <2 hours to NYC by train. 2 hours to Boston (no direct train like NYC, but amtrak/bus/car). Maybe 2-3 hours to skiing (I don't ski, so could be more). 1 hr to ocean beaches in RI. Some hiking nearby, but always 1-2 hours from a ton of options. Tweed airport seems to be getting more and more flights to various cities in the South daily.

If you want to be in New England while still having great access to NYC or even Philly, but not feel like you're just a stop on the highway that is CT, New Haven is a good option

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mozzking t1_ivrjv7c wrote

Wow everything you just asked, NHV hits ALL of those buttons beautifully. Access to tons of hiking/biking trails, beautiful beaches like Hammonassett right down the highway. It’s the cultural center of CT with amazing FREE museums tanks to Yale. NHV was voted best foodie city in New England. Just tons of amazing restaurants to satisfy those Yalies and their parents. Lastly it’s very liberal and queer/LGBTQ friendly. The diversity drives this city. I’m so happy to live here!

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flytweed t1_ivro1dx wrote

That for a small, growing city, it’s 1) finally really trying to build affordable housing with activist community groups and city hall on the same page; 2) It is about to open the downtown leg to the salvaged Farmington Canal trail: 3) it knows it would be a-ok even without the boola boola school.

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bluebird_on_skates t1_ivrprjh wrote

It’s got everything you listed. It’s a small enough city to get around easily, but big enough that there’s always more going than than you can actually do. Lots of visual arts and theater and music, both bigger institutions and more grassroots ones. A couple of queer bars and good lgbtq+ community behind those as well. Decent hiking within a 20-minutes drive and bigger hikes not much further away. CT ski areas are about an 80-minute drive away, and nice Vermont areas about three hours. Lots of good food too, as others have mentioned, including restaurants, food carts, and farmers markets.

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poweredbait t1_ivrvmfg wrote

East Rock. Walking my dogs in Edgerton Park. Bike commuting. Scantlebury Park Pickleball. East Rock Brewery Trivia. The Yale Rep. The Yale Art Museum. Enough of a restaurant scene. International community. New England vibes. P&M market.

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Beneficial_Ad_6921 t1_ivs3xka wrote

Based off of your listed needs you’ll fit in like a glove here.

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jer_mom t1_ivs6zzf wrote

College Street Music Hall always has great musical acts playing, the restaurant scene is amazing (not just the pizza!), there are a huge number of amazing breweries very close by. Major railroad station right downtown that brings you right to Grand Central for less than $50 round trip. Definitely one of the most diverse and accepting communities in the area. And you can be to Southern Vermont in under 3 hours and southern Maine in 3 and a half.

Oh, and weed is legal. Dispensaries are coming early next year! 😂

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curbthemeplays t1_ivs9stv wrote

One of the best food scenes in any small/medium sized city I’ve been in, and I’ve been in a ton (travel a lot for work).

Plenty of music in a dozen or so venues of all sizes. Great architecture. Lots of character. World class art museums. Lots of great stuff to do within a day’s drive (big benefit of New England in general).

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ShamusTheClown t1_ivt3l22 wrote

Bike lanes and lots of public transport access :)

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the-crotch t1_ivt3n8u wrote

With the colleges and slums nearby it's a fantastic place to buy drugs

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wherehaveubeen t1_ivt5obf wrote

New Haven is big enough to always have something new and interesting to offer but small and beautifully green enough to not feel like an urban hellscape.

I live in a suburb of Hartford now, but if I had it to do again I’d pick New Haven. My wife and I are even considering retiring there!

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UrnOfOsiris t1_ivt66yo wrote

My favorite part is the arts/cultural/food festivals. Tons of great food and art. Very queer friendly. Beautiful parks and hiking spots nearby as well as beaches. Pretty affordable as cities go, too.

In regards to people saying it’s a dangerous shithole: it’s a city. There’s wealth inequality. There’s homelessness and crime. That’s what you get when you live in a city in the US.

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nickyfatboi t1_ivt8oup wrote

Personally, I don’t find it to be as good OR bad as people on here are telling you. It’s a fine, serviceable town with a little something for everyone. Good luck!

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twoshovels t1_ivt96q2 wrote

“New haven is amazing “ The city is great and has been for the past 100 years! Great food , great people! If your interested in history you will love New Haven! So much of everything came, started or ended with new haven it’s a wonder what the United States would had done without this city!!!

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Drachenfutter t1_ivtc18a wrote

Proximity to New York. Lots of nature hiking/state parks, really pretty actually. Just cold half the year. Decent museum/coffee shop/theater culture. Rent is high but home prices are reasonable. Lots of parks, good for kids, lots of family friendly activities.

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globgobrett t1_ivtkbfz wrote

I will go against the grain and say compared to some place like Chicago its extremely small. The pizza (specifically some of the famouser ones) is amazing. I use to live in NYC. Compared to that its tiny. If you find something you are into you will be able to be a big part of it and socially you will make close ties as there are not going to be a TON of people involved. This can be really nice! I remember going out to bars in new haven and seeing the same people at different places and feeling like part of a community, but that is a tradeoff with it being small compared to a big city.

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Plantpoweredbeeyotch t1_ivtw07o wrote

Food diversity. You never run out of options here. The arts and ideas festival, and the free shows of old school musicians pre-covid.

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2pooped2party t1_ivtyzt2 wrote

Plenty of queers and they all voted for Lamont again

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LucidLunatic t1_ivurz83 wrote

I love the food. I love the weather. I love being able to easily get to NYC or Boston. I love having a multitude of state forests and parks to go hiking in. I love not having seasonal/frequent natural disasters. (When I was in Houston there was a significant city wide flood at least annually, generally around a different holiday each year I was there, and that's not counting Harvey.) I love Elm City Games downtown, and the community around it.

I'm very happy here, all told.

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Cute_Sprinkles_2625 t1_ivus1a3 wrote

Ooh, ooh, ooh, this question was made for me! I've lived in all 3 places.

OK: Yale has some similar college town vibes in the Westville area to UM/Ann Arbor, but abundantly better food and a much more diverse scene in terms of food, people, languages spoken, etc. The hills in Connecticut are much better than Ann Arbor and Chicago, both. Still in temperate forests, so if you like the woods, you'll be happy there. Because of East Rock, West Rock, Sleeping Giant, etc., you can get some really nice VIEWS of the woods and the hills. You're only 3 miles (oops, no, EDIT: hours!) from the Greens and the Whites, which are some more serious hiking ranges.

You're also close to the ocean, which is very different than the midwest. There are kettle ponds, but not really big lakes like you have in Michigan and Illinois. Still, the sound is lovely, and there are some very accessible beaches within 20 min of NH.

Art culture is great in NHV. Chicago has a great museum and arts scene, as you're well aware. and NHV is a lot smaller, but does have some great museums and arts especially for its size. Also, <2 hours from NYC, so you can get a true metro fix pretty easily. And 3 hours from Boston.

IMO, NHV is superior to Ann Arbor on pretty much all fronts, but if you're a big city person, you might prefer Chicago. That being said, NHV is definitely a city (much moreso than A2, which felt pretty suburban to me) but much smaller.

PS - no offense if you love A2. Had a good time there, but it didn't really feel like a perfect fit for me.

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memsies t1_ivuvvda wrote

Yes New Haven has all of that but Ann Arbor is better tbh. Yes there is some stuff to brag about for the locals, but I think you can find all that you would find in New Haven in a better city

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HartfordResident t1_ivv0hjz wrote

Replying to memsies (#495,338)

Having spent quite a bit of time in both places, New Haven is infinitely better, even before you consider that New Haven is part of the NYC metro area (which honestly makes Greater Detroit look like a small town in Saskatchewan), and close to many other great places.

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knives_in_my_eyes t1_ivv1cxp wrote

Not sure if it’s mentioned, but I also love the proximity to NYC, Boston, Portland and Vermont for a getaway. You’ve got the sound, but also the woods. You can easily find a great hiking spot within a 15 minute drive that’s secluded enough to not see anyone else there. I love New Haven, lived in a handful of neighborhoods for 10 years.

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EsmeSalinger t1_ivvyz3n wrote

I love taking my dog to Lighthouse Point, The Yale Golf course ( off season), and the cross country trails behind Hopkins School down to the reservoir.

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internet_czol t1_ivyefcg wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#500,276)

Well I'm sorry you had that experience, but idk wtf you are talking about, I'd be happy to raise my kids here if I had any. Have you spent much time in any other cities? And I see kind people all over the place, maybe they were just assholes to you.

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LucidLunatic t1_ivz66mc wrote

Replying to lavalamplass (#496,739)

Winter here will have nothing on Chicago, but it does generally go below freezing for a week or more at a time, with moderate snowfall. But the city does a pretty good job of keeping the streets clear. And there will also be stretches of winter that are above freezing, even sunny. We have pretty well rounded weather (and seasons) all told.

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OpelSmith t1_iw17gk9 wrote

OP if you're still around, I am legitimately curious on what made your bf want to move to New Haven? Just in genera I feel like most small cities don't garner that "I want to move there!" vibe from far away

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devaghost t1_iw7el2o wrote

Replying to memsies (#495,338)

Objectively, your opinion makes no sense. The University of Michigan, Detroit and a Great Lake are second-rate compared to Yale, NY and the Atlantic Ocean. New Haven has 200 years more history. Also objectively, Ann Arbor is not a city. It's a college town that is 67% White. New Haven is 43% White. Is that why you think Ann Arbor is better?

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devaghost t1_iw7p70f wrote

CT is small and pretty densely populated, particularly on the shoreline, so you won't find gigantic natural areas but there are lots of parks. A number of them sit atop ridges and for a week or so in Autumn, the views are breathtaking. There is, of course, an ocean nearby.

The wealth disparity here is very high. Because of Yale, we have lots of college kids who have lots of money so much of the culture here is geared towards people who are grad-student age. Two incoming grad students moved into my neighborhood in stretch limos, not U-Haul vans, this year. New Haven is the only city in CT that provides (long list of services) to people who are homeless, addicted, etc. so the suburbs divert those populations and the problems here.

Yale has two world-class art museums and there are others in nearby cities. Van Gogh's Night Cafe is here. Meryl Streep and Jodi Foster went to Yale Drama school. August Wilson debuts all his plays here. "If it plays in New Haven..." was a phrase used way back when Broadway musicals were a bigger deal than they are now, because shows would play here, the NY critics would come up and if they liked them, they went on to Broadway. If not, they died here. That 'proving ground' aspect remains are there is a lot of experimental art and music here.

On study found that New Haven is the city that most accurately reflects the ethnic demographics of the country as a whole. It is, as it has been since it was founded, a sanctuary city. It is both a very integrated and a very segregated city because immigrants tended to form communities, so we have a Chinatown, a Little Italy, Little Warsaw, etc. but the city is so small that they're a couple of blocks away from one another. The "All are Welcome" signs are legitimate, not just a marketing ploy. Some of the oldest 'gay bars' in the country are here. New Haven is so liberal that Greens have held more seats on the Board of Alders (our city council) than Republicans over the last couple of decades.

Because we are immigrant-friendly and Yale has many international students, the variety, quality and authenticity of ethnic food here is like that of much larger cities. We are known for pizza because the southern Italian immigrants brought the rules of how pizza must be made with them from Naples and never changed. The hamburger was invented here and that restaurant still exists. The third-oldest vegetarian restaurant in the country is here.

The traffic laws that you are used to do not apply here. Be careful.

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gr34tguy t1_iy1chkp wrote

Things I don't really like about NH is that you can't even look on r/newhaven without a single Reddit post about a crime that was committed. Things I do like about it is that there are more Mexicans and Puerto-Ricans then actual Europeans and White people(I'm African-American so I definitely know this.)

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