Me and my partner moved to Nutley a little over a year ago for the exact same reasons you listed. We absolutely love it here.

The town is beautiful - beautiful parks and buildings, well maintained properties in many parts of town. The schools are very good - while also not being a pressure cooker type district. There’s tons of activities the town is also putting on for different holidays or just for fun.

Most importantly however is the sense of community. We’ve gotten invited to neighbors’ parties on the block randomly and there’s a huge block party every year in my neighborhood. Kids walk to school which says a lot about the safety. So many people grow up in Nutley and come back because they love it so much. And, even with a lot of lifelong Nutleyites, our experience has been that everyone is super welcoming even though we’re transplants.

Obviously Nutley doesn’t have the name recognition of towns like Chatham, Summit, etc (I prefer but could see others seeing as a con).

We looked in a lot of towns but we couldn’t have picked somewhere we ended up loving more. Highly recommend Nutley!! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Feels incredibly wasteful but there’s no option if you use something like Instacart. I get multiple a week and give them to a food pantry when they accumulate but seems incredibly wasteful. Wish we had been like NY and allowed paper bags still. I realize they’re not as eco friendly as reusable - but there a clearly still need for disposable bags in some settings.