Funny you mention Row houses and tight area to live in. My wife and I recently purchased a home in Manchester, close to downtown. The house is an 1893 "New Englander" and we love it. The New Englander term is really made-up and only used in NH, ME, and parts of Vermont and MA. This type of house is really an irregular sized cape and/or Colonial that was most commonly built between the Industerial Revolution and WWII. You can find them in urban areas and usually have a small yard, but inside the house the architecture can be really impressive.
We are in tight quarters in relationship to our neighbors, I must say the area is very quiet and pleasant. Most of our neighbors rent though, and although I've only met two, it seems to be a working class area.
I am in the north end, or what some might say is close to it. I have to say Manchester has really high property taxes, but the town has many services to cover.
That sounds like just about the ideal neighborhood to me. My mother used to live--and I grew up in part--in a small 1920s-30s house on a narrow lot with a wide front porch, in the North End, just a block north of Webster St. It was great and I loved it--enough space in the backyard for a small garden and patio, seeing neighbors while eating dinner on the front porch, being able to walk or ride my bike to Bunny's, Farm & Flower Market, and Livingston and Stark parks.
But perhaps even more than that, I love the area just a few blocks south of Webster St--I feel like this was discussed on a thread (maybe this one) awhile back--where the houses are a bit older, simple Victorian "New Englanders" like the one you mention. (It's funny--I remember when my mom was looking at houses in the late 1990s, before we moved to the North End, and hearing that term; I've seldom heard it outside New Hampshire and Maine real estate jargon, but it's useful.) But I love that area and especially the collection of houses and apartments there (in my mind, possibly the best in the city). And I love the mix of apartments, houses, and occasional retail and public buildings.
The only thing that area--like a lot of Manchester neighborhoods--lacks is a strong neighborhood center, with a local market, a couple restaurants and shops, maybe even a neighborhood bar or coffee shop.
Maybe in time, Webster St will evolve into something like that. A few years ago, the City re-zoned it to be a neighborhood business district, so new development has to be built up to the road and doesn't require much (any?) parking, but it will take awhile for it to get there naturally. Still, one or two new, mixed-use developments would really change the feel.
It's easier for me to say as both a renter and not a Manchester resident, but I just wanted to point out that
Manchester actually has a relatively low property tax rate compared to other towns in southern New Hampshire. I really think New Hampshire needs an income tax or something else to augment the local property tax, and help pay for things like education, public transit and so on.
Manchester's tax cap makes it difficult to raise taxes, and the recent teacher layoffs (in a city that already ranks 2nd lowest in per-student spending) indicate to me some structural funding problems in the city. It doesn't help that the current tax rate, arbitrarily frozen due to the tax cap, reflects higher home values before the most recent revaluation, meaning that the lower tax rate used to bring in more money.
I don't know enough about tax policy to say what the best local or state remedy is, but I do know that chronically under-funding education makes Manchester less attractive to parents and young people considering having children. A few years ago, a Manchester school board member resigned after moving to Bedford because of the better education she felt her children would get in the suburb. (For the record, I went to Bedford schools for elementary and middle school, and Manchester West for high school. I feel like I received a great education at both, but Manchester needs to do more to keep up with--let alone improve education in the city.)
But whether it's better schools to attract and retain young families, better public transit to attract and retain young people, or better infrastructure to attract and retain businesses, it's clear that Manchester's current spending levels aren't going to cut it.
Anyway, congratulations on the new house. I really love that area, and it's always great to hear about people choosing to live in Manchester's historic, urban neighborhoods.
