<p>Iron Maiden, Wow.</p>
<p>^^^ I grew up there and won’t disagree. The downtown is quite vibrant, though, and the outlying areas are pretty. I would hate to commute into Center City from anywhere I could stand to live. Not everyone is rude and surly- just a high percentage.</p>
<p>As other posters have said 5 acres and 4-5 bedrooms in the Philly suburbs within 45 mins of center city- whether Bucks, Montgomery counties or in NJ are going to cost you a few million. If you are willing to settle for 1/2 acre or 1 acre it may be more doable. If you have a few million for housing there are many beuatiful suburban developments in Bucks county. Property taxes in some of those areas are also very expensive.45 minutes also varies. 45 minutes one day 1.5 hours another, depending on traffic. i-95 is always backed up from Boston to Washington DC for the most part. lol Not sure where in Chicago area you live. If it is in the city, or near it, you would probably be accoustomed enough to city life- so the crime, dirt and rudeness won’t bother you as much as someone comming from middle of nowhere. Most of the local suburbs have commuter train services into philadelphia. Have you tried looking at city-data forums? I used that when I relocated to an unkown area, no one knows anything about, and it was somewhat helpful.</p>
<p>I visited Philly on spring break to tour colleges and was stuck in some of the worst traffic I have ever encountered. It literally made LA traffic seem stress free and light in comparison, and I am not afraid of heavy traffic or driving. I’ve had more relaxing experiences driving in Boston, NYC, Washington DC, San Francisco and Vancouver. It was so bad, we chose not to return to see the Philly Art Museum or to visit U Penn and Drexel. They really do need the highway signs that I say “No tailgating.” We loved Pennsylvania, just not that rush hour traffic.</p>
<p>SIL lives just north of Princeton off I-95 in NJ so it’s a relatively easy commute if you’re used to hand to hand combat. Her 4BR 2 1/2 bath house on a decent sized suburban lot has a hefty $12,000/year property tax bill. In addition, if you live in NJ and commute to PA you have the pleasure of paying both NJ & PA income taxes (at least that used to be the case; I’ll cede to current area residents for up to date info.)</p>
<p>I think the whole NJ thing has gotten off track-Oldfort thought the OP was looking at retirement places and Princeton keeps coming up.</p>
<p>Look at Bucks County, northeast of Philly city limits and on the way to Princeton. You can commute by train into Center City in 30-40 minutes and get more for your money.Even though you aren’t worried about schools, there are some solid districts with reasonable housing costs (relative to NYC, Boston and California)</p>
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<p>West Chester is about an hour’s bus ride away from the 69th street station on the Market-Franklin line of the SEPTA subway system. </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen of the real estate in that area, it’s not cheap to buy a house there…and the prices were actually climbing as of last summer. And that was within the town.</p>
<p>Commuter trains are pretty good in Philadelphia, I’d say roughly comparable to Chicago. See [SEPTA</a> | Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority](<a href=“http://www.septa.org%5DSEPTA”>http://www.septa.org), look under “regional rail” to get a sense of the commuter rail system and the communities it serves.</p>
<p>Online cost-of-living calculators say Philadelphia is about 10% cheaper than Chicago overall, with housing being much cheaper in Philadelphia and most other things more expensive. Philly area seems more congested, though, so I don’t know about that 5 acres. You’d need to go pretty far out to make that affordable. Maybe if you went far enough out on the Doylestown line into Bucks County, or out the Thorndale line beyond the older (and expensive) Mainline suburbs, you might find some acreage relatively near a commuter train, but I don’t know those specific real estate markets; others might.</p>
<p>Philadelphia’s hotter and more humid in the summer than Chicago (if you can imagine such a thing), but milder in winter. It’s generally a very green and leafy area, except parts of the urban core which are dense, intense, treeless and hard-core urban, but that will come as no shock to a Chicagoan. It’s a pretty sports-crazy city, almost rabidly so, but it’s got high culture, too; the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are very good but in both cases a distinct notch below their Chicago counterparts, and it can’t touch Chicago in theater. It lacks Chicago’s lakefront; Fairmount Park is pretty nice but on hot summer weekends Philadelphians migrate en masse to the Jersey Shore, creating horrendous traffic jams. If you’re a U.S. history buff it’s as good as it gets, not just obvious things like Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and Valley Forge, but tons of more obscure and underappreciated sites within a close radius.</p>
<p>Maybe the best thing about Philadelphia–and this is underappreciated by many Philadelphians as well as by people not familiar with the area–is its proximity to New York City and Washington, DC. From center city Philadelphia you can get to New York in about an hour by train, a little longer by car (or much longer, depending on traffic) which means it’s really possible to do a day trip, catch a museum, dinner, and a show, and be home to sleep in your own bed that night. Washington’s a little farther but pretty easy, maybe 2 hours by train, 3 or so by car depending on traffic.</p>
<p>I like Philadelphia. It’s an underappreciated city, in my estimation. New York, Washington, and Boston get all the attention; Philadelphia and Baltimore are the forgotten stepchildren on the Northeast Corridor, but between the two I’d take Philadelphia hands down, and on some days I’d probably prefer it to Boston or Washington.</p>
<p>5 acres is going to be tough and very expensive…the real problem is if you find 5 acres that are affordable, you might not want to live in that community…Septa from the burbs to Philly is signifcantly better then norhtern NJ to NYC…</p>
<p>Go to this site, Everyhome.com, you can see homes for sale in philly region…we have 2 acres, and it is perfect for our dogs…</p>
<p>I live in South Jersey about a half hour from Philly. Traffic is bad on every highway in the area. We live 50 minutes from my husband’s place of employment. It usually takes 1 1/2 hours to get there and often 2 hours. Sometimes more. And if you live in Jersey, auto insurance and property taxes will be expensive.</p>
<p>Someone else mentioned this site earlier - [Philadelphia</a> Forum - Relocation, Moving, Local City Discussions - City-Data Forum](<a href=“http://www.city-data.com/forum/philadelphia/]Philadelphia”>Philadelphia Forum - Relocation, Moving, General and Local City Discussions - City-Data Forum) I would highly suggest it as well. As good as the CC group is with colleges, those people are with finding just the right place to live.</p>
<p>I think the Philadelphia area is a great place to live. There is a huge sense of history in our east coast cities that you just don’t get anyplace else and Philadelphia has just the right mix of history, diversity, public transportation, affordability (cost of living-wise), and sophistication that you could want.</p>
<p>As far as traffic goes, it’s like any city, you have to know when to travel and find alternate routes when there is an accident or construction. I live about an hour north of Philadelphia so I drive forty minutes to the closest train and then take that in. Philly is a remarkably good walking city too so once I get in there, there is no need for a car. For $10 you can take a Mega or Bolt bus and go to NYC, Baltimore or Washington DC.</p>
<p>We live in the suburbs just west of Philadelphia. H has been getting to his center city job for 25+ years on the commuter train, about 30 minutes door-to-door. Compared to commuting from the NYC suburbs into the city (where we’re both originally from), it’s paradise. But as others have said, you won’t get 5 acres here without millions of dollars. For that kind of land you have to go quite far out, and then public transit becomes scarce and the car commute can be nightmarish.</p>
<p>When we first moved here in 1985, the city was a dump. But it’s now much more vibrant, with excellent restaurants and a decent theater and art scene. I’ve never lived in Chicago, but have visited a number of times and loved it. Philadelphia is smaller and a bit provincial by comparison, but the quality of life here is very good. We’ve never regretted our move.</p>
<p>I’m sure JHS will have much more to add.</p>
<p>Originally from NYC area, and find Philly much easier to navigate…</p>
<p>Just did a quick look at homes for sale in Bucks County,with the acreage you’d like…Many more homes then i thought there would be…less then 1M, though the commute to Center City gets more difficult from that area,…</p>
<p>thanks so much, everyone.</p>
<p>You guys are always incredibly helpful!</p>
<p>I sent poetgrl a PM, but I think there’s a lot of agreement among all of us, except I don’t love the SEPTA Regional Rail system that much. (It seems like every time I decide to trust it, within a couple of days there’s some unexplained 30 minute stoppage. And the older cars are really cruddy.) </p>
<p>But, hey!, if you want lots of space for your dogs AND your art, Dennis Alter’s 70-acre, 60,000 sq. ft. place in Fort Washington is available. They’re asking $29 million, but I bet he would take $26 million.</p>
<p>Live not too far from that home!!! From the Fort Washington area, SEPTA has been flawless for the 6 years we’ve lived here,</p>
<p>I am reading this thread and I am not getting the sense which areas meet poetgrl’s criteria.</p>
<p>The suggestions seem vague.</p>
<p>For example if somebody wanted to buy a 4 bedroom house on 5 acres near SF, maybe the suggestions might be Mill Valley, Tiburon, Novato, Petaluma, Woodside etc.</p>
<p>I am just curious which specific areas around Philadelphia meet the criteria mentioned by poetgrl.</p>
<p>For example, does Bryn Mawr work?</p>
<p>Not for 5 acres in Bryn Mawr or many other MainLine towns and if you could find that sized property, cost woukd be 10 Million…</p>