Going to look into it all, thank you

Thanks!!

Awesome much appreciated

Perfect!!! Much appreciated

Awesome thank you!

Thank you!!! Great to hear

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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Cava during Christmas

Olea, how come no one has mentioned olea? Go to olea!!!!!!

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.

Kawa Ni in Westport is fantastic.

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.

Closed

The bars.

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!

Thank you so much, this was really helpful! Appreciate you.

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

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.

Union League.

Ironically, the owners don’t like each other, but the food/drinks at both are great.

Chamard at Clinton

Le Petit Care, Branford

the prices at shell & bones are unconscionable.

Hachiroku is phenomenal. So grateful they're here and seem to be generating good buzz and clientele