Submitted by apple-masher t3_11fnk2i in WorcesterMA
I'm moving to the area, and several people have warned me to stay away from Southbridge. Are they just being snobs, or is the town that bad? are there good areas and bad areas? and what are those areas?
edit: We have no kids, and no plans to have kids. Schools don't really matter that much to us.
Southbridge sucks and somehow gets more snow than Worcester. I’d avoid unless it’s your only option financially.
Roll up the windows and lock the doors. Keep driving straight through. Those areas, is Southbridge.
I live in Southbridge currently. I'm an Atlanta transplant so I don't know how to compare it to another town in Mass but I don't mind it. The library is lovely. I'd be happy to answer specific questions if you want to message!
No, it's not that bad. There are certainly shitty parts of the city, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's dangerous or anything. It's just a relatively poor city. So long as you're not scared of seeing poverty and know how to navigate city living, you'll be fine.
generally speaking where are the shitty parts. it's hard to tell just from looking at google maps or a realty website.
It’s awful. Better off in Worcester.
It's not so bad, it's that the marginalized people who are being forced to leave Worcester are settling there so it gets a reputation.
This was the same thing with Webster a while back. Like every place, it has its troubles but it is what it is.
No restaurants. No night life. Bad crime. Really bad smell in air in parts of town (by Big Y plaza). Please don’t move there. It’s depressing
Try niche.com. It will give you fair idea based on zip code.
The people warning you to stay away from Southbridge are probably racist. There are very nice suburban neighborhoods, rural areas, decent amenities for a town of its size. Anything is what you make it and it’s a fine place to live.
Highway access sucks, especially the further south and east you go in town. Schools are not good & I say that having worked in those schools. That would be the deal breaker for me - if I had kids and valued a public education that’s just not the place.
Depending on why the Southbridge location works for you and what you’re looking for in a community Thompson or Putnam CT may serve you better.
It’s not the kind of place you move to. It’s the kind of place where you join the service to get the fuck away from after high school.
The shitty parts are the parts within the borders of Southbridge. Why do you want to move there? There are so many better places to live in this state.
yo the water treatment plant lmao
not racist i grew up there and am a Colon lmao depends what side of main st you pick honestly if you can live in the rural area and shop in sturbridge it’s fine but downtown and the other side of town is a dump. It sucks.
hamilton st, cross st, mechanic st, around the police station, main st, henry st, charlton st, that whole side of town is a shit pile
i bet if you google maps street view cross st you will see a drug transaction
By shitty I mean more run down than anything. You'd know it if you were looking at it. If you're really that concerned, then I guess stay away from downtown.
I don't necessarily want to move there, specifically, but I'm house hunting in the areas within commuting distance of Worcester, and I saw a house for sale there.
In case you haven't noticed, the housing market is a bit ... competitive, these days. Hard to find much below 350K within 45 of the city.
When I've asked people who live around Worcester which towns I should consider living in, several mentioned that Southbridge has a bad reputation, so I was curious and I thought I'd ask about it.
Not by much
It’s just run down and kind of shitty
Honestly I live in Sturbridge, wife works in Southbridge, it gets a really bad rap but it’s honestly fine. There are some really nice areas, up by the airport, down by westville dam, really far south of the city center, there’s a lot to the town geographically.
Southbridge also has a lot to offer for amenities, they have a big Y, aubuchons hardware, consumer auto parts, a bunch of cheap gas stations, decent food (shout out to dynasty, fins and tails, metro bistro) and depending on what side of town you live on you could be on the pike or 20 in like 10 minutes.
Yeah downtown might not be the nicest place on the planet but Massachusetts has way worse towns.
Just do not buy a house within 1/2 mile of the sewer treatment plant. Idk what they got going on there but depending on the weather it is nauseating to be near it
We just bought in Worcester. Got a really nice house at 350. We found plenty between 300 and 350, just a lot of smaller than I'd like for the price.
Granted we moved from Boston so our perspective is 100% skewed
Place is fucking awful. I’ve worked in sewer treatment plants before and Southbridge’s takes the (shit) cake for lack of odor control. I don’t understand how people that live around there aren’t rioting
Will happily recommend our realtor too, she was absolutely fantastic
Yeah most towns west of Worcester, but still in Worcester county, aren’t great.
No
You are very correct. There is a lot of theft in the area. Goes all the way up 169 to charlton. It’s fucking weird because you wouldn’t think it would be a trash town.
Northbridge is way better than Southbridge and closer to Worcester without having to live in Worcester.
I'm a recovering addict in Southbridge. There isn't anything remotely like an open air drug market. It's a safe town.
Yes yes yes a thousand times yes. Anything near the hospital is very nice. I want to repeat your first sentence a thousand times.
Choose again. The highway access blows and the natives are poor and trashy
Ok, let me put it this way.
I personally think it's a fine place for a starter home if you don't have children. The city itself isn't great, as I'm sure you've obviously noticed, but it's really not as terrible as people make it out to be. The more rural areas can actually be really nice. Overall, it's not great for socializing and whatnot, but Sturbridge has plenty to do and that's like 10 minutes away. And anywhere else in Worcester County within your price range is probably going to have far less access to ... well, pretty much everything.
If you do have a children, I would look into the Quabbin and Tantasqua districts. You may be able to find something within your price range in the small towns around those areas, although you will be in a cow town with fuckall to do. And probably have worse access to Worcester than Southbridge. The upside is that they're all quintessential little New English towns that all have pooled resources into better school districts.
It’s the compost operations. There’s absolutely zero odor control in the mostly open compost building. I worked there for a year, and I’m very close with the 2 guys that run the place. They get very little funding from the town for improvement projects, and when they do they’re kind of whimsical projects at best.
That’s pretty much what I figured. I’ve worked at a few in my life and it’s always money. Most of these places need massive capital investments to operate correctly but they are always last on the list for towns
Out of sight out of mind right. You’d think that awful stink would get people talking about funding but no.
Yeah exactly. Every time I’m down at the BigY plaza I am appalled at the smell. Especially the thought of going to get pizza or McDonald’s with that smell!
I don't think the people who badmouth Southbridge know what a bad city looks like. They were saying the same shit about Worcester, right up until the housing market exploded. If shit keeps trending this way, Southbridge could be the next to get gentrified. It's already started in Athol and Gardner!
no kids, so that's not a concern.
I worked in Southbridge for about 9 years ending around 7 years ago. It's nowhere near as bad as people say it is, I never felt in danger walking around there. However the people I worked with who had kids in the school system would tell you not to send your kids to the public schools in town.
I'd still recommend looking elsewhere first.
I'm really curious what a whimsical sewage plant project looks like.
Lol yeah ok. Worcester is the second best city in Mass
Probably. I just want to know why it's pretty much due West of Northbridge.
The funny part is the sewer plant doesn’t smell any worse than any other sewer plant in the world. All that nasty compost smell gets blown over to big y!
The plant isn’t whimsical per se but instead of odor control units they replaced a conveyer belt with a screw conveyer and dump truck system for dewatered sludge. So now instead of replacing bearings and fixing the damn belt every few weeks, they have to empty this dump truck every 2 hours while running the centrifuge. Seems like there could have been a better upgrade but Southbridge went with the absolute cheapest contract bidder like usual.
Well I’ll disagree with you there, many treatment plants perform odor control and don’t smell nearly that bad. Inside the plant? Yeah sure stinks a little. An 1/8-1/4 mile from the plant? That’s unsat. And I’m talking I’ve worked at deer island in Winthrop and you can’t smell the plant if you’re in the parking lot of the place
Was in the same situation. Bought a house in Thompson CT. Way more bang for your buck with home buying. Taxes are high but was able to have a house built brand new for cheaper than some of Massachusetts outrageous prices on old houses.
The wife and I still commute to Worcester for work everyday. I have a 30min ride, hers is 35.
I meant that you don’t smell that compost very much on-site, the smell is most acute across the river at big y. Still smells there for sure
Yeah. Like I said it’s a tough job with no funding. I wish the town would put some more money into the place. Covered clarifiers, air filtration, additives to the process, all solution, all are expensive.
It's not the best town in the area, no.
It's not like rampant crime, but it's pretty lame and scummy in a lot of areas. But it's no worse than most cities/towns people tell you to stay away from.
There was a pretty decent French restaurant there, not sure if it's still open
Edit: typo
it’s been like that for sooooo long hot summer days down wind brookside terrace 🤣
Yeah it’ll never happen but it’s nice to think
Worcester thinks of Southbridge the way Boston think of Worcester. Mostly snobbery. Parts of Southbridge are a grubby, but it's mostly just "wrong side of the tracks" stuff. Find a nice street and you'll be fine.
And they got that new apartment complex going in by the old AO building ☠️
really lmao on east main i haven’t been down in a couple years i used to ride my bike past there as a kid is the whole thing being done? getting ready to house the consumer workers for the new amazon warehouse in charlton?
Yeah it’s the warehouse complex down by edwards gas and the rotary.
From what I’ve heard that Amazon facility isn’t going to employ all that many people. It’s a robotic sorting facility, supposedly. But it’s not going to get spun up for another couple of years or so
wow, that's a shorter commute than I would have expected, from CT. good to know.
Would I live in Southbridge as a new grad who is renting? Sure.
Would I buy a house and put down roots? Absolutely fucking not especially if you plan to have kids in public school there.
Look in Sturbridge. We lived there. It's nice, a bit of a tourist spot in summer, but still a bargain compared to the town just northeast of Worcester that we moved to from Sturbridge.
ETA: You won't find a ton under 350, but some do come up.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/598-Main-St-Sturbridge-MA-01518/80873487_zpid/
ah ok i drove down 20 when the bones were going up my aunt said distribution center so i assumed. at least that buildings getting some use i used to ride down the exempt tracks from near brookside to downtown. i didn’t know what the building was till i was older but it was vacant at the time and always kinda creeped me out lol idk why
where the rotary goes to main st there used to be a rail bridge they tore down trucks always getting stuck i rode over it a bunch towns always been shit but was fun as a kid on a bike
Worcester used to be sketch af but still I miss showcase north. Nowadays it’s really nice though like all us cities you should be on your guard at night in some areas around Clark and some other spots. Downtown has had a big makeover and the new stadium has definitely spruced up Kelley square big time as much as urban renewal projects can be gentrifying and shitty in their own way.
I grew up there. Lived there for 25 years. It's not the worst place in the world to live if you just want a place to live your life. But it's not a place I'd ever choose to move back to.
It's not as bad as its reputation would have you believe, but there's literally no compelling reason to move there other than "it's cheap" and it's cheap for a reason.
I'm sorry, but what? What marginalized people leaving Worcester? It's had a bad reputation since the 70s.
The schools are not good.
Nice apartments in certain neighborhoods is not gentrification. Tell me how it's going on Endicott St.
There are two Facebook groups for residents. You can find them by searching on the town name. One is open to all. The Library is modern. There is a hospital. I'm an old fashioned snob and I like it here.
My friend was a principal there. Elementary kids. It was disturbing to hear the predicaments he faced daily and facing the children of that town.
worcester getting expensive
I lived there. It’s not horrible. People in the towns around it act like it’s crime capitol of the world or something but it’s really not bad. There are some quiet rural areas, decent take out options, Tree House brewing is 15 minutes away in Charlton, decent restaurants in the surrounding towns. Plus Elm Centre Cafe is an amazing breakfast spot.
But the stink is reallll near Big Y, and highway access is a huge issue. Not being close to the highway is so tedious and if you’re someone who likes to go out to bars and restaurants you’ll hate how long it’ll take just to get to Worcester.
avoid it. it’s inconvenient to get to anywhere from there since they have no direct highway. and it’s easily one of the worst towns to live in worcester county.
much better off looking to webster or oxford
I live near there. Don't move here. High crime, no public resources, it's not safe to go out at night. You can smell raw sewage all summer long. If you have children, DO NOT put them in the public school.
i live/d in southbridge for a while. its not a shit place but it definetly isn't a place id have on a top 100 to be again. it's relatively boring, it's sort of walkable but there aren't many interesting places in town. the neighborhoods aren't so well sidewalk-ed, so that sucks, but the main streets are.
you have to go to sturbridge for most everything. farmers market, Walmart, stop and shop, etc. i love the big Y but that SMELL is absolutely HORRIBLE! what the hell is with that? in southbridge, the cast of characters aren't so nice. i remember walking from my neighborhood to the big bunny and it was extremely unsettling with the mix of undeveloped roads and people who hang on street corners, just staring and glaring at you in broad daylight. the big bunny itself has a lot of weird people.
but as everyone has said, the schools are 100% a no go. ive heard from multiple people, completely unrelated from each other, that it's a horrible school. my landlord told me that his friend used to work there, and he was told if you work at that school, you could probably get hired at any school in the future, because if you survived that school you could survive anything.
it's not horrible but it doesn't have a lot of redeeming qualities. it's boring as shit, basically. there's no community, there's not many events. atleast the library is nice? but really, i never worry about my safety there but its not a place to thrive.
Thompson is a great town! No police and next to no crime. Also, there is plenty of open space and agriculture. It's really close to I-395 and a short drive to Worcester and everywhere else in Massachusetts. It's a great border town.
You really need to read up on the status of the school system in Southbridge if you have children.
To get you started:
https://www.doe.mass.edu/level5/districts/level5districts.html
It’s just gross and trashy. Very poor. No activities. Avoid.
I’ve lived here all my life. Started off in apts downtown now have a house up near CT.
I absolutely love it. Everything is 10 mins down the road.
We have good and bad just like everywhere else but there’s a very strong sense of community.
yeah it’s much better to consider anywhere along 395 south of worcester and auburn than southbridge.
what does race have to do with it? it’s objectively not a good town to live in and hasn’t been for decades. same as a number of other towns in the area like athol
webster has never been as bad as southbridge. helps that they have location to their advantage with 395 access and the lake.
Trailer trash quality people that just escaped from worcester into other subsidized three deckers.
I'm a delivery driver and I've seen just about every part of Southbridge. I've delivered in the shitty parts at night. I was very surprised at how much it didn't live up to its reputation. MOST of Southbridge is nice. It's like a mini Worcester.
Lived in Sturbridge for awhile years ago, and found myself going into Southbridge for most things. It's really not that bad from what I remember, though apparently there are now smells from a water treatment plant that weren't an issue when I was in the area though.
Personally if I were looking for a first house in towns surrounding Worcester, I'd try to hold out for a bargain in Oxford or Leicester. Or if you want a more city-type life without being in Worcester, Leominster. You can still find houses for less than $300k in those places. But no, Southbridge is not as miserable as people make it out to be.
It’s also got a school system that was taken over by the state.
Worked there for 4 years. It's FINE. For how economically "not great" it is, crime is relatively low, and safety is high. The back part of town is beautiful, quite literally farm land, and has insanely cheap real estate. (Dresser Hill). Depends what you mean "bad". I'd rather go our in Worcester for dinner, but I'd rather walk down main St Southbridge at night any day to compare. Schools though...
the thing is worcester is so diverse you can’t rly make this statement fully imo. you could say “you’d be better off in main south”, but there’s a lot of great low crime areas in worcester lol.
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Lol I remember trucks getting stuck under the bridge
Hi neighbor!
Southbridge is definitely not anywhere close to as bad as people make it out to be. I think it gets such a shitty reputation because of the town’s large Puerto Rican population which I’m sure doesn’t sit well with the white townies who have been there for generations. There’s not a lot of crime there, but like a lot of towns in Central Mass west of Worcester (Ware, Spencer, Webster, Athol etc), there’s no industry in Southbridge and poverty is a very prevalent there as a result. The schools are also horrible and if you have kids I’d ill advise moving there. Otherwise, if you’re just trying to find an apartment for cheap, it’s not that bad. Everything you need including highway access via 84 and the Mass Pike is pretty close by.
It’s the Fitchburg of west central Mass
Please go away
Have lived in Southbridge most of my life and do not consider myself or my friends poor or trashy, thanks. We have a library, hospital, full time police and fire unlike some surrounding towns. There are two supermarkets, Big Y and Big Bunny on either end of town. The RMV is right in town which is convenient. Crime is not high (I went to law school and had access to those records, and many surrounding towns have more violent crimes and keep them hush hush), and anecdotally I have literally walked through town at 3 am when I was a sixteen year old girl and felt perfectly safe (nothing happened). We have tons of restaurants (mostly pizza and donuts lol). There is community theater. We have Southbridgefest and autumn fest for local crafts and little carnival rides. There is a building where they teach artists on Main St. The Starlite cafe on Hamilton hosts showings for art and photography. There are bars and trivia nights at same. The Pike is literally about five minutes from my house and we have never had a problem getting there. The town/activities are what you make of them. The schools do currently suck. However, you said you don’t currently have children and if you or others considering the town do, school choice is always an option. There’s also a Catholic private school in town for another. Most people who talk smack about Southbridge don’t know the town at all.
Around the rotareeee down by the Hay-Ho?
Over 50% of the population is on some sort of govt assistance.
Slightly north west of Northbridge. Northbridge is north of Uxbridge, I don’t know what bridge is north of Southbridge.
I consider Southbridge to be the closest thing I have to a hometown. To answer your question, it’s reputation as a “dangerous place” or whatever is almost all BS, most of the town is just poor people existing trying to get by. There are also neighborhoods in Southbridge that look like they could be out of any central MA suburb (Dennison Hill area, for example). That said, I’d still struggle to recommend moving there without a compelling reason and I don’t see myself ever moving back. It just has the feel of a dead end place with little to offer of interest. But like others said, if you’re just trying to live your life and you can keep yourself entertained, it’s not an awful choice.
Sturbridge is northwest of Southbridge.
sigh. I miss that bridge. Never the same after they got rid of it.
> There was a pretty decent French restaurant there, not sure if it's still open
It's still open! Great restaurant. Used to go almost weekly in college when he still did lunch. The owner's a family friend and he and his wife are just incredible at what they do.
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Everyone drives a pick up truck and smokes cigarettes! At least from my experiences each time I visited
My kids went to elementary school there (K-2) and every teacher they’ve had were amazing.
the horror stories I heard were of the high school, so maybe the elementary schools aren't bad
Southbridge like many New England towns is a dead mill town. It was once home to the defunct American Optical Co, the town's only major employer. When AO folded so did Southbridge and to add insult to injury, Massachusetts opened a major welfare office there. I'm not going to get into what that does to a community but every negative statistic skyrocketted after that. Southbridge is for the most part an impoverished town with all the problems associated with poverty. It is like some of Worcester's worse neighborhoods.
I don't think it's dangerous. However if you have kids the school system is garbage. I personally wouldn't want my kids in the Southbridge Public school system.
Yes!!! That’s what I was thinking. It’s pretty comparable to Fitchburg. I have worked in both cities… They’re very economically depressed, poorly managed, way too many “human service” sites per capita, and lots of the population seems to have sort of given up.
Best tacos I've ever had can be found at a taco truck in Southbridge. Hell Pain Death tacos? Yes please!
Funny; no one in the Facebook groups ever mentions the smell. Do your research:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/557763081415544
https://www.facebook.com/groups/FocusedOnSouthbridge
Community Television - videos of all Town business
Grew up in Sutton, currently live in Southbridge. Never had any problems with crime ( just be sensible, lock your car and doors)
The school system is abysmal though. My children attended Trinity Catholic Academy. Trinity is a great little school right in the center of town. I would not send my kids to the SB public school system
I go to school in Worcester but live in Southbridge. Basically we don’t really care much about the smell anymore. We kinda just got used to it
Yeah. When I worked at a few that smelled bad at the plant your nose gets accustomed to the smell, but now I’m out of that world it hits me pretty hard lol
Best bbq in the state is one town over.
Southbridge as a whole is definitely better than main south
Ohhhhh is that why Deadham is south of Southampton??
>It’s just run down and kind of shitty™
That could be the slogan for most of central mass
Such as?
[edit] Of course they delete their comment purporting that an alleged friend is a teacher in Southbridge and has seen horrible things in the school, whilst providing no examples.
There are a lot of drugs in southbridge. The main thing I noticed is how run down it is. Some areas are totally a slum. The houses all are falling apart, the stores look like they haven’t changed since the 50s. Just no maintenance ever done.
Ya, anything west of Worcester and some areas of Worcester are very fun down. It’s sad because it’s where all the immigrants have to live.
If you're a single person or don't have kids, there are some nice areas towards Charlton. The school systems are pretty bad!
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Wait til you hear about Southboro/Northboro/Westboro/Marlboro.
Middleboro is the bonus round.
Was this before or after the school system went into receivership by the state?
Metro Bistrot is a solid French restaurant. Fins and Tails is a good restaurant. I wish the Burrito Hut would re-open. Schools are under the direction of the state last I checked. I have never felt unsafe there.
Yes.
It’s a shit hole. There’s two decent areas in the whole town and they’re far away from the “center”
Schools are bad. Hospitals are bad. If you have to commute to work, good luck hope you like traffic 😂
Some areas aren't so safe, like most places. There are still good areas too. Some, really nice.
Hi! I'm weirdly excited right now haha
I don’t even know Southbridge enough to make that statement LMAO I was just saying if they wanted to say that, they need to be more specific about which part of Worcester
went to southbridge public schools for about 7 years. 2nd-8th grade. it wasn't fun.
as an adult, my buddy runs a bar/art gallery that i get to visit now and again. it is pretty fun.
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ya, this sub is definitely not the best place to be asking about southbridge.
Right? Who knew Sbge does Reddit!
Sure it is an old industrial city with closed up industries. You can find a nice neighborhood in or around Southbridge. One thing is this location is about as central to the rest of New England as you could want; I-84 and I-90 go thru town and gets you east and west, I-84 gets you south and west. I-91 is a short drive up I-90 to Springfield for north bound travel.
Can we put that on the bumper sticker? Or a campaign flag?
I live here and I don't find it sad. We have lots of trees and way less cars.
I said some areas. The places with run down houses and abandoned buildings. I personally like old buildings with character but I’ve been in some areas where there just hasn’t been any maintenance done in the buildings in years. I love Worcester too. Beautiful place
Parts of Southbridge really nice!
Fair but there are things to be done in Worcester. I can't think of a single thing to do in Southbridge unless it involves drugs or pounding some hoodrat.
They have the nicest employee shuffle board court in the state
I'm curious what they did at the Worcester plant at the southwest cut off. Growing up that place stunk to high heaven. They overhauled it in some way and it's actually liveable over there now.
Yeah, a lot of Webster sucks but the multi-million dollar mansions help a bit with tax revenue
InevitableUsual4126 t1_jak7mye wrote
Its hit or miss. Some parts of town are rough, some aren't. I don't know Southbridge enough to tell you which is which.