Places to live in Southern Connecticut?

I am considering graduate school in New Haven. i would be relocating from Brooklyn, NY with my husband. i would like my commute to school to be 45-60minutes and the commute into mid-town manhattan to be under 60 minutes too by metronorth. does anyone have any suggestions on areas that are good for a young family? we really want an area that has a good balance of suburbia but where we can still get a cup of coffee at a cafe. so basically, we don't want to live in a city but we also don't want to be in the middle of nowhere.

Public Comments

1. Southern CT is more densely populated. I am from northern CT but still know stuff. Check out towns around Milford, Stratford.
2. Based on your travel criteria, you'll want to stick to lower fairfield county. Any place in fairfield county will be within an hour of New Haven, however if you want to be able to get to the city on the train in less than an hour, you'll need to stick to the lowest, and most expensive part of the county. If you want to get to the city in an hour, you should live no farther up the line than Norwalk. However keep in mind that the farther south towards the city you go from there, the more expensive it will get. If you want to stick to really nice pricey towns along the shore, don't go any farther than fairfield. That will be a little bit more than an hour from the city however. If you can sacrifice being an hour from the city and move a little farther north into fairfield county or even just across the line to new haven county, you will save a significant amount.