Brookline

Despite being completely surrounded by Boston [1], the large town of Brookline maintains a clearly separate identity. As soon as you cross the town line, the streets get leafier and the houses get bigger. Brookline residents pride themselves on living a quasi-urban lifestyle while still enjoying the suburban benefits of good schools and green space.

Sophisticated but proudly unhip, the neighborhood’s crossroads of Coolidge Corner is like a more adult Harvard Square [2], where you are more apt to run into a professor than a student.

Brookline is also home to one of the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel and Palm Beach—a fact evident from all of the kosher delis, temples, and Hebrew bookstores that line its streets.