Nassau vs Westchester

The counties are too big to generalize. You'd have to compare town-to-town.

Overall, Nassau's schools still outperform Westchester's. E.g., 95% Regents graduates versus 92%. Thing is, even at county level, there're probably metrics putting it the other way, and those numbers might vary if you counted, say, only districts in commuting distance.

Your Westchester friends must've had their reasons, while somebody else's Nassau friends would have theirs.

How old is the OP? And what ethnicity?
Also, do you work midtown or downtown?
Any of your or your husband's family in the area?

How does one graduate from the City?

As a general rule Westchester is far better than Nassau. The county is better fiscally managed with equal access to Manhattan but better access to New Jersey and Connecticut. In every way it's either equal to or better than Nassau.

Compare the population and area in both counties - very different.

Racist!

If you're a WASP, Westchester is for you.

If you're the least bit "ethnic" and your wife has too much hair and makeup, you'll fit in better on LI.

NYCMatt...I think you mean WASP = Connecticut/Fairfield County. Westchester has huge diversity, just depends on the school districts and specific towns. Other than Rye and Bronxville (Ok a few others too), you'll likely run into a more Jewish population than WASP in the better school districts.

Matt practically lives in Westchester so he would know.

Three words: Locust Valley lockjaw

In my opinion, I think Westchester is better than LI. It seems population is better educated (exclude Yonkers), friendlier and less crazy traffic. LI seems isolated and going to NJ/CT/NY seems a pain.

I have own homes in both Nassau and Westchester- Westchester more desirable areas for raising a family, more convenient and has a varied topography.

The better towns in Westchester, if you can afford the taxes.

The hair comment aside (I'm from a part of the country where we have our own hair passions), I'm sensing Matt is correct. Even my friends who are from more "ethnic" (for lack of a better term) backgrounds and are now another generation and fully "Americanized", some of them grew up in NJ and LI but Westchester seems where they are all moving. Me - this is all pretty new to think about and same goes for my husband.

Are Jewish people allowed to buy a home in Rye or Bronxville. What's the deal with those two town?

Why wouldn't everyone want to live in Nassau, half way to the Hamptons and close enough to Williamsburg and Astoria to be "hip"?

renterjoey, Jewish persons are allowed to buy in Bronxville, but you have to be Catholic to buy in Rye. Jewish persons can buy in Rye-adjacent, though.

renterjoey, while trying to keep this thread clean without any stereotypes or offensive remarks, there's a tremendous amount of truth to the ethnic and religious homogeneity that persists in Rye and Bronxville. This can be said about so many other towns as well, where Scarsdale and Edgemont are mostly Jewish and are homogeneous in their own rights.

Something about Bronxville and Rye, though, that just feel so...darn...White!

Scarsdale has more Asians than Jewish people, FYI

Interesting how some urban-legend characteristics pan out. E.g., in the census, Bronxville has 32% with a graduate degree, while Scarsdale has 45%.

In Bronxville, 26% checked the "Irish ancestry" box, but only 10% in Scarsdale.

http://www.westchestertowns.com/php/Demographics/Demographics.php?area=10708,10583&set=2

The UJA's study at http://www.ujafedny.org/geographic-profile-report/ lumps Bronxville into a "peripheral areas" category, apparently not worth counting.

To add to anecdote, white-bread theoretically-Jewish friends in Mt. Vernon, 100 feet from Bronxville, say "it's just so ... white-bread over there. Some kind of weird self-selection, I guess...."

Which has a more significant low class Jersey Shore redneck hick contingent?

No surprise that that's what you're looking for, dumbbell.

You can take the boy out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the boy.

Well dealboy, according to some here, Westchester has better access to New Jersey.

where might a particularly dumb boy feel most at home?

NWT, I think Bronxville is misleading. Bronxville PO doesn't guarantee Bronxville schools. Much of it falls within the Yonkers school district. Which generally sucks.

Is the Bronxville ZIP coterminus with the Village of Bronxville?

Westchester is jurisdiction-heavy. PO/town/school seem to never coincide. So the broker's sites let you search by whichever, and your tax bill is a mish-mash of those, plus fire districts, water districts, and so on.

At the end of the day, what I was told and seems to make sense is that Westchester is for people moving from Manhattan and Nassau is for people from Queens.

See http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html for some county-to-county numbers.

That says there're more going to Westchester than to Nassau. If Nassau was two counties, with the LIE as the boundary, the numbers might be different.

> LIE as the boundary

Parking lot!

That map is hard to use, because Manhattan is too small to see on it.

The data is at http://www.irs.gov/file_source/pub/irs-soi/co0910ony.xls, where you can see the migrated-to counties, with the migrant count, average family size, and average Adjusted Gross Income.

Here're the top counts:

Kings County 11,765
Bronx County 8,192
Queens County 6,394
Hudson County 2,428
Westchester County 2,197
Los Angeles County 1,707
Nassau County 1,389
Bergen County 1,342
Fairfield County 1,204
Suffolk County 961
Cook County 905
San Francisco County 884
District of Columbia 776
Essex County 735
Philadelphia County 723
Miami Dade County 656

Migrants to Fairfield had highest average AGI for close-in counties, at $212K, then Westchester at $144K and Nassau at $132K.

Interesting NWT, C0lumbia C0unty isn't even on that list.

It is, but much further down. 68 families moved there from Manhattan in 2009-2010.

FL Pinellas County 73
NJ Burlington County 72
NY Sullivan County 72
PA Delaware County 71
MO St Louis County 70
TX Tarrant County 69
DE New Castle County 68
NY Columbia County 68
PA Luzerne County 65
CA Contra Costa County 64
PA Chester County 62
TX Bexar County 61
CT New London County 60
FL Duval County 60

NWT: So many counties, so many noms de se.

idiot

c0lumbiac0unty moved to C0lumbia C0unty in early 2009.

Long Island will hold value better. It has Hamptons on one side a Queens on the other.

It really should be Nassau vs. Greenwich, CT Darien CT.