Allston.

Allston is Boston at its youngest and loudest — a neighborhood shaped by students, musicians, and first-jobbers, with one of the city's best cheap-eats scenes packed along Harvard Avenue and Brighton Avenue. The housing stock is classic streetcar Boston: triple-deckers and brick apartment blocks near the avenues, condo conversions on the side streets, and a genuine investment market in multi-family buildings that turn over on the September rental calendar. For buyers, Allston is one of the last places inside Boston where a first condo or an owner-occupied multi-family still pencils out.

The Green Line's B branch runs the length of Commonwealth Avenue, the 66 bus connects Harvard Square to Brookline through the middle of the neighborhood, and the Mass Pike's Allston interchange puts downtown and MetroWest both within reach. The biggest story here is Harvard's expanding Allston campus — the Science and Engineering Complex and the growing Enterprise Research Campus are steadily reshaping the neighborhood's western edge, bringing labs, parks, and new mixed-use blocks. Allston is one of Boston's most distinctive neighborhoods — for the citywide picture, visit our Boston page.