Downtown.

Downtown Boston has quietly become a real residential neighborhood. Office-to-residential conversions and towers like those around Downtown Crossing have filled the blocks between the Common and the waterfront with condos, and residents get a version of Boston nobody else does: the Public Garden and Boston Common as a front yard, the Rose Kennedy Greenway as a back one, and the Financial District's restaurants and the waterfront's Harborwalk in between.

Practicality is the pitch. Every rapid transit line in the system converges downtown, South Station handles commuter rail and Amtrak, and Logan is minutes through the tunnel — this is the most connected address in New England. The condo market spans historic mid-rise buildings near the Ladder District to full-service luxury towers with skyline views. Downtown is Boston at its most convenient — for the full citywide context, see our Boston page.