XR,

No need to read. Just my reflections on the various addresses I stayed in the US. Here I address 2 factors among many #1) commute
#2) exercise facilities

One of the first homes I was given is Hou Li’s home in East Orange. About 15 minutes walk to the train station. About half an hour of wait (even during peak hours) if you miss your train, therefore you must reach train station 10 minutes in advance to play safe. Therefore the commute is absolutely unacceptable to me. I have since avoided any place with such a bad commute. I think many commuters who lived in such locations

*either had very few job choices so they put up with such painful commute and very low salary. They were also too poor to own a car. I heard it from locals.
*or drive to a bigger train station where train frequency is like once every 3 minutes *or can work from home a few times a month.

Most places I stayed have no exercise facilities, except gyms. One place is in a nice neighbourhood in downtown Boston. The street is clean and safe so I would sometimes go out for a jog. Newport is better — near the waterfront so I often went there for a jog. Not as good as the Singapore neighbourhood stadiums.

Hou Li’s place is mostly low-income black but I actually felt fairly comfortable taking a jog there vis-a-vis another part of Brooklyn i.e. Myrtle Avenue, a very outdated, run-down neighbourhood, with mostly low income families. I doubt there’s any Chinese or Indian middle class families though unmarried professionals may like the short commute from there.