I had many friends who lived in Davis, it really only made sense if you went to Tufts or worked north of the city. Besides that rents were inflated because of Tufts and you are pretty far removed from Boston proper.
It's been about 4 years since I checked, but at the time, Davis was significantly cheaper than Central/Harvard or anything downtown.
It's about a 20-25 minute subway ride on the red line from Davis to downtown. Judge for yourself if that's too far. It's definitely more removed from things than the Harvard/Central/Kendall area, but that's nothing compared to some of the commutes that people are willing to put up with in the Bay Area (where it's an hour, with no traffic, to get from San Francisco to Mountain View).
The other thing I liked about Davis is that there seemed to be a burgeoning micro-startup scene there, with a lot of tech minded people working out of coffeeshops. Granted, that was 2006-07, so I'm not sure if it's still there. But there were many more young people than in, say, Central Square or downtown.
It's about a 20-25 minute subway ride on the red line from Davis to downtown. Judge for yourself if that's too far. It's definitely more removed from things than the Harvard/Central/Kendall area, but that's nothing compared to some of the commutes that people are willing to put up with in the Bay Area (where it's an hour, with no traffic, to get from San Francisco to Mountain View).
The other thing I liked about Davis is that there seemed to be a burgeoning micro-startup scene there, with a lot of tech minded people working out of coffeeshops. Granted, that was 2006-07, so I'm not sure if it's still there. But there were many more young people than in, say, Central Square or downtown.