Was there renting for a few years, do not recommend. There is something in the water that makes the whole town weird.

Pros:

Good library, nice farmers market in the season.

Cons:

People say good access to whatever highways and train stations, but really they mean pick one and add 10+ minutes local driving to get to another. Pick a place and see how you'd have to drive to get somewhere far away? Along 495 is fine, maybe along 93, but if you want anywhere else you'll have to drive all the way through Tewksbury and Billerica to get to the west of Boston or drive 10 miles down 93. Pretty much every other suburb town has better access to anywhere. To go north locally, you have to drive through south Lowell, which can be a hard drive.

Just getting around town, it's all 38. If you live near 38, you will not sleep peacefully. At night it is a straight stretch of unused road, and road rallys were a frequent occurence. It's a major route so even if it's not a rally there's constantly semi trucks, ricers, pavement princesses, and generally bad sounding cars all hours of the day. Liable to get worse as traffic increases. If you don't live near 38, you'll have to get out of your neighborhood to get to 38, then get somewhere. There is no tram system and the bus system is primarily for 38. They've paved some sections recently but despite it being the biggest road in their town they still can't maintain it well. It will destroy your cars suspension system and you will hate coming home. There is not much in the way of biking to get places, you will most likely be killed.

If you want single family zoning or "dense" """"luxury"""" apartments, great. That's all Tewksbury has. Your rent goes up as much as possible every year and they don't care. Of the complexes I looked at, the cheapest one raised prices over $600/month over two years and never had any vacancy. Consider the people that you'll have living in that town. They're either wage slaves or isolated older lower middle class that tend to be very tribal and only come out of the woodwork to resist change. I met some nice people there but in terms of community it's harder to find. The long term residents had community before it got to be such a mess so they still feel it's available but what they know is not what you will get.

In terms of recreation, you go elsewhere. Every other town or city in the area has better nature to see and better activities to partake in. The restaurants are mid-tier at best. People say they're good but I tried most of them and wasn't very impressed. They're not bad, but not great.

In terms of looks, their town hall is ok, but anything outside of that is commercial hell scape. Nothing but road and roadside businesses. You quickly get the feeling that you're not supposed to be in the town unless you're spending money.

For politics, I can't say much because I'm not a statistician. What I did see was multiple days of massive Trump rallies at the intersection of Main and Livingston (or somewhere near 38 is repetitive) that made me scared to drive, and rolling convoys for Trump going through the town at 3-5mph. Incessant honking, people blocking roads and intimidating drivers, extremely unsafe conditions. No police action, and the rallies were most likely permitted. These are things I saw, not my personal politics. Regardless of my view Tewksbury allows dangerous conditions to develop depending on who's organizing.

And the kicker? They want Andover prices to live there. They offer next to no reason to pick them over any other city or town but expect some of the highest home prices in the county.

Tewksbury is a massive headache to get around and exist in, and a strip mall at its core. It's better to drive past it on the highway than drive down its roads, and better to drive through it than it is to live there. I've only been back a few times and absolutely do not miss it.

If you're looking for that area, consider Billerica first, then Wilmington. Farther north is Lowell. There's also North Reading, and farther away is Chelmsford, North Andover, and Haverhill.

If you really have to live there, the bright spots are Wilmington Transmission for car service, and Villa Roma's barbecue chicken pizza. Notable entries include Vic's Waffle House and the fresh orange juice, Donnas, and the $5 chicken burrito Mondays at Mexica.