Huntington at Dartmouth is the Copley Square section of the Back Bay. You weren't "wrong" to see that as southwest of downtown, but the core of Boston is very small and Back Bay is still downtown in the more general sense of the word. The Charles River at the edge of the Back Bay section is the northern boundary of the city.

For commuting via public transit, that area would be convenient to the subway system's Green or Orange Lines, or the 3 Commuter Rail lines that stop at Back Bay station.

For commuting by car, it's very convenient to Route 90 (AKA the "Mass Pike") and reasonably convenient to Route 93 from the north or south. I want to reiterate gail's comments about commuting times typically being multiples of Mapquest-type time estimates.

Brookline would be my first choice. It's semi-urban, feels like a neighborhood in Boston, has 2 T lines but has excellent schools. It's also extremely expensive.

The west suburbs are the nicest in IMO, but, as with Brookline, very $$. Newton, Wellesley, Needham, Weston, Lexington, Winchester, Westwood and Natick are all top notch and fairly easy commutes into the city.

You might also check out Dedham and Norwood to the south. They are less expensive than the rest but still offer good school systems and east access to Boston.

Anonymous, I am glad we agree on Milton.

Gail, I don't really feel that I "danced around" the issue of race, at least in Milton.

Others are quite right to emphasize the importance of commuting in deciding on housing. Commuting from south of Braintree (e.g., Weymouth)is awful. Commuting from the northern suburbs to a job in the southern suburbs and vice versa is awful. Commuting by MBTA/train to downtown is better than commuting by car, especially to a place like Huntington Avenue, where there is no affordable parking. Commuting from downtown to Route 128 is excellent (I went from the Waterfront to Newton Lower Falls for ten years. Commuting from Milton to Newton Lower Falls on 128 took 25 minutes to an hour and a quarter, completely unpredictably.

One other factor that hits a lot of people from the West hard is that much of the more affordable housing stock that is conveniently located is older, pre-WWII and often pre-WWI. Fortunately, you are from Jersey, so you are prepared for the fact that the kinds of subdivisions you see in the southwest are really rare.

LOL, Ackislander, our paths cross again! Decades ago, I reverse-commuted on the Express bus from Copley Square to Newton; sometimes I had the whole bus to myself and of course on the Pike it took about 10 minutes.

Also, that's a good point about housing; earlier today, I was talking to my daughter who now lives in a state where 30-year-old housing is considered "older," whereas around here, that's "newer."

2 things -
I feel compelled to chime in on the post who said pretty nasty things about Boston. I grew up in New Jersey and Long Island. Compared with the NYC metro area, Boston is a 'kinder genteler' place. I said compared to NYC - it is not the midwest...
Now that you said the workplace is BackBay, I would check the commuter rail lines that stop in Back Bay which are generally from the western suburbs, see the link below.

http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/rail/

Now is a very good time to buy in this area.

human recourses, if available at his Boston location should help. Do you have any financial burden? for example, driving into his area in Boston - parking is expensive. Will he be subsidized or offered discounted parking thru the company. If not, then consider something along the Back Bay station commuter rail and green lines. Some of those towns, although expensive, may have rentals available that are within walking distance to the train, so you could be a one vehicle family.

I'm stumped to think of communites outside the inner city where a bi-racial family would be noticed. Maybe I'm naive.