I came across a great article written in the New York Times back in March of '99. Eleanor Charles writes about the town of Danbury, CT "

A middle-of-the-road community, with few super-rich or very poor residents, ''it is as resilient as a community can be,'' said Gene F. Eriquez, the city's five-term Mayor. ''Diversity is our strength -- in our economy, and in the 75 different ethnic groups in our population.''

The city's housing stock, which dates from the 18th century, has attracted commuters, summer-home buyers, corporate transferees and others for its prices -- about a third lower than comparable homes in lower Fairfield County, its variety of architectural styles and neighborhoods and the beauty of the countryside.

Over the last five years, as prices rose and interest rates dropped, home buyers have found a wide selection, from $17,000 mobile-home resales to new luxury residences, at least one priced at $1.4 million.

Since early last year, more than 1,000 detached homes and condominium units have been built or are still under construction. They are being sold predominantly to nonresidents. ''People moving in have higher incomes than local people,'' explained Richard Jowdy, a broker with Prudential Connecticut Realty.

Earlier this month, 101 homes are for sale priced under $300,000, and only 46 are priced over $300,000 ''reflecting the fact that most housing in Danbury is older, in established neighborhoods,'' said Allyson J. Bernard, partner at Real Estate Professionals, a local real estate brokerage.

But most buyers want new construction and because buildable land is fast disappearing, developers are putting up bigger, more ostentatious houses to compensate for the cost of the lots. The shortage, said Ms. Bernard, ''is causing bidding wars.''

Prices in the back country, where open land still exists, are especially vulnerable to high costs. ''Environmentalists are dictating what you can build on,'' said Ellen Boyle, a Prudential broker. ''If you have wetlands you have to take more land, pushing real estate values up.'' According to Dorothy Charney of ReMax Unlimited Real Estate, ''the average new construction is in the $550,000 to $800,000 range.''

Joseph Novella, a local developer, says that Danbury ''is awash in corporate transferees.'' Cendant Mobility, an employee-reclocation company; I.B.M. and Boehringer Ingelheim, a pharmaceutical company, are some of the major sources of home buyers.

With his partner, Ginsberg Development Corporation of Danbury, he is building 24 custom homes of 3,600 to 4,500 square feet on two-acre lots at Shoreview Estates on Candlewood Lake. Eleven houses priced from $575,000 to $850,000 have been sold and occupied; one 6,800-square-foot Victorian was sold for $1.4 million. The 94-acre subdivision contains a residents' beach, one boat slip for each house and a boat launch.

Back-country Danbury is studded with more than a dozen lakes and ponds and four reservoirs, and along the winding roads and wooded hills are numerous antique homes and former farms. Large handsomely restored older homes scattered through the town are also selling well. Daniel Elysee, an investment specialist from New York, paid more than $500,000 for a 4,800-square-foot house with pool built in the 50's on three acres.

TWO subdivisions are under construction by Toll Brothers, of Huntingdon, Pa. -- Westville Estates with 31 four-bedroom customized homes on lots of up to two acres selling from the high $300,000's to the mid-$400,000's and Ridgebury Hills with 90 homes priced from $300,000 to $320,000. Models are expected to open in May and contracts have been signed on nearly a dozen houses to be completed in August.

Other choices include two-bedroom town houses at Lake Place, an established 160-unit condominium community on Kenosia Lake, where Ellen Goodwill, product director of marketing for Boehringer Ingelheim, bought a unit for $195,000. ''It's like coming home to a little resort,'' she said, ''with the lake and pool.''

Philip Edelstein recently bought a new $250,000 home at Sterling Woods, a 354-unit mix of 77 detached houses and 277 town-house units with a pool, fitness center and clubhouse. ''I work out four times a week with a gentleman two doors away,'' he said. ''We've become buddies.''

The rental shortage is being addressed by Avalon Bay Properties with two apartment complexes, the 268-unit Avalon Valley with 268 units on the east side of town near the junction of Routes 6 and 7 and Interstate 84 and the 128-unit Avalon Lake near Kenosia Lake, both under construction for a summer opening.

Danbury's downtown has been enlivened with new shops, sidewalk cafes, and nightclubs. Restaurants and ethnic food shops located all over the city cater to tastes from every part of the globe. Restaurants at the high end include Ondine, with French cuisine, and La Fortuna's, serving Italian cuisine.

Main Street -- where a four-block stretch from White Street to Park Place is on the National Register of Historic Places -- has had its landscaped divider restored, and nearby a new $8 million ice rink is to open in late spring. A $5.6 million expansion of City Hall is nearing completion, and the public library has been renovated, computerized and enlarged. To facilitate the movement of traffic, ''we are upgrading 53 intersections throughout the city,'' said Mayor Eriquez.

Some unusual diversions include the Danbury Railroad Museum at the restored former railway station. It was the setting for the Hitchcock thriller ''Strangers on a Train.'' The Scott-Fanton Museum & Historical Society features memorabilia and 60 antique quilts and an outdoor display of boardable tanks is one of the features at the Military Museum.

In summer there are jazz concerts at Danbury Green and year-round concerts are performed at Western Connecticut State University's Charles Ives Center for the Arts, named for the Danbury composer. Movies are available at a new 10-screen Loews Theater, where an additional 10 screens are planned.

Sports activities include an 18-hole golf course at Richter Park. Residents pay $18 a day or $675 a season, nonresidents are charged $48 a day or $1,675 a season. The park also has a summer theater, two tennis courts, fishing, and hiking trails.

Danbury has 1,950 acres of open space, 557 acres of it developed as 16 parks and playgrounds offering bird-watching, hiking, swimming, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, wading pools, bowling, and a nature center. Rogers Park has eight tennis courts, lighted until 10:30 P.M.; 10 ballfields, a paddleball court, skating pond, handball, and playground. Resident tennis passes cost $15 a season, $5 for students, $30 for nonresidents.

Resident passes for swimming, picnicking, and the beach at the 5,420-acre Candlewood Lake cost $15; daily passes are $3. Nonresident guests pay $6 a day. Use of the residents-only boat ramp costs $15 a season, or $5 a day.

Retail sales receipts for the year ending Nov. 30, 1998, were $4.02 billion, making Danbury the undisputed shopping mecca of Connecticut, outstripping Stamford, its nearest rival, by about $2.6 billion. Hundreds of big-box and small stores, auto dealers, and strip shopping centers have spread out from the 1.5 million square-foot Danbury Fair Mall, which replaced the Great Danbury Fair in 1987, along Federal Road and Route 6 to the Brookfield border.

THE city's 15 million square feet of industrial and office space in several commercial parks, help maintain the lowest unemployment rate in the state, at 1.9 percent. To accommodate local business growth a Comfort Inn and a Marriott Residence Inn are under construction and a Radisson hotel and a Hilton Gardens recently opened.

To accommodate the 48 percent of Danbury's children who speak languages other than English, the public schools focus on remedial programs and parent involvement, while offering gifted, talented and advanced placement courses to qualified students. More than 81 percent of high school graduates go on to higher education.

A total of 8,916 pupils attend 13 elementary schools, two middle schools, one high school and one alternate high school for students who need special help. S.A.T.'s of 477 math and 483 verbal are below state averages of 503 and 505, respectively.

Among private schools in town are a Montessori School for children 6 weeks to 10 years old, at $130 to $240 a week and the k-12 Wooster School, a co-ed college preparatory day school founded in 1926, with an enrollment of 370. Tuition ranges from $9,000 to $15,000 a year.

Information about numerous day-care services, nursery schools, Christian and Jewish parochial schools may be obtained by calling the Community Resource Center at (203) 797-4733.