Actually Borehamwood isn't so bad. It's a one-street town as far as shopping goes but there is a wide variety, some decent cafes and restauarants and a sports centre, easy access to countryside and into London.
I was there a few times last month since my brother has moved into Hemel Hempstead a few miles away, which is another town worth considering.
Transport from Borehamwood is OK with frequent buses to surrounding towns and north London, and day saver (Explorer) tickets are available.
The train station is at the northern end of the shops, easy to get to, with frequent trains to London Kings Cross/St Pancras and onwards to Gatwick and Brighton, and northbound to St Albans Luton and Bedford.
There is a lake a couple of miles from town and of course the film studios in town which these days do mostly TV work..
http://www.elstreestudios.co.uk/
Elstree is an adjoining town within the parish of Borehamwood and is the address of the rail station and in the names of a couple of the studios , but a few yards from the station you're in Borehamwood.
There is confusion about the two towns arising mostly because of Borehamwood now being larger than Elstree rather than being Boreham Wood, a small village on the edge of Elstree.
Hence the studios and station were named after the larger place although they are in Borehamwood which is now a town, not a village.
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/els/details.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elstree_Studios
There has been a recent knife attack in the town but crime is generally fairly low, making the recent attack stand out sharply in what is normally a peaceful and safe place to live.
http://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/news/9589610.Shopkeepers_stunned_by_knifepoint_robbery/
There are several churches, a mosque and a synagogue, and a small population of muslims and of Spanish and Portuguese jews, but the ethnic minorities are not in great abundance there as in some other towns like Luton which has a very large Muslim population and an Islamic Education Centre the size of an aircraft hangar and several smaller ones around the town.
Two of the London train bombers came from Luton.
St.Albans is a few minutes up the line from Borehamwood and is a more expensive place to live in.
There are two stations, St Albans City station serving London and Brighton, and northwards to Luton and Bedford, the same line that serves Borehamwood.
The other is St Albans Abbey station, the eastern terminus of a local line called the Abbey Line, with trains to Watford Junction.
Both stations are a long way from the main shopping area and from both there is a steep hill to ascend to get into the city centre.
House prices in St. Albans are very high. Shopping is half decent though and there is a very big street market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
I come from a village a few miles from there and went to school in St Albans. So did Stephen Hawking but we didn't turn out quite the same haha.
Britain's only pope, Nicholas Breakespeare, grew up in St Albans where his father was the Abbot of St Albans Abbey.
The city is named for Alban, a Roman soldier who became Britain's first christian matyr. St Albans Cathedral is built on a site close to where he was executed.
The city has extensive Roman remains, including a hypocaust I helped to excavate along with hundreds of other volunteers, and a pleasant lake and park close to the cathedral, a few minutes walk from the shops.
Beside the lake is the Fighting Cocks pub, a contender for Britain's oldest pub and the starting place of CAMRA.
http://www.yeoldefightingcocks.co.uk/
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2725/4466891796_b405a6b6c8_z.jpg?zz=1