Aobadai

Anyone know anything about Aobadai town, just outside of Tokyo? I've heard it's 25 min by train to Shibuya.

Suburban area of Yokohama city, Kanagawa prefecture, near the border with Tokyo. Many people commute to central Tokyo for work- 25 minutes to Shibuya on the express train. It's also at the end of the Yokohama subway line. Nothing outstanding about it that I can remember- typical dormitory suburb.

I've been there.
Nothing special. It's just a commuter town and
not a place to visit unless you have friends over there, I think.

And according to my memory, it's NOT the end of Yokohama City Subway.
The end of it is Azamino, unless it has extended its railway, but I think it's not likely.

If you have any specific question, maybe I can answer you.
If you are thinking of living there, I think it's a nice town but
you definitely have to get on the notoriously crammed train on morning and evening.
You can avoid it by taking local trains but it takes 35-40mins to Shibuya,
and it is not so comfortable even if you take this local one,
so the majority takes the crammed express.

dice-geist, you're right. I always confuse Aobadai and Azamino as far as the trains go. Other than that everything I said about Aobadai stands :-)

I am mulling over job offers and one of them is located there, so I was wondering about working and living in the area, and its accessibility to Tokyo.

Besides that, I'm pretty clueless about good areas to live just outside of Tokyo that are reasonably affordable and have good access to the city.

Just about anywhere within about 30-40 minutes of Tokyo fits your criteria. If you live in north or east Tokyo or Saitama the rents are probably even more reasonable than Kanagawa.

The Greater Tokyo area is extremely well served by public transport, so almost everywhere in the area is accessible and you can be in central Tokyo fairly easily.

It's accessibility to Tokyo is good enough considering it's room fee compared with central Tokyo area.
You can go to almost everywhere within central Tokyo area in a hour or so.

There are some nice restaurants and shops to by things so
you can get things done to some extent within Aobadai town.

It's a rather peaceful, quiet, and maybe sleepy town so many would like living and working there,
but those who want urban life would hate it.

I lived in Miyamae-ward of Kawasaki which is about seven stations from Aobadai towards Shibuya on the Denentoshi-line.

I went out towards Aobadai a few times on the way to Chuo-Rinkan and I found it to be a good place for families. As mentioned, you can do some shopping there (bookstores, restaurants, Uniqlo) but for me, it's proximity to Yokohama and Tokyo make it a winner for me. Of course it'd depend on what you're looking for exactly and your personality but I wouldn't hesitate for a second if you were looking for a nice, quiet place to live.