This NJ Town Named Among Money’s 50 Best Places To Live

NEW JERSEY — One town in the Garden State was named among the 50 Best Places to Live in America, according to a recent report from Money.

Money said the 50 places on the list, released earlier this month, offer affordability, good schools and strong job markets, and are places with “a palpable spirit, nurtured and sustained by engaged citizens and receptive public officials.”

In a departure from previous years, Money did not rank the places but instead grouped them into five categories highlighting their strengths: suburbs with soul, best-kept secrets, new boomtowns, not just college towns, and culture hubs.

In New Jersey, Metuchen was recognized in the Suburbs With Soul category. Money said the small commuter town is giving other suburbs a run for their money with an award-winning main street, Middlesex Greenway walking path and highly-rated public school district.

“Unlike most areas of busy Central Jersey, Metuchen is a walker’s paradise where residents can run errands without a car,” Money wrote. “What’s more, the borough’s direct train line can take you to New York City (and every stop along the way) in just under an hour, whether you’re commuting on the daily or making a day trip to the Big Apple.”

Collectively, the cities and towns on the list are a “blueprint for the future,” Money said.

The report is based on data on such things as the health of the job market, average housing costs, the percentage of residents living in poverty and the quality of public schools, as well as reader polls. But, the editors acknowledged, things that make a town or a city worth living in can’t always be quantified.

To expand the report, Money also considered a breadth of research from public policy and advocacy groups, such as the American Planning Association, Brookings, Main Street America and the Project for Public Spaces, supplemented by data from Moody’s Analytics, SchoolDigger, Realtor.com, the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and others.