Moorestown Living Gets 'A-Plus' Grade In New Ratings

MOORESTOWN, NJ — Living in Moorestown gets an "A-plus," according to community ratings recently released by Niche that placed the township first in Burlington County.

Niche.com, which ranks school districts and locales across the nation through various criteria, unveiled its annual Best Places to Live in America rankings last week.

• Related: 5 NJ Towns Ranked Among Best Places to Live In America

Along with providing an overall grade, Niche also graded cities and towns across 12 different categories.

Moorestown got an A-plus in two categories: public schools and suitability for families. The township's lowest mark was a C-plus for cost of living.

Here's how Niche graded Moorestown:

• overall: A+
• public schools: A+
• housing: B
• good for families: A+
• jobs: B+
• cost of living: C+
• outdoor activities: A
• crime and safety: B
• nightlife: B+
• diversity: B
• weather: B-
• health and fitness: A
• commute: B+

Niche has released Best Places to Live rankings for more than a decade, including more than 18,000 communities in the latest iteration. According to the online platform, the lists provide insight for anyone making key life decisions on where to live or attend school.

"Where you live shapes so many aspects of your life, from career opportunities to the sense of community you feel," Niche CEO Luke Shurman said in a statement. "At Niche, we are proud to provide rankings that empower people to make informed decisions based on what matters most to them, whether that’s great schools, affordability, or access to parks and local businesses."

Niche combines millions of online reviews from residents with data from sources such as the U.S. Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the CDC. Read more about Niche's methodology.

But Niche's report cards and similar efforts to rank communities have their critics, including at least one of Niche's data sources. The FBI, which reports crime statistics in locales across the nation, has warned against using the information to compare one place to another.

"Data users should not rank locales because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place," the FBI says. "UCR (uniform crime reporting) statistics include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crime, clearance, or arrest data. Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale."

Niche also places heavy emphasis on comparing schools. But critics of school rankings have framed them as reductive and, in some cases, harmful. U.S. News & World Report began ranking colleges in 1983, and other media outlets and platforms have since picked up the trend of ranking schools and districts.

"The reason they started doing it back in the early 1980s under the guidance of a man named Mel Elfin, was because it was a brilliant business strategy," James Fallows, a former U.S. News editor, told NPR in 2021. "By appealing to the human desire for rankings and knowing where you stand and where somebody else stands, they were able to make a very strong part of their business, which is now basically the only part of their business."

Here are Niche's full Places to Live Rankings.