There are many perks to living in the suburbs, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic.
With many people spending more time at home, living in a residential area on the outskirts of a larger city provides more space to spread out. A yard to lounge in and access to entertainment without the small living spaces associated with the city are some of the benefits of living in suburbia.
Financial news and opinion website 24/7 Wall St. developed a weighted index of 11 measures to pinpoint the best suburb in all 50 states. Among the measures were commute time, home size, crime rates and affordability. The site took data on measures from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the FBI’s 2019 Uniform Crime Report and the 2020 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps.
For their analysis, suburbs were considered “all cities, towns, villages, boroughs, and Census-designated places with populations of between 2,000 and 100,000 residents that fall within the boundaries of a metropolitan statistical area,” according to their methodology. “MSAs are a Census-defined geography consisting of a core city and its adjacent communities, meant to approximate economic zones. The principal city of a metropolitan area was not considered a suburb.”
If a suburb performed particularly well in the measures compared to the closest major city, they were ranked higher in the index.
In Georgia, Milton was the suburb that got the best in all measures.
The north Fulton city, which is just over 30 miles north of Atlanta, has a population of 38,171. It’s considered very safe since it has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the nation.
While safety sets Milton apart from other suburbs on 24/7 Wall St.’s list, its relative affluence makes it similar to them. Households typically earn around $125,000 annually.
“Well geared toward families, the typical house in Milton has eight rooms, compared to fewer than five in Atlanta,” 24/7 Wall St. reported of the city, which was incorporated in 2006. “Area residents also have access to a healthy job market, as just 3.1% of the labor force is out of work.”
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