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A town where the HS graduating class is about 25. Every boy who goes out for footballl makes the team and rides the bus Friday nights. Plain girls are cheerleaders. At home, kids can play outside after dark, make up their own rules, and actually see the stars. You know their playmates' parents. Where seasons are summer and winter.
There are lots of "best places to raise a family" lists on the internet. For example, this one. Be sure to look at the methodology to see if they are ranking cities along metrics that align with your values. The list should also pass the "giggle test" -- so if a bunch of cities are listed that just don't make sense to you then it's probably not a good ranking for your purposes.
I'd say a middle-class suburb. Either mid-sized city. Or a little quiet town that's nearby other towns with lots of things to do.
I know you want to move to a nice place to raise your kids in a good environment. But you may not want it to be too nice. You don't want to be the brokest family in a rich neighborhood for example.
Any school district where all of the schools are rated 8-10 on greatschools.org.
Unfortunately, factors like culture are hard to measure. There are perfectly safe neighborhoods with good test scores where the schools are toxic and full of bullying.
I'm not exactly sure how to measure these things apart from maybe asking a lot of people who live there about their children's experiences.
Ridgewood; Montclair; Maplewood; West Orange, New Jersey (North Jersey)
Lots of area North and Northwest of Chicago like Evanston, Uptown and Lincoln Park
Red Bank, New Jersey (Central Jersey)
Silver Springs, Georgetown, Alexandria, DMV area (Washington DC)
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