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CNN/Money.com recently named Franklin, MA, as the 10th best place to live in its Top 100 Places to Live in the United States. That's a tall order, given there are so many great places to live in the U.S.!
We live a few towns over from Franklin and know it as a very nice town with a great sense of history. It's got a true small town feel, but so do many other towns around here like Wrentham, Walpole, Norfolk, Medway, Medfield and Millis. What do you like, or don't like about Franklin and do you feel its top ranking as a best place to live is accurate?
Last edited by CaseyB; 08-17-2008 at 08:48 AM..
Reason: no links to blogs outside of C-D, please
CNN/Money.com recently named Franklin, MA, as the 10th best place to live in its Top 100 Places to Live in the United States. That's a tall order, given there are so many great places to live in the U.S.!
We live a few towns over from Franklin and know it as a very nice town with a great sense of history. It's got a true small town feel, but so do many other towns around here like Wrentham, Walpole, Norfolk, Medway, Medfield and Millis. What do you like, or don't like about Franklin and do you feel its top ranking as a best place to live is accurate?
My family lives in Franklin, and we love it here. It appears that this particular CNN poll names it as a Top 10 place to "live & launch". Several years ago, Family magazine (I think that was it?) listed Franklin as a Top Ten to raise a family. Having said that, "Top Ten" might be a bit of a stretch in some regards. The schools here are decent, but massively underfunded, in my opinion. Recently the town failed to pass an override, which resulted in approx. 45 teachers losing their jobs...and other losses of service. But, to be honest, I see similar actions happening in many towns across MA, so it's not just a Franklin thing.
On the other hand, I will say that Franklin is such a friendly, welcoming town. There are some amazing people here, and I am not just saying that. I have experienced it first-hand, since moving here a year & 1/2 ago. The library is great, nice restaurants & shopping, local delis and pizza shops, a downtown that is trying to expand for the community, farmer's markets on the common, Franklin Newcomer's Club (awesome way to make new friends), great gyms, state parks with walking/biking trails, ponds for fishing and birdwatching, 2 train stations, Dean College...it's all here. Still, the greatest asset of Franklin is the population of fun, social, civic-minded residents...my neighbors.
What do you like, or don't like about Franklin and do you feel its top ranking as a best place to live is accurate?
"Best place to live" is always subjective, but look at it this way: Massachusetts is a very nice state to live in (ever been to Oklahoma? West Virginia? Wyoming?). Franklin is a nice town with a nice downtown, good schools, and proximate to a world-class city. Bottom line: there are lots and lots of places in the U.S. that are not as good as Franklin, MA
Franklin is nice but I can think of towns in MA with way "better" schools, library, town center, retaurants, etc. Lots of things about Franklin are good but not great. Schools are good but not in the top decile. The library is housed in a wonderful old historic building but the collection is weak and the interior is in terrible need of updating (my standard is the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington which reminds me of a college library). The town center is really trying to bring more small retail in so that it offers a lot more but it's having trouble making it happen (big new EMPTY building was just built). And the reaturants - while slowly adding more choice like In Contro and Three - are pretty much all red sauce Italian places (it's no Arlington, Waltham, Wellesley, etc when it comes to dining here!)
But here's what I LOVE about Franklin - the people are so friendly, the proximity to Providence, Boston and the Cape is just wonderful and there is an amazing school for the performing arts that is building a new campus that will expand it's already amazing programs. It's a big (30,000 residents over 27 square miles) town that feels like a small town. It's safe, clean and parts of it are very pretty.
It's a special place - but by most conventional measures (schools, retsurants, library, etc) I think it can't hold a candle to towns like Wellesley, Lexington, Belmont, etc.
I would NEVER want to live in Franklin or any of the suburbs. All it is is trees and woods and rich people and the suburbs are 99.9% white so I would never fit in either. Its boring too cause everyone is the same there is no diversity at all.
"Best place to live" is always subjective, but look at it this way: Massachusetts is a very nice state to live in (ever been to Oklahoma? West Virginia? Wyoming?). Franklin is a nice town with a nice downtown, good schools, and proximate to a world-class city. Bottom line: there are lots and lots of places in the U.S. that are not as good as Franklin, MA
It is very subjective. I've lived in in Massachusetts and Oklahoma, and I'll take Oklahoma any day of the week over Massachusetts
With all these reports... key is look very carefully at the criteria.
Have you noticed that every single amusement park has something about their roller coaster? .... "biggest", "tallest", fastest", "highest", ....
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