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1. Moorestown, New Jersey After the twins came along, Wall Street professional Nancy Londres, now 41, and her husband Tom decided there was only one place to settle down: her hometown, Moorestown, N.J. Londres' childhood friend Saralee Michaud came home too, leaving Boston to raise her family and work as an assistant county prosecutor. Today Londres and Michaud live around the corner from each other. Just up the road is the produce stand owned by Naoji Moriuchi's family, who have farmed here for three generations. Moriuchi himself returned a few years ago, leaving a marketing career in Wilmington, Del. Now, at 29, he's a real estate agent and a volunteer fire fighter. Who can blame people for wanting to return to Moorestown, MONEY magazine's Best Place to Live for 2005. Top schools. A Main Street made for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Good jobs. Nice homes at reasonable prices. The town, founded by Quakers, bans the sale of alcohol, but there's plenty of night life in Philadelphia, just 15 miles away. As for the schools, the district had to hire another Latin teacher -- yes, Latin -- because the language is so popular. Summer's big event is the town play. Mayor and local lawyer Kevin Aberant will play a marshal in this year's production of "Oklahoma!" Moorestown is a good place to work too. Lockheed Martin's radar-systems division is based here, and Computer Science Corp. and PNC Bank are big local employers. About half the work force commutes to Philadelphia. Easy access to highways means a trip to the Jersey Shore takes less than an hour, and New York City is 90 minutes away in the opposite direction. But because no major road runs through Moorestown, sprawl stops at the town line. That's not to say growth doesn't present challenges. On the border with Mount Laurel, a shopping center anchored by Costco and Target opened last year, increasing traffic through town. And much of Moorestown's farmland has been lost to subdivisions. Home prices are up about 50 percent in the past five years, but compared with the suburbs of many big northeastern cities, Moorestown remains affordable. A four bedroom home within walking distance of town goes for $400,000 to $500,000, and starter homes can be had for much less. |