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Windermere #1 Top-Choice Town
For Families With Children
NeighborhoodScout has issued a special
report identifying Florida's 10 best towns for families and children.
The report combines data from the National Center for Education Statistics,
the U. S. Bureau of Census, the FBI, the U. S. Justice Department and the
Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
Dr. Andrew Schiller, a specialist in American demographics and the creator
of the NeighborhoodScout search engine for home buyers, used NeighborhoodScout to analyze government data to identify the
communities in Florida that have the best overall combination of attributes
parents and researchers repeatedly cite as important in defining the best
places for families with children.
His work has produced a list of the top choice towns for families in
Florida.
Here are NeighborhoodScout's top-choice towns for families
with children in the Sunshine State:
1. Windermere
2. Boca Raton
3. Winter Springs
4. Key Biscayne
5. Longwood
6. Orange Park
7. Fort Lauderdale (west of the Florida Turnpike)
8. Jupiter
9. Oviedo
10. Naples
These top towns range in price, setting and location,
from the very expensive to average price relative to Florida, from smaller
suburban towns to densely populated areas, and from the Jacksonville
vicinity to south Florida. The panhandle was included in the research, but
no towns there made the elite list of top 10.
"We were looking for those very select communities that have both
top-quality public schools and an exceptionally family-friendly environment,
not towns that may excel at one or two criteria but are lacking in other
ways." Schiller said.
For this research, the criteria used included quality public schools, safety
from crime, a high proportion of families with children in the community,
many adults with college degrees or even advanced degrees, many families who
own their homes, and homes that are predominantly single-family residences,
regardless of the setting being urban, suburban or rural. Median house
values were included to find the family-friendly towns that qualify as best
values for the money in each metropolitan area.
"Home ownership is important because research has shown that it helps keep
crime lower, and represents an investment in the location by those living
there," Schiller said. High educational attainment by adults in the
community is a good indicator that the populace places a high degree of
importance on education, and is well equipped to make key decisions about
the future of the community.
Many families with children in the town signifies that other families have
selected the town as a good place to raise their children, and helps to
promote a family-friendly environment with good social networks for both
children and their parents.
