West Hartford, Farmington, Cromwell Earn "Top Town" Titles

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 West Hartford has been ranked as the Greater Hartford region's number one community in a new analysis published in the June issue of Hartford magazine.   Rounding out the top 10, in order, are South Windsor, Glastonbury, Manchester, Bristol, Farmington, Simsbury, Middletown, Avon and Enfield. The publication is produced by CT1Media, which also publishes The Hartford Courant.

The rankings are based on information highlighting more than three dozen factors, from school test scores to crime rate, property taxes to median home price, voter turnout to number of retail establishments. In 12 overall categories, the data was weighted to determine rankings broken down by small, medium and large towns, in addition to the overall results.

 top towns

  • The top-ranked large towns (over 30,000 population) are West Hartford, South Windsor, Glastonbury, Manchester and Bristol.  
  • The leading medium-sized towns (15,000-30,000 population) are Farmington, Simsbury, Avon, Berlin and Southington.
  • The top small towns (under 15,000 population) are Cromwell, Granby, Canton, Burlington, and East Granby.

Here’s the breakdown of the champions, by category (and size), according to Hartford magazine:

  • Best for Families/Schools: West Hartford (large), Simsbury (medium), and Granby (small).
  • Best for Seniors: West Hartford (large), Farmington (medium), and Cromwell (small).
  • Young and Hip: Hartford (large), Southington (medium), and Hebron (small).
  • City Living: Hartford (large), Southington (medium), and Cromwell (small).
  • Country Living: Glastonbury (Large), Simsbury (medium), and Granby (small).
  • Bang for the Buck: Bristol (large), Windsor (medium), and Windsor Locks (small).
  • Most Affluent:  West Hartford (large), Avon (medium), and Granby (small).
  • Most Educated:  West Hartford (large), Farmington (medium), and East Granby (small).
  • Lowest Crime:  Glastonbury (large), Simsbury (medium), and Hartland (small).
  • Leisure Life:  Hartford (large), Simsbury (medium), and Hebron (small).
  • Fastest Growing: Hartford (large), Southington (medium), and Cromwell (small).

West Hartford, en route to earning the top spot, finished first in five categories, second place in four, along with two fifth place finishes (Country Living and Lowest Crime) and one sixth place (Bang for the Buck).  Among the medium sized towns, Simsbury won four categories, and Southington and Farmington each  won three.   Among the small towns, Cromwell won four categories and Granby won three.

In addition to the rankings, the magazine outlines how they arrived at the rankings, explaining that data was gathered from a number of sources, “including the schools (we parsed 84 individual test score results for each town), town profiles compiled by Connecticut Economic Resource Center (www.cerc.com), Connecticut State Department of Education, Connecticut Secretary of the State and Nielson Pop-Facts 2013.”