The best towns for raising kids

I wouldn't want to raise kids there that's for sure.

How about Hanover? Is this a kid-friendly town?

I see Business Week never actually has been to Malden.

I lived in Melrose for a few years and when going over the border into Malden I would check the door locks.

It does have a quaint McDonalds downtown

I was confused about this, but then I noticed this: "populations over 50,000" as a criteria. The colonial relic of so many towns in Mass means that very few places, even in Eastern Mass, meet this criteria (see below). Newton and Brookline were probably tossed as being too expensive (which they are). Even still, I'm kinda surprised that Malden beat Medford, Quincy and Somerville.

Pat - the schools in Quincy and Somerville are terrible. I'd still say it's a tossup between Malden and Medford if I had to choose one, but I'm with everyone else here -- I'd choose neither. I'd pick a 3 bedroom apartment in Newton or Brookline over home ownership in Malden anyday.

I have lived in Malden for about 1.5 years now. It is not dangerous and there is a pond and a park to stroll with our new twins. It is actually not bad, but I am not sure I want to raise them here. We just rent an apartment here because it is convenient to Boston where I worked until recently. If there is no need to commute to the city, I don't see any advantage of living here. I was really surpised to see this headline.

When we were looking to buy, we went to look at a few condos in Malden, mainly because my husband works there. The downtown is depressing, the condos near the Orange Line were overpriced and the accessibility to the highways is limited. In short, we spent two hours there and decided to look elsewhere. We found a place Arlington, which seems like a much nicer town and a better place to raise kids, although not having any I can't be sure.

The one thing Malden seems to have going for it is you can get a lot for your money if you don't care about public transportation.

I was surprised that the article glossed over the fact the schools in Malden aren't that great. That would be one thing I'd take into consideration in terms of where to raise my family.
In answer to the blogger's ACTUAL question, we picked Natick and have found it incredibly family friendly. Our neighborhood has tons of families and there are always lots of community-oriented activities that are great for all ages. The schools are pretty good. There are lots of nice places for walking. There is the Natick Community Organic Farm and an Audubon sanctuary and the farmer's market. Wonderful library. Sure the Natick Collection is a behemoth, but if you stay out of that part of town, Natick is a gem.

Most of my family is from Malden and we all pretty much consider it the armpit of the universe. Almost all have moved out. Maybe bacak in the 50's and 60's it was a great place to grow up, but certainly things have changed. It was interesting to see that it is considered pretty safe since every time I am on my way home, the first time I see police cars with their lights on is when I get to Malden. And every time there is an amber alert, they always seem to find the bad guys hiding out in Malden. I guess if you limit the criteria to cities that start with M and end with N and have an a-l-d-e in the middle, that leaves Malden as the best palce to raise kids.

I live in Malden and I am raising my child in Malden and unlike the others I am up to date on what's going on. First of all, that quaint McDonalds in downtown, hasn't been there for over 5 years, second, since everyone is so keen on Newton and Brighton the last stabbing at a T station was at the Newton Commuter rail and the last amber alert started in Lynn ended In NY, not Malden! Apparently other towns outside of Malden don't get the news channels. Malden has all new schools, a state of the art YMCA for kids and a fabulous library that provides endless activities for kids. It is a great diverse community where I want my child to grow up and learn from others and not have a small town mentality. When business week wrote this article the 2 top criteria they put the most emphasis on was education and safety so unless anyone has actual data to dispute this you are just making ignorant comments.

Arlington has great schools, many caring teachers. The high school has one of the best music programs around. The high school does not inflate grades, the standards are high, the kids work hard and the honor classes really mean something. Lots of playgrounds and parks for the little ones, programs for young families, fairly diverse population, all kinds of restaurants that are family friendly. Ample and good pre-schools. Nice community. Convenient to other family friendly events and places. Good arts community. Lots of sports. I'm raising my daughter here and we love it.

There are rentals available here, you don't have to be a homeowner. The prices to buy are on the high side but not as high as Lexington or Belmont. Also, I like that the older kids can get on public transportation to get around. They don't have to have a car.