I grew up in the Boston suburb of Tewksbury. It's about 25 minutes north of the city.

When I was growing up, I never would have imagined living anywhere that was any distance from the big city.  In fact, I even had dreams of living and working in New York.

Now that I am raising a family, however, my attitude is very different. My preferences have completely flipped. Now, I could never imagine raising my family in a city the size of Boston, never mind New York.  There are few places I'd rather raise a family less than in New York City.  What a pain that must be!

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For me, small-town living is the way to go.

Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not looking to live in the middle of nowhere. I've spent a few weekends in the deep woods of Vermont where it was more common to see a moose than to get a decent cell phone signal or tap into workable WiFi. That's not my cup of tea. I need to live in a place where I can get a decent haircut and a sub.

Apparently, I'm not alone. According to WalletHub, 46% of Americans would "prefer to live in the suburbs, compared to 19% for urban areas and 35% for rural communities."

So, nearly half of America is looking for that middle-of-the-road type of town.

Lucky for us here in Massachusetts, this state is packed with them, and WalletHub has gone through the task of ranking them according to livability factors such as housing costs to the quality of local school systems to restaurants per capita.

Here are the top 25 small towns in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Top 25 Small Cities

These Massachusetts cities got the highest grades for livability.

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