Here’s Why Mauldin Made MONEY Magazine’s “Top 100 Places to Live”

Anna B. Mitchell
The Greenville News
Published 11:30 a.m. EDT Sept. 19, 2017
Updated 2:29 p.m. EDT Sept. 19, 2017

Money magazine announced its Best Places to Live in America this week, and the city of Mauldin broke the top 100 at No. 93.

Mauldin, a city of 25,000 that is 10 minutes drive from downtown Greenville, was the only South Carolina city on the list.

The magazine only looked at places where the population was diverse and numbered between 10,000 and 100,000 people. It also eliminated any place where crime was more than double the national rate and where income was less than 85 percent of the state’s median. This left 2,400 cities nationwide, whereupon the magazine explored seven key areas more in-depth. Those areas were:

• Economic indicators such as employment rates and job growth,
• Cost of living, based on median income and the costs of taxes, insurance, home prices and utilities,
• Education indicators such as test scores and graduation rates,
• Housing costs,
• Crime rates,
• Amenities such as medical care and leisure opportunities, and
• Ease of living indicators such as commute times and weather.

Mauldin broke into the top 100 with its relatively high graduation rates (84 percent), healthy job growth (6.3 percent), number of sunny days per year (221), robust median incomes (an average of $57,480), affordable home prices (an average of $194,000) and average daily work commutes (18 minutes).

“Today, more than eight years into this economic recovery and five years into the national real estate rebound, there are different concerns,” the list’s authors wrote. “While home prices have come back in general, the recovery has been uneven.”

The magazine, which launched the Best Places to Live list in 1987, gathered its data on Mauldin from Synergos Technologies, realtor.com, Moody’s Analytics, NOAA, the U.S. Department of Education and Witlytic.

Meanwhile, Money magazine’s Top 10 were:

1. Fishers, Ind.
2. Allen, Texas
3. Monterey Park, Calif.
4. Franklin, Tenn.
5. Olive Branch, Miss.
6. Dickinson, N.D.
7. Lone Tree, Colo.
8. North Arlington, N.J.
9. Schaumburg, Ill.
10. Bozeman, Mont.

Anna B. Mitchell covers business across the Upstate. Follow her on Facebook or on Twitter @AnnaBard2U.