Knightdale is among nation’s “Best Places to Live”

Knightdale is ranked among the best places in the country to live and residents at the town’s first master planned community, Knightdale Station and across the entire town are not surprised. “Knightdale was an awesome place to grow up,” said on resident, and according to Money magazine, it still is as Knightdale was rated one of their Best Places to Live in U.S. Money, based on healthy economy, affordable homes and a high quality of life.

Money looked at places with populations between 10,000 and 100,000 and eliminated any place that had more than double the national crime risk, less than 85% of its state’s median household income or a lack of ethnic diversity. This pared the list to 2,400 places. Data on economic health, cost of living, public education, crime, ease of living and amenities along with data on housing market costs and growth was used to rank each municipality.

Next, reporters conducted research by interviewing residents, checking out neighborhoods and searching for intangible factors that don’t show up in the statistics to whittle the list down to the Top 100. To ensure a geographically diverse set, the list was limited to no more than four places per state and two per county. The top 15 includes only one entity per state.

Knightdale, population 14,868 with a median household income of $63,158 and a projected job growth rate of 10.9%, was one of three entries from North Carolina, coming in at number 76 on the list. Concord made the list at number 38 while Morrisville showed up at number 90.

VisitRaleigh.com describes Knightdale as having a “welcoming, youthful culture.” Tagged as an “emerging city with a magnetic energy fueled by the optimism and brain power of a young population,” Knightdale is one of the fastest-growing towns in NC and the Triangle. Just nine miles from downtown Raleigh, Knightdale residents are the youngest in the Raleigh metro area with a median age of 31.