Lower Merion ranked among best places to live and work from home

Lower Merion has been ranked the second-best place to live and work from home, according to a Money magazine analysis of U.S. cities and towns.

Of the 10 locations the magazine lauded, Lower Merion, which had around 59,000 residents in 2019, had the highest percentage of residents working from home pre-COVID-19 pandemic, at 9.6%. The Philadelphia suburb’s ranking was bested only by Reston, Va., after the analysis took into account more factors like racial diversity, median sale prices of homes, education, and amenities.

The rankings were determined by selecting towns and cities with a minimum population of 25,000, which allowed the final list to span areas like Tewksbury, Mass. (population of 31,044 last year), and Portland, Ore. (population of 664,605.) The magazine cut out places that were overly expensive, had high crime, low racial diversity, and disproportionately low household incomes relative to the rest of the state. It also considered the prevalence of residents who had high-speed internet, heating and air-conditioning, and easy access to restaurants, pharmacies, day cares, and parks.

The median home price in Reston was $434,000, and 88% of residents lived within 10 minutes of a park, according to the magazine’s analysis. In contrast, the median home price in Lower Merion was $500,000 — the highest out of everywhere on the list — and 59.1% of residents were walking distance to a park.

Money analyzed 157,000 data points across nearly 2,000 cities and towns.

Naperville, Ill., was in third place, followed by Ann Arbor, Mich.; Roseville, Calif.; Parker, Colo.; Cedar Park, Texas; Portland, Ore.; Greenville, S.C.; and Tewksbury, Mass.