Rating the Towns 2010: Population Under 3,500

With just over 2,000 residents at large across its 34.5 square miles,

Lyme

is one of Connecticut’s most sparsely populated towns. It’s one of its most beautiful, too, with plenty of frontage on the Connecticut River, salt marshes galore, and the utterly charming Hamburg Cove right in its midst. It seems almost too good to be true that Lyme also has excellent schools, a very low crime rate and a solid local economy.

We move up to Litchfield County for the next four top finishers. Norfolk is the only town in this population group with above-average scores across the board. Bethlehem also offers some well-rounded numbers as well as a pretty good annual agricultural fair.
Way across the state in Windham County, No. 6 Eastford presents a lovely prospect to young families looking to move: good schools (or at least good test scores), a low crime rate and relatively low real estate prices.

A brief word about crime statistics and these very small towns: The “safest” town is Hartland, which averages about five crimes a year, but even the town with the highest crime rate, Union, reports only one crime a month. Crime probably shouldn’t be a factor when comparing these towns.

It should be pointed out that a good score in the “Leisure” category among these smallest of towns generally indicates an active and well-supported library. Only a handful of towns, such as Cornwall and Kent, offer shopping, galleries and restaurants. For the most part these are towns in which historical societies hold sway and crickets provide the nightlife.

	Town	Education	Crime	Economy	Cost	Leisure	Total
1.	Lyme	1	8	2	26	4	41
2.	Norfolk	2	13	12	9	5	41
3.	Bridgewater	7.5	2	5	25	6	45.5
4.	Sharon	19	10	4	18	3	54
5.	Bethlehem	10	6	13	17	9	55
6.	Eastford	9	4	18	7	19	57
7.	Andover	3	7	20	12	16	58
8.	Warren	12.5	5	7	19	15	58.5
9.	Roxbury	7.5	21	1	27	8	64.5
10.	Goshen	12.5	11	8	23	10	64.5
11.	Hartland	18	1	15	8	24	66
12.	Kent	16	20	6	24	1	67
13.	Canaan	12.5	18	10	20	7	67.5
14.	Cornwall	17	24	3	22	2	68
15.	Colebrook	4	15	9	15	26	69
16.	Union	6	27	11	14	12	70
17.	Scotland	25	9	19	3	18	74
18.	Voluntown	24	12	23	2	14	75
19.	Morris	12.5	17	14	21	11	75.5
20.	Hampton	21	3	24	11	22	81
21.	North Canaan	20	22	22	5	13	82
22.	Barkhamsted	5	16	21	16	25	83
23.	Franklin	15	26	16	13	17	87
24.	Sterling	27	14	26	4	21	92
25.	Chaplin	26	19	25	6	20	96
26.	Sprague	23	25	27	1	23	99
27.	Bozrah	22	23	17	10	27	99