The Best Places to Live 2005

THE CULTURE VULTURE

Winner: Salem
Runners-up: Concord, Newton, Waltham
For the budget-minded: Lowell
If your image of Salem is the Witch Museum, this city’s cultural richness might not be immediately apparent. Instead, direct your gaze to the recently renovated Peabody Essex Museum, with its collection of art and artifacts from New England and beyond. Nearby, the House of the Seven Gables offers a tie-in to the region’s literary history. And, yes, every October, culture here takes on a spookier cast. A bit closer to Boston, Waltham is home to a regional theater company, the Reagle Players, and Brandeis University’s underrated Rose Art Museum. The New England Quilt Museum, meanwhile, might not seem like the sexiest way to spend a Saturday, but the city of Lowell gets credit for bolstering its historical textile attractions while working to attract new artists priced out of Boston.

THE YANKEE TRADITIONALIST
Winner: Westford
Runners-up: Duxbury, Ipswich, Winchester
For the budget-minded: Pembroke
A handful of men from Westford were among those to fight at Concord Bridge — a fact celebrated by the town’s still-active Minuteman Society in re-enactments every spring. The community is fiercely protective of its heritage, a quality represented by the number of well-preserved Colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival buildings downtown and by several annual country fairs and other events including the crowning of the “apple blossom queen” each May. On the North Shore, it’s hard to throw a rock in Ipswich without hitting one of the almost 60 houses built before 1725 (and if you break an antique window, boy are you in trouble). South of Boston, Pembroke is affordable in an area that hasn’t changed much since Myles Standish stepped off the Mayflower a few miles away.

THE BACK-TO-THE-LANDER
Winner: Plympton
Runners-up: Bolton, Harvard, West Newbury
For the budget-minded: Middleborough
Farmland is a diminishing commodity in most rural communities around Boston, where you’re more apt to find a Hummer than a Holstein. The tiny South Shore town of Plympton is an exception, staying true to its roots of horse farms and cranberry bogs. Almost all of the town’s 39 working farms are operated by family farmers who live on them. West of the city, Harvard and Bolton offer a similar step back in time, with many old farmhouses nestled among the apple orchards and dairy farms.