Small Georgia town on list

Woodstock makes Money’s Best Places to Live rankings.

Think your hometown’s a great place to live?

For what it’s worth, Money says there’s only one best place in Georgia: Woodstock.

The Cherokee County community, about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta, was the state’s lone small city to make the national magazine’s 2015 list of 50 Best Places to Live in America.

Woodstock just made it, ranking No. 50.

Money says it looks for “places with great jobs, strong economies, affordable homes, excellent schools, and that special something that makes it a great place to live.”

The magazine found those attributes most prevalent in Apex, N.C., which ranked No. 1, just ahead of (2) Papillion, Neb., (3) Sharon, Mass., (4) Louisville, Colo., and (5) Snoqualmie, Wash.

Money put out a separate, shorter list of best big cities in America. Atlanta was not among them.

The magazine also came up with individual lists of best places for outdoor lovers, best places to be a kid and best places to be rich and single. No Georgia city made the grade in any of those categories.

Besides affordable housing and strong job growth, Money liked Woodstock for its “lively downtown.” It says locals have “plenty to see and do without needing to head into Atlanta.”

It lists Woodstock’s population at 26,059, median income at $71,715, job growth at 12 percent and median home price at $184,775.

The sources of its data? Outfits like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and ... the White Book of Ski Areas.

Now maybe that was Georgia’s undoing.