Well the Fortune 50 Best Places to Live Will Serve Families in the Years to Come - When 51-year-old Pazit Aviv walks her dog in her Silver Spring, Md., neighborhood, it takes an extra 30 minutes as she inevitably gets lost in an impromptu chat with a neighbor.

“What we’re seeing is a longing of older people to age in place, and younger people, like Gen Z, to have a sense of place that they consider home,” says Jon Jon Wesolowski, an urbanist and housing advocate who sees more people eager to change their house to suit them as they age rather than to move.In this year’s ranking, we analyzed over 2,000 cities and nearly 200 data categories, assessing livability, financial health, resources for aging adults, education, and wellness. The winners are communities that are sustainable for their youngest and oldest residents—including many fast-growing suburbs and edge cities that find creative ways to improve people’s well-being.

- By Alexa Mikhail - illustration by Studio Muti

When 51-year-old Pazit Aviv walks her dog in her Silver Spring, Md., neighborhood, it takes an extra 30 minutes as she inevitably gets lost in an impromptu chat with a neighbor.

“I know every single person in a three-street radius,” says Aviv, who has lived in the Washington, D.C., suburb for a decade and raised two children here. Silver Spring, which ranks No. 1 on this year’s Fortune Best Places to Live for Families, has been an ideal hometown for Aviv. It’s close enough to D.C. to enjoy the city’s many amenities, but Silver Spring has its own thriving arts and restaurant scene, plus high-performing schools. It’s the tight-knit community, however, that makes Aviv want to live here into old age. “We have meals together, and meal trains when a family has a baby or if someone is sick,” she says.

A great place to live not only supports families in the present, but also serves them in the long term. With a growing portion of Americans caring for both children and aging parents, more people want to live where multigenerational families can thrive.

It’s not just older adults who are taking the long view. Nearly one in five Gen X homebuyers purchased homes intended for multigenerational families last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Increasingly, first-time millennial and Gen Z homebuyers plan to stay in their homes for at least a decade.

“What we’re seeing is a longing of older people to age in place, and younger people, like Gen Z, to have a sense of place that they consider home,” says Jon Jon Wesolowski, an urbanist and housing advocate who sees more people eager to change their house to suit them as they age rather than to move.