Glen Cove makes Money's Best Places to Live

Glen Cove has earned a place on Money’s list of the 50 Best Places to Live in the U.S., appearing as New York’s sole representative in the  personal finance website's annual ranking.

Glen Cove appeared at No. 37 on the list, with strong marks in the categories of health and safety, quality of life and amenities. The website creates its list by gathering about 350 data points across nine categories, which also include cost of living and economic opportunity. 

”Glen Cove has just about everything you’d want in a home base: beaches, parks and a walkable downtown with tons of restaurants and shopping," Money wrote in its description of the city.  

Money said it placed a greater emphasis on diversity this year after considering the question, “best places to live for whom?” It found entries on past years’ lists were “often quaint, affordable — and unintentionally yet overwhelmingly white,” according to its methodology for this year’s list. The company releases the list online; Money magazine published its last print issue in 2019. 

Money started by looking at areas with at least 20,000 people, where the population was at least 85% as racially diverse as its state and the median income was at least 85% of the state’s median income. That yielded 1,370 locations to consider.

It had previously factored in racial diversity but added new measures to factor in other diversity in ancestry, languages spoken at home and religious diversity into its rankings. It also gave preference to places that were less than 80% white.

Glen Cove scored about average in the diversity category, said Kaitlin Mulhere, an editor at Money who was involved in creating the list. It scored the weakest on cost of living but benefited from recent changes in the website's methodology  to better balance cost of living metrics with economic opportunity. In the past, the list had been skewed toward lower-cost areas of the United States, she said.

"We wanted to build a list that was more diverse in every sense of the word,” Mulhere said. “Some people want to live in a bigger city, and we didn’t want to have a list that lacked large metro areas."

Glen Cove Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck, a fourth-generation resident of the city, said the honor gives it bragging rights on Long Island and will help raise awareness of all it has to offer.

"We’re just so pleased because that article only highlights something that we have always known — what a great community we live in," Panzenbeck said.

Atlanta landed the top spot for a combination of its strong job growth, arts and culture scene, nightlife and diverse population, according to Money. Tempe, Arizona; Kirkland, Washington; Raleigh, North Carolina; and the Rogers Park section of Chicago rounded out the top five.

The other tristate area locales named to the list were all in New Jersey: Jersey City (No. 10), Fort Lee (No. 14), and Morristown (No. 30).

Plainview didn’t appear this year after earning a spot on the list in 2021. Mulhere said that while there’s no rule against communities appearing year after year, Money does try to feature different cities.

Money also highlighted Glen Cove's 10 miles of shoreline, marina, yacht clubs and the 62-acre Garvies Point preserve. It recognized RXR’s $1 billion waterfront development at Garvies Point on the site of a former brownfield as bringing additional housing to the area. When completed, it will add about 1,100 condos and rental units.

Thus far, RXR has finished its Harbor Landing apartments, leasing 98% of the 385 luxury rentals. The developer has sold around three-quarters of the 166 condos at The Beacon, where units are on the market from $923,000 to $2.2 million. Georgica Green Ventures also broke ground last year on an apartment project that will bring 55 units deemed affordable for the local workforce, with an average rent of about $1,600. Those apartments are slated to open next year.

In 2020, RXR opened a 146-unit luxury rental project, Village Square, in downtown Glen Cove, within walking distance of its Garvies Point sites.

Joseph Graziose, executive vice president of residential development and construction at RXR, said he was “ecstatic”  — not just as a developer but as a 60-year Glen Cove resident — to hear Glen Cove had been selected by Money.

“Not only does it bring investors, real estate buyers and people that would want to live, work and play in the area, but I also think it brings recognition to a community that, as all communities do, has had its ups and downs over its history, and that it’s on a rise,” Graziose said.

 Mulhere said Money has received the occasional note from a reader over the years who said they moved to towns after reading about them in Best Places to Live but she believes there’s a broader usefulness.

 “Even if they don’t end up moving anywhere on this list,” Mulhere said. “I think it can be really helpful to think about what makes a good community and what they would want to look for in their own personal best place to live.”

By Jonathan LaMantia

jonathan.lamantia@newsday.com@jonlamantia

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.