Longmeadow, Massachusetts

Longmeadow hugs the Connecticut River just south of Springfield and owes its name to exactly what it sounds like: a long ribbon of flat, fertile meadowland that drew English settlers. The town was part of Springfield as early as sixteen forty-four, and its long green, still running down the center of town, is part of a National Register historic district. Longmeadow separated from Springfield in seventeen eighty-three and has stayed quietly residential ever since, a street of Colonial and Federal-period houses overlooking that ancient common. For a town most drivers pass without a second glance, it carries a surprisingly deep claim on the New England tradition of the village green as the organizing center of community life.