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35 great towns: How does yours rate? Plus, check out our exclusive chart that shows home sales in more than 200 Delaware neighborhoods from 2006 through 2010.
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15 Smyrna
Safety 18
Property tax: 1.95 2
Median home: $173,000 15
SD: Smyrna 7
Commute time: 28.4 28
Shopping-Dining 3
Arts-Culture 2
Nightlife 3
As It Changes, It Remains the Same
To Ellen Sayers, moving to Smyrna after fifth grade was a huge change. “I was raised in Leipsic, which had a one-room schoolhouse and one teacher for five grades,” she says. “Moving to Smyrna was almost overwhelming.”
Few will confuse Smyrna with the big city, but the town has made colossal strides, especially in recent years, as the population has swelled to more than 12,000 people (double the 2000 census figure).
To longtime residents like Sayers, the beauty of Smyrna is its small-town details. It’s the holiday lights in every tree along Main Street and the way faithfully restored Victorian-era homes lend an elegance to the old-fashioned downtown. It’s the cooperative spirit shared by residents, business owners and town leaders that has kept families like the Sayerses and the Faries family, which operate Faries Funeral Home, in town for years.
“It’s almost like a family,” Sayers says. “The community jumps right in when you need them.”
There are many reasons for community unity. Consider sold-out performances by the Brandywine Celtic Harp Orchestra at the Smyrna Opera House, or I Love the Smyrna School District Day, which attracts no fewer than 5,000 people to Smyrna High School each February. Then there are the Friends of Belmont Hall and people like Susan Wolfe, who organize public events at the restored mansion.
Page 10: How They Rate, continues...
