Walk by the Caribou coffee shop on Brownsville Road in Brentwood on a summer afternoon and you might see people reading at outdoor tables, parents pushing strollers and children riding bikes on the sidewalk. You also may see business people stepping into this and other local restaurants for lunch meetings. A senior citizen may give a welcoming -- and knowing -- smile.

	Post-Gazette Caribou Coffee and the newly updated Brentwood Towne Square on Brownsville Road are among sources of pride for Brentwood residents. The borough was recently named the tenth most affordable town in America by Money magazine. Click photo for larger image.

Ask residents about their community and they will boast about its small-town feel and brag that the town's Fourth of July parade is the best around. They will sing the praises of the updated Brentwood Towne Center, and maybe even point you to a park or the neighborhood school. They will encourage you to walk there; everything in Brentwood is close by.

These days Brentwood residents have a new reason to sing the praises of their hometown. Money magazine recently rated Brentwood as the tenth most affordable town in America.

To generate the list, Money magazine divided median family income by median home price. The towns are ranked in order of their home-to-income ratio. The median family income in Brentwood is $55,105, and the median home price is $86,878.

Brentwood homes range from the stately brick and stone homes with gardens on Brownsville Road, to more modest ones on the hilly back streets, many of which fly the red, white and blue.

Having lived and raised a family in the same Brentwood house for 56 years, Lillian Young has seen a lot of people move in and out. She describes her neighbors, past and present, as friendly, and she credits her adult children's success in part to the education they received in the Brentwood public schools.

The presence of local businesses is also a draw for homeowners, such as Ms. Young. She has always shopped locally. And, for those rare times when she cannot find what she wants in her hometown, she said she can easily find and use public transportation to find it elsewhere.

Ms. Young is not sure why housing doesn't cost more in Brentwood. "We have just about everything we need to live comfortably," she said.

The author of the Money article, Jeff Cox, said that the most affordable areas identified on the Money list tended to occur in clusters. Western Pennsylvania was one of those areas, with the Mon Valley's West Mifflin and Penn Hills in the East suburbs also being recognized.

"Clusters like this are not a coincidence," Mr. Cox said. Clusters can indicate a trend of affordability in the larger area, he said.

Like Brentwood, the City of Pittsburgh has received recent accolades for its cost of living. When it was selected this year as the most livable city in the "Places Rated Almanac," housing affordability was one of the nine categories that propelled it to the top of the list.

And, Warren Bland, a geography professor at California State University, Northridge, ranked Pittsburgh as the second best place for retirees seeking a big-city life on a budget in his book "Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada."

Mr. Bland said that the low cost of housing was a significant factor in Pittsburgh's high ranking.

The National Association of Home Builders similarly indexes median home prices to median income. According to the association's first quarter statistics for this year, Pittsburgh ranks highly at ninth out of 43 areas in the northeast region for affordability. States included in this comparison were New York, New Jersey, and the New England states.

Experts agree that to accurately assess affordability, housing and income cannot be studied in a vacuum. This formula, used by Money, provides a quick assessment of affordability, but does not reflect other costs of home ownership or the possible causes of the trend.

Arthur Cox, the director of the Real Estate Education Program at the University of Northern Iowa explains that being dubbed "affordable" can mean different things to a community. He is not related to Jeff Cox,

Affordability can be caused by negative factors, such as a depressed economy or a slow real estate market. It could also mean, though, that income levels in the area are strong. Bedroom communities located outside metropolitan areas with healthy economies can also be affordable, which Arthur Cox sees as positive.

Based on other research he has done, Jeff Cox believes that Brentwood real estate is undervalued, and that it is starting to generate some interest with outside investors.

"Pittsburgh is on the tail end of the real estate boom," he said.

Will Western Pennsylvania stay this affordable? "Probably not," says Jeff Cox. He expects that real estate values will catch up to other areas of the country. Mr. Cox predicted that "the area will turn around at some point, but, for now, it's a really good investment."

Additionally, local taxes and other costs of home ownership are an important aspect of affordability that were not taken into account in the Money list.

But, living in a community with lower real estate values may present challenges to funding public education. Because its schools are funded by property taxes, low real estate values translate into lower tax revenues for Brentwood's school district. Ron Yochum, a resident of 39 years and former Brentwood school board member, is concerned that the property taxes in Brentwood school district are proportionally high in order to fund the schools.

According to Allegheny County statistics, the taxable residential median value for Brentwood is 50.3 percent lower than Mt. Lebanon and 58.7 percent lower than Upper St. Clair, meaning that the median home value in these neighboring communities is more than double that in Brentwood. To compensate for this, Brentwood's millage for 2007 was 28.27, higher than both Mt. Lebanon and Upper St. Clair, which were listed at 23.56 and 22.45, respectively.

Brentwood has 1,271 students enrolled for the 2007-08 school year, with an annual budget of $16,998,672, an average of about $13,374 per student.

By comparison, Upper St. Clair's budget is $53,357,039, with 4,091 students enrolled for the next school year, resulting in a comparable average of $13,042 per student.

According to Mr. Yochum's calculations, a person owning a home in Upper St. Clair pays less in property taxes each year than a person owning a home of the same value in Brentwood.

Mr. Yochum believes tax reform at the state level will be necessary for communities, such as Brentwood to continue to fund quality education.

On the positive side, living in an affordable area may mean a more comfortable lifestyle.

"The quality of life is better when [families] don't spend all of their income on their housing," Arthur Cox said.

He predicted that people living in communities similar to Brentwood are likely to describe their life as "in scale," allowing them to have extra money for recreational activities like dining out.

Mr. Bland agrees that not all affordable areas are created equally. He points out that other areas of the country are more affordable than Pittsburgh, but many of those towns are more remote. Living in or near Pittsburgh provides its residents with the advantages of a larger city, like theater and art, health care, retail, and community services.

Most Brentwood residents are pleased with their new title, if a little surprised. Mac McIlrath, a real estate agent in the area for 28 years, was taken aback to hear of the high ranking.

"There are so many communities around the country like this," he said. He will take the title, though.

"It's a great honor. Brentwood is long overdue for recognition."

Next week we take a look at West Mifflin, another "affordable" place to live.