America's best place to raise a family revealed - and it's a suburb where Dave Chappelle 'grew up poor around white people'

Silver Spring, Maryland, the suburban hometown of comedian Dave Chappelle, has been crowned America's best place to raise a family in a new study by Fortune Well.

The Washington DC suburb where the median home value is over $500,000 topped the list, followed by Upper Marion, Pennsylvania, and Chantilly, Virginia.

The ranking analyzed over 2,000 cities nationwide and considered nearly 200 data categories to determine the most family-friendly locations in each state.

Chappelle, who recently sparked controversy over some of his provocative comedy, has joked about his upbringing in Silver Spring, as he claimed to have been raised 'poor around white people' and longed to live poverty-stricken in the projects. 

'My parents did just well enough so I could grow up poor around white people. When Nas and them used to talk about the projects, I used to get jealous. It sounded fun,' the comedian who is reportedly worth up to $70 million said. 

'Everybody in the projects was poor, and that's fair. But if you were poor in Silver Spring, n***a, it felt like it was only happening to you,' the comedian, who has seen a continued decline in popularity in recent years, remarked. 

Chappelle reportedly grew up in a Cape Cod style house in the North Woodside Neighborhood of Silver Spring, which his parents purchased in 1973, as reported by a local real estate agent with Long & Foster Real Estate Debbie Cook. 

It reportedly sold on May 13, 1988 for $178,000, according to Redfin's Silver Spring data, and is currently valued at an estimated $741,423.

'Nas does not know the pain of that first sleepover at a white friend's house. You just come home back on Sunday and look at your parents like, 'Y'all need to step your game up.''

While Chappelle jokes about feeling 'poor' in his childhood neighborhood, his upbringing in Silver Spring was far from ordinary.

The future comedian attended Woodlin Elementary School and grew up with activist parents who frequently invited notable figures to their home.

Among these guests were folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger, and American jazz singer Johnny Hartman. At the age of two, he also met Muhammad Ali.

Fortune's study focused on several key factors, including the appeal of a small city and facilities for old-age. The ranking also considered issues such as livability, financial health and education.

Many of the top locations are fast-growing suburbs and 'edge cities' that offer alternatives to expensive urban centers.

Silver Spring resident Pazit Aviv, 51, who has lived in the city for a decade with her two children, emphasized how she believed the tight-knit community had helped the town snag the top spot.

'I know every single person in a three-street radius,' she told Fortune Well. 'We have meals together, and meal trains when a family has a baby or if someone is sick.'

Another recent list by Stacker named Kildeer, a small town about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, as the best place to raise a family in 2024, followed by another small town Devon, Pennsylvania, whose population is just 1,890, and Kensington, a tiny suburb of New York City.

Chappelle was born in Washington DC but spent his summers with his father in Yellow Springs, Ohio - home to 3,700 people. 

In the early 2000s Chappelle returned to the Buckeye State and in 2005 bought a 3,150-square-foot, three bedroom home amid 39 acres for $309,000.

In May of last year, Chappelle was compared to Donald Trump by at least one resident in Ohio for his ability to divide people, amid an ongoing row about the millionaire comedian buying up property. 

Several townspeople told Bloomberg that they are not pleased with their A-list neighbor, saying Chappelle was 'a force that's turning us into the place that we're all trying to stay away from.'