Money's list of America's best small cities


FULL LIST
Chicago, IL
Vote for this town as fan favorite:

Living in a great place is even better when you've got your financial house in order. Like MONEY magazine on Facebook for tips on saving more, investing better and spending wisely.

Top 100 rank: N.A.c
Population: 2,853,114
Compare Chicago to Top 10 Best Places
Subscribe to Money Magazine
Fan Favorite Towns

It's your turn to choose. Which city should be No. 1?

Best Places to Drive

Contest: Where's your favorite place to take a weekend drive?

Are these great places to live, or what?
Chicago stats
  City stats Best places avg.
Median family income
(per year)		 $56,121 $96,825
Job growth %
(2000-2011)*		 0.10% 25.01%
See jobs near Chicago
Median home price $180,000 $269,768
See Chicago homes for sale
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average)		 0.0% 28.2%
Test scores math
(% above/below average)		 0.0% 29.2%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 113 2
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 463 20
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 13,689 3,134
High temp in July ° F 84.2° 86.8°
Low temp in Jan ° F 17.3° 18.4°
Median age 34.9 35.2
Financial City stats Best places avg.
Median family income
(per year)		 $56,121 $96,825
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted)		 $60,151 $93,218
State sales tax 6.25% 5.57%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket)		 5.00% 7.31%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket)		 5.00% 3.08%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average price quotes, for the state)		 $1,290 $1,596
Job growth %
(2000-2011)*		 0.10% 25.01%
See jobs near Chicago
Housing
Median home price $180,000 $269,768
Average property taxes N.A. $6,517
See Chicago homes for sale
Education
Colleges, universities and
professional schools (within 30 miles)		 81 8
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average)		 0.0% 28.2%
Test scores math
(% above/below average)		 0.0% 29.2%
% students attending public/private
schools (located within town limits)		 85.1/14.9 91.5/8.5
Quality of life
Air quality index*
(% of days AQI ranked as good)		 49.7% 77.3%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 113 2
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 463 20
Median commute time (in minutes) 31.4 22.2
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer		 30.7% 14.9%
% population walk or bike to work 6.9% 3.2%
Leisure and culture
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles)		 118 33
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 13,689 3,134
Bars
(within 15 miles)		 1,330 199
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles)		 436 169
Libraries
(within 15 miles)		 271 70
Museums (accredited by AAM;
within 30 miles)		 17 10
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) 6 6
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts) 0.7 1.4
Weather
Annual rainfall
(inches)		 37.84 34.21
% clear days in the area 23 32
High temp in July ° F 84.2° 86.8°
Low temp in Jan ° F 17.3° 18.4°
Median age 34.9 35.2
Completed at least some college
(% of residents)		 56.9% 72.6%
Married % 36.1% 57.9%
Divorced % 8.7% 8.0%
Racial diversity index
(100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity)		 385.5 118.4
From the September 2012 issue
Notes: *County data

Due to an error by our data provider, an earlier version listed incorrect stats for this city's number of colleges.
(3) Crime incidences are estimates based on FBI 2011 Universal Crime and incidence reports, OnBoard analysis.
c = Only cities with populations between 50,000 and 300,000 were eligible for this year's Best Places to Live list.
Galleries and more
  • Homes for sale
  • Chicago real estate
  • Real estate and homes for sale on Trulia
Fan Favorite Towns

Money picked the top 100. Now it's your turn: Which town will be our fan favorite? 'Like' your town and it might just make it to No. 1.

Town # of Likes
See the rest
Video
How we picked the Best Places
Using statistics from data services company Onboard Informatics, we crunched the numbers in order to zero in on America's best small cities for families. (Last year, we looked at small towns, with populations between 8,500 and 50,000.) More

Comments? E-mail the editors

onboard
Contact Us Closed Captioning Manage Cookies+ Site Map

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.