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Celebrate Gaithersburg, an annual street festival, draws thousands to Olde Towne.
The National institute of Standards and Technology, IBM, and Medimmune are just some of the many employers in this quaint city near both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, whose unemployment rate was just 4.9% as of May. Still, many residents choose to forge their own career paths -- Gaithersburg is widely considered one of the best places to start a business. Other perks include terrific schools and a diverse population (recently 19% African American, 14% Asian). --D.M.
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.
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.)
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