Money's list of America's best small cities


States
Top 100
Rank City Population
99 Ann Arbor 114,400
85 Macomb 80,100
79 Shelby 74,300
25 Troy 80,300
38 West Bloomfield 64,600
Other cities
  Battle Creek 52,058
  Canton 86,339
  Clinton 97,613
  Dearborn 94,088
  Dearborn Heights 55,368
  Detroit 912,062
  Farmington Hills 79,678
  Flint 112,900
  Grand Rapids 193,396
  Kalamazoo 75,617
  Lansing 114,567
  Livonia 92,780
  Novi 55,351
  Pontiac 66,095
  Rochester Hills 71,017
  Royal Oak 57,448
  Saginaw 55,620
  Southfield 75,392
  St. Clair Shores 60,364
  Sterling Heights 129,500
  Taylor 60,634
  Warren 135,926
  Waterford 71,463
  Westland 81,468
  Wyoming 71,597
From the September 2012 issue
Due to erroneous job, cost-of-living, and test score data for a small number of places, two cities were left off this year's top 100 and two were mistakenly included. Other cities moved up or down slightly once all data were corrected. Details.
Best Places Winners
Pick a state

1
0
2
1
5
5
4
0
0
3
0
0
1
3
2
3
2
0
0
0
5
4
5
5
0
3
0
1
1
1
4
1
4
2
3
1
4
2
3
0
0
0
2
5
4
0
5
2
0
1
1
Home price trends
Hover over any of the 10 Best Places below to see how real estate prices have changed in the past year.
City Avg. listing price
(July 2012)
1. Carmel, IN $304,340
2. McKinney, TX $245,917
3. Eden Prairie, MN $413,566
4. Newton, MA $850,117
5. Redmond, WA $518,982
6. Irvine, CA $904,753
7. Reston, VA $467,934
8. Columbia/Ellicott City, MD $406,943
9. Overland Park, KS $278,204
10. Chapel Hill, NC $376,660

  • Real estate and homes for sale on Trulia

  • Property Type
  • Find a home in:
  • New York | Atlanta | Chicago | Los Angeles
  • Washington D.C | Houston | Philadelphia | More options
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.