CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Mutual Funds Taxes Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Millionaires in the Making Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Best Funds Ask the Mole Best Places to Retire Personal Tech Big Tech Blog Techland Blog Sectors and Stocks Fortune 500 Techs Tech Talk 100 Best Places to Launch Ultimate Resource Guide Small Biz Makeovers FSB 100 Ask & Answer Fortune 500 Technology Investing Management Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
 
Des Moines, IA
Population: 202,477
Compare Des Moines to Top 10 Best Places
FULL LIST 
Financial
  City stats Best places average
Median family income
(per year)		 $52,096 $76,893
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted)		 $62,316 $68,109
Sales tax 6.00% 6.55%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket)		 8.98%* 6.46%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket)		 0.36%* 2.74%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average for the state)		 $1,622 $2,207
Job growth %
(2000-2005)		 2.87% 10.97%
Housing
  City stats Best places average
Median home price $108,500 $259,566
Home price gain
(2004-2005)		 2.40% 9.26%
Education
  City stats Best places average
Colleges, universities and
professional schools		 5 8
Junior colleges and
technical institutes		 1 0
Test scores reading
(% +/- state average)		 -14.0% 13.3%
Test scores math
(% +/- state average)		 -11.6% 16.9%
% students attending
public/private schools		 91.8/8.20 88.4/11.59
Quality of life
  City stats Best places average
Air quality index
(% of days AQI ranked as good)		 73.4% 71.9%
Personal crime risk
(100 is nat'l average; lower is better)		 156 45
Property crime risk
(100 is nat'l average; lower is better)		 203 74
Personal crime incidents
(per 100,000)		 352 228
Property crime incidents
(per 100,000)		 6,101 3,105
Median commute time
(in minutes)		 16.3 20.8
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer		 4.0% 13.4%
Leisure and culture
  City stats Best places average
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles)		 14 22
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 1,131 2,268
Bars
(within 15 miles)		 136 127
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles)		 32 74
Libraries
(within 15 miles)		 38 43
Museums (accredited by AAM
within 30 miles)		 1 7
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) 4 10
Weather
  City stats Best places average
Annual precipitation
(inches)		 34.72 36.00
Clear days 105 107
High temp in July ° F 86.0° 87.7°
Low temp in Jan ° F 11.7° 23.5°
Health*
  City stats Best places average
Has health plan
(% of residents)		 92.5% 88.2%
Body mass index
(avg. for residents)		 27 27
Cancer mortality
(per 100,000, age-adjusted)		 234.8 191.3
Cardiac mortality
(per 100,000)		 233.6 202.0
Meet the neighbors
  City stats Best places average
Median age 34.3 34.5
Completed at least some college
(% of residents)		 46.1% 63.9%
Married 46.3% 54.3%
Divorced 12.9% 9.3%
Amount spent on vacations
(domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)		 $6,284 $7,549
*County data
Income tax notes:
15 states have statutory provision for automatic adjustment of tax brackets, personal exemption or standard deductions to the rate of inflation. Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska and Ohio indexes the personal exemption amounts only.
tax credits.
Data: OnBoard, FORTUNE. Details
Click map to enlarge
Show: Top companies | Colleges | Hospitals | Museums | Wineries | Gardens | Ski resorts | Zoos/aquariums (Map sources)
Iowa companies
FORTUNE: Best to work for
Company Best Companies
2006 Rank
Pella 44
Principal Financial 86
See the rest
FORTUNE 500
Company F500 rank
Principal Financial 261
Maytag 435
Rockwell Collins 550
See the rest
Biggest employers
Company Employees
Principal Life Insurance Company 10,000
Rockwell Collins, Inc. 9,000
University Of Iowa Hospitals And Clinics 6,894
EMAIL Feedback on the Best Places to Live list?
E-mail the editors
On Board LLC
Information powered by OnBoard LLC
Some data may be provided courtesy of its partners.

Additional data and consulting services provided by Bert Sperling's bestplaces.net.
Top earning cities
  Median household income
Greenwich, CT $112,493
Cupertino, CA $110,518
San Ramon, CA $109,500
See the rest
Hottest cities
  Avg. high temp
in July (°F)
Avondale, AZ 107.6°F
Glendale, AZ 107.6°F
Peoria, AZ 107.6°F
See the rest
Priciest homes
  Median price
Newport Beach, CA $1,362,500
Greenwich, CT $1,129,000
Santa Barbara, CA $979,500
See the rest
Most educated
  % residents with
graduate degrees
Arlington, VA 35.7%
Davis, CA 34.6%
Brookline, MA 32.5%
See the rest
Most singles
  % single residents
Bloomington, IN 58.2%
New Brunswick, NJ 54.6%
College Station, TX 54.3%
See the rest
Youngest
  Median age
Jacksonville, NC 22.90
Provo, UT 23.28
New Brunswick, NJ 24.16
See the rest
© 2008 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Live Quotes automatically refresh, but individual equities are delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET.
* : Time reflects local markets trading time. † - Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Disclaimer
Copyright © 2008 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.
Home | Contact Us | Advertise with Us | Corrections | Career Opportunities | Press Center | Site Map
RSS | Email Delivery | Portfolio | Podcasts | Mobile | Widgets | User Preferences | Special Sections
| Magazine Customer Service | Download Fortune Lists | Reprints | Conferences | Business Leader Council