CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Taxes Jobs Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Mutual Funds The Help Desk Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Rules of Retirement Best Funds Best Places to Retire Fortune Brainstorm Tech Apple 2.0 Blog Big Tech Blog Sectors and Stocks Tech Talk Resource Guide Small Business Makeovers Questions & Answers Small Business Video 100 Best Places to Launch FSB 100 Fortune Small Business Fortune 500 Brainstorm Tech Investing Management C-Suite Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
 
CITY STATS
Gastonia, NC
Top 100 rank: N/AC
Population: 66,500
Compare Gastonia to Top 10 Best Places
Financial
  City stats Best places avg.
Median family income
(per year)		 $51,605 $90,316
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted)		 $57,212 $82,867
Sales tax 7.00% 6.74%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket)		 8.00%I 6.38%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket)		 6.00%I 2.74%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average for the state)		 $2,199 $2,121
Job growth %
(2000-2006)		 0.08% 13.41%
Housing
  City stats Best places average
Average home price $136,637 $359,352
Average property taxes
(2006)		 $1,203 $3,585
See homes for sale
See million-dollar homes
Education
  City stats Best places average
Colleges, universities and
professional schools (within 30 miles)		 12 29
Junior colleges and
technical institutes (within 30 miles)		 9 18
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average)		 -6.1% 20.1%
Test scores math
(% above/below average)		 -6.0% 24.8%
% students attending public/private
schools (located within town limits)		 86.8/13.2 91.1/8.9
Quality of life
  City stats Best places average
Air quality index*
(% of days AQI ranked as good)		 61.3% 77.3%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 10 1.3
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 92 20.6
Median commute time
(in minutes)		 18.6 23.1
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer		 10.9% 15.6%
% population walk or bike to work 1.8% 2.7%
Leisure and culture
  City stats Best places average
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles)		 13 30
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 1,332 2,899
Bars
(within 15 miles)		 131 287
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles)		 77 125
Libraries
(within 15 miles)		 33 71
Museums (accredited by AAM;
within 30 miles)		 5 11
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) 6 17
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts) 1 1
Weather
  City stats Best places average
Annual rainfall
(inches)		 44.80 40.18
% clear days in the area 30 28
High temp in July ° F 89.3° 86.1°
Low temp in Jan ° F 28.6° 24.0°
Health*
  City stats Best places average
Has health plan
(% of residents)		 87.2% 90.5%
Body mass index (avg. for residents) 28 27
Diabetes rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 13.3% 9.3%
Hypertension rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 38.1% 30.6%
Elder-care facilities** 45 107
Meet the neighbors
  City stats Best places average
Median age 36.1 36.8
Completed at least some college
(% of residents)		 48.1% 72.4%
Married 50.0% 60.8%
Divorced 9.8% 8.0%
Racial diversity index
(100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity)		 128.3 59.2
Amount spent on vacations
(domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)		 $6,873 $8,250
*County data
**Elder-care services refer to skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. Data from Total Living Choices.
(C) Cities with populations greater than 50,000 were not eligible for this year's Best Places to Live list.

(I) Income tax notes:
These states allow personal exemption or standard deductions as provided in the IRC. Utah allows a personal exemption equal to three-fourths the federal exemptions.
The tax brackets reported are for single individuals. For married taxpayers, the same rates apply to income brackets ranging from $51,200 to $336,551. An additional $300 personal exemption is allowed for joint returns or unmarried head of households.
Data: OnBoard, FORTUNE. Details
Click map to enlarge
Show: Homes for sale | Million-dollar homes | Top companies | Colleges | Hospitals | Museums | Wineries | Gardens | Ski resorts
Nearby places
See city stats Compare
Belmont, NC  
Kings Mountain, NC  
Mount Holly, NC  
Lincolnton, NC  
Charlotte, NC  
 iReports
Think your town is a great place to live? Send your photos, video or audio files and show us why.
More info
North Carolina companies
FORTUNE 500
CompanyF500 rank
Bank of America Corp.9
Lowe's45
Wachovia Corp.46
See the rest
FORTUNE: Best to work for
CompanyBest Companies
2008 Rank
SAS Institute29
Kimley-Horn and Associates38
See the rest
Find homes in the area

PRICE RANGE

  to  

TYPE

BEDROOMS

BATHS

SQ. FT.

CITY AND STATE
(or ZIP code)

Homes for sale
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.
Sperling's Best Places
Additional data and consulting services provided by Bert Sperling's bestplaces.net.
Homes For Sale
Homes for sale provided by Trulia Real Estate Search.
Find your best places
Criteria Not
important		     Very
important
Affordable housing
Plentiful leisure activities
Plentiful cultural options
Job growth
Sunny weather
Short commute time
Good health care access
Find best places by
City:
State:
Top-earning towns
  Median household income
Hillsborough $263,456
Scarsdale $219,317
Los Altos Hills $199,370
See the rest
Hottest
  Avg. high temp
in July (°F)
Rancho Mirage, CA 108.2°F
Avondale, AZ 107.6°F
Glendale, AZ 107.6°F
See the rest
Priciest homes
  Median price
Montecito $3,157,233
Hillsborough $2,606,764
Paradise Valley $2,075,930
See the rest
Most singles
  % single residents
State College 76.5%
Durham 74.5%
Amherst Center 73.7%
See the rest
Youngest
  Median age
Storrs 20.65
Durham 21.19
Oxford 21.56
See the rest
© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy. Advertising Practices.
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 © 2009 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 | Site Map
RSS | Email Delivery | Portfolio | Podcasts | Mobile | Widgets | User Preferences | Special Sections
| Magazine Customer Service | Download Fortune Lists | Reprints | Conferences | Business Leader Council