Money's list of America's best small cities


Cities
Rank City Population
  Sacramento, CA 466,700
  Saginaw, MI 55,600
  Salem, OR 155,600
  Salinas, CA 151,700
  Salt Lake City, UT 188,300
  San Angelo, TX 94,300
  San Antonio, TX 1,365,300
  San Bernardino, CA 212,000
  San Buenaventura, CA 107,800
  San Clemente, CA 61,500
  San Diego, CA 1,319,600
  San Francisco, CA 809,000
  San Jose, CA 956,400
  San Juan Capistrano, CA 63,500
  San Leandro, CA 85,000
  San Marcos, CA 83,300
  San Mateo, CA 98,900
  San Rafael, CA 58,900
  San Ramon, CA 61,400
51 Sandy, UT 96,700
  Sandy Springs, GA 89,600
  Sanford, FL 54,100
  Santa Ana, CA 339,100
  Santa Barbara, CA 90,800
  Santa Clara, CA 119,400
  Santa Clarita, CA 169,500
  Santa Cruz, CA 61,600
  Santa Fe, NM 71,800
  Santa Maria, CA 86,400
  Santa Monica, CA 90,600
  Santa Rosa, CA 170,200
  Santee, CA 53,900
  Sarasota, FL 53,200
  Savannah, GA 139,500
  Schaumburg, IL 73,100
  Schenectady, NY 66,700
  Scottsdale, AZ 235,400
  Scranton, PA 76,500
  Seattle, WA 624,100
  Shawnee, KS 63,000
79 Shelby, MI 74,300
  Shoreline, WA 53,800
  Shreveport, LA 199,700
  Silver Spring, MD 72,600
  Simi Valley, CA 126,300
  Sioux City, IA 82,900
  Sioux Falls, SD 155,000
  Skokie, IL 66,600
  Smyrna, GA 51,400
  Somerville, MA 76,500
  South Bend, IN 103,800
  South Gate, CA 96,600
  South Hill, WA 52,000
18 South Jordan, UT 52,700
  South San Francisco, CA 64,900
  South Whittier, CA 57,000
  Southfield, MI 75,400
  Sparks, NV 88,600
  Spokane, WA 211,900
  Spokane Valley, WA 90,700
  Spring, TX 55,200
  Spring Hill, FL 100,500
  Springdale, AR 70,800
  Springfield, IL 117,400
  Springfield, MA 152,300
  Springfield, MO 162,500
  Springfield, OH 62,300
  Springfield, OR 60,200
  St. Charles, MO 67,200
  St. Clair Shores, MI 60,400
  St. Cloud, MN 66,900
63 St. George, UT 74,800
  St. Joseph, MO 77,100
  St. Louis, MO 354,400
  St. Paul, MN 288,300
76 St. Peters, MO 55,500
  St. Petersburg, FL 245,300
  Stamford, CT 125,100
  Sterling Heights, MI 129,500
  Stillwater, OK 62,800
  Stockton, CA 295,300
  Stratford, CT 51,700
  Suffolk, VA 86,200
  Sugar Land, TX 83,700
  Sunnyvale, CA 141,900
  Sunrise, FL 89,000
  Surprise, AZ 92,900
  Syracuse, NY 147,700
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
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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

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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

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