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West Des Moines may be one of the wealthiest cities in Iowa, but its real estate is surprisingly affordable -- the median cost of a home here is $165,000. Though people pour into town by day to work at major firms like Hy-Vee and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, at night West Des Moines has one of the lowest population densities of the places on our list. With most housing occupying a third of an acre, it's a good place to live if you like to spread out. -- L.M.
Notes:
*County data
Due to erroneous job, cost-of-living, and test score stats for a small number of places, this city's rank changed slightly from an earlier version.
Details.
Due to an error by our data provider, an earlier version listed incorrect stats for this city's number of colleges.
(I) Income tax notes:
17 states have statutory provision for automatically adjusting to the rate of inflation the dollar values of the income tax brackets, standard deductions, and/or personal exemptions. Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nebraska index the personal exemption only. Oregon does not index the income brackets for $125,000 and over. Because the inflation adjustments for 2012 are not yet available in some cases, the table may report the 2011 amounts. The personal exemption takes the form of a tax credit instead of a deduction.
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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