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If you like to shop, Maple Grove is the city for you. It's home to the Shoppes at Arbor Lakes, an upscale mall with 68 stores and restaurants, as well as several other major retail centers. That, plus top-notch hospitals and active community organizations, has made Maple Grove the cultural and retail heart of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. While there are plenty of jobs in town -- medical research firm Boston Scientific alone employs about 2,500 people -- downtown Minneapolis is just a 20-minute car ride away. -- L.M.
Due to an error by our data provider, an earlier version listed incorrect stats for this city's number of colleges.
(3) Crime incidences are estimates based on FBI 2011 Universal Crime and incidence reports, OnBoard analysis.
(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. These states use the personal exemption amounts provided in the federal Internal Revenue Code. The income brackets reported for Minnesota are for single individuals. For married couples filing jointly, the same tax rates apply to income brackets ranging from $34,590, to $137,431.
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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