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Centreville strikes the right balance for those who want to escape big-city life without sacrificing big-city job opportunities. Though the commute to Washington, D.C., can be lengthy due to traffic, Centreville is within reasonable driving distance of both mountain and beach getaways (it's even easier to get far away: Dulles International Airport is minutes down the road). That's not to say there's no such thing as local traffic too -- Centreville's Little League team, recent state champions, has been known to draw quite a crowd. --E.R.
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.
(3) Crime incidences are estimates based on FBI 2011 Universal Crime and incidence reports, OnBoard analysis.
(II) Sales tax notes:
California (1%) and Virginia (1%) levy mandatory, statewide add-on sales taxes at the local level; these are included in their state sales tax rates. Arlington is a county without any incorporated municipalities. However, we treat it as a city here because it is included in the Census Bureau's annual list of incorporated 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.)
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