Money's list of America's best small cities


States
Top 100
Rank City Population
61 Bolingbrook 71,800
54 Naperville 152,600
78 Wheaton 54,500
Other cities
  Arlington Heights 74,661
  Aurora 199,232
  Berwyn 56,475
  Bloomington 78,149
  Champaign 82,359
  Chicago 2,853,114
  Cicero 83,395
  Decatur 76,684
  Des Plaines 57,834
  Elgin 108,069
  Evanston 77,693
  Hoffman Estates 53,641
  Joliet 147,484
  Mount Prospect 53,585
  Normal 53,216
  Oak Lawn 56,557
  Oak Park 52,014
  Orland Park 55,514
  Palatine 67,809
  Peoria 114,984
  Rockford 157,272
  Schaumburg 73,124
  Skokie 66,620
  Springfield 117,352
  Tinley Park 59,198
  Waukegan 90,788
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
Pick a state

1
0
2
1
5
5
4
0
0
3
0
0
1
3
2
3
2
0
0
0
5
4
5
5
0
3
0
1
1
1
4
1
4
2
3
1
4
2
3
0
0
0
2
5
4
0
5
2
0
1
1
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

  • Real estate and homes for sale on Trulia

  • Property Type
  • Find a home in:
  • New York | Atlanta | Chicago | Los Angeles
  • Washington D.C | Houston | Philadelphia | More options
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

Comments? E-mail the editors

onboard
Contact Us Closed Captioning Manage Cookies+ Site Map

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.