Money's list of America's best small cities


States
Top 100
Rank City Population
26 Franklin 62,600
75 Hamilton 88,200
16 Parsippany-Troy Hills 53,200
83 Wayne 54,700
Other cities
  Bayonne 64,498
  Brick 75,382
  Camden 79,383
  Cherry Hill 70,614
  Clifton 85,002
  East Orange 65,390
  Edison 101,517
  Elizabeth 128,085
  Gloucester 64,300
  Hoboken 52,151
  Howell 50,356
  Jersey City 255,121
  Middletown 65,319
  New Brunswick 56,626
  Newark 280,318
  North Bergen 61,929
  Passaic 71,374
  Paterson 149,058
  Perth Amboy 51,819
  Piscataway 56,612
  Plainfield 50,548
  Toms River 89,143
  Trenton 85,382
  Union 56,858
  Union City 68,151
  Vineland 60,319
  West New York 51,730
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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