Money's list of America's best small cities


Fastest job growth
Here are the counties with the highest percentage job growth (2000-2011).
Rank County Towns include Job growth % 2000-2011
1 Loudoun, VA Ashburn 83.59%
2 Fort Bend, TX Sugar Land, Missouri City 78.07%
3 Williamson, TX Cedar Park, Georgetown, Round Rock 73.75%
4 Montgomery, TX The Woodlands 63.49%
5 Douglas, CO Highlands Ranch, Castle Rock 58.60%
6 Collin, TX Frisco, Allen, Plano, McKinney 55.88%
7 Denton, TX Flower Mound, Lewisville, Denton 53.37%
8 Prince William, VA Dale City 48.60%
9 Suffolk, VA Suffolk 42.97%
10 Williamson, TN Franklin 40.28%
11 Sarpy, NE Bellevue 39.36%
12 Wake, NC Cary, Raleigh 36.51%
13 Faulkner, AR Conway 34.96%
14 Houston, GA Warner Robins 29.92%
15 Bonneville, ID Idaho Falls 28.06%
16 Cass, ND Fargo 27.66%
17 Lafayette, LA Lafayette 27.15%
18 Burleigh, ND Bismarck 22.93%
19 Leon, FL Tallahassee 19.14%
20 Johnson, IA Iowa City 19.01%
21 Anchorage, AK Anchorage 18.17%
22 Pennington, SD Rapid City 16.02%
23 Minnehaha, SD Sioux Falls 10.79%
24 Washington, TN Johnson City 10.49%
25 Garfield, OK Enid 10.20%
From the September 2012 issue
Source: Census data, Onboard Informatics projection. Only counties where each Best Place within it was also experiencing job and population growth, and where unemployment was below the national average, were considered. No more than 2 places within a state could qualify.
Best Places Winners
MAPS
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.