Money's list of America's best small cities


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53. Ames, IA
Ames
Bridge in Ames
WINNER
Top 100 rank: 53
Population: 51,500
Compare Ames to Top 10 Best Places
Home of Iowa State University, Ames wears its college town moniker with pride.

A trip to the Campustown neighborhood offers equal parts Café Beaudelaire and Varsity Theater. Just south of the stadium is an Iowa favorite: the 14-acre Reiman Gardens, home to exotic tropical plants and butterflies from around the world.

The perks of living here are palpable: Scotch tape manufacturer 3M and pasta producer Barilla are presences here, and the local transit system, Cy-ride, makes it easy to get around.

Median family income
(per year)		 $70,482 $93,313
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted)		 $82,823 $84,802
Sales tax 7.00% 6.60%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket)		 8.98%I 5.22%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket)		 0.36%I 2.42%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average price quotes, for the state)		 $1,366 $1,854
Job growth %
(2000-2007)		 7.03% 18.60%
Median home price $148,000 $293,712
Average property taxes
(2006)		 $2,489 $4,072
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Colleges, universities and
professional schools (within 30 miles)		 6 40
Junior colleges and
technical institutes (within 30 miles)		 2 20
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average)		 20.4% 17.3%
Test scores math
(% above/below average)		 8.1% 16.6%
% students attending public/private
schools (located within town limits)		 92.0/8.0 89.5/10.5
Air quality index*
(% of days AQI ranked as good)		 96.2% 76.0%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 3 2
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 28 25
Median commute time
(in minutes)		 12.0 23.0
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer		 6.3% 15.8%
% population walk or bike to work 16.0% 3.0%
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles)		 8 51
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 198 4,141
Bars
(within 15 miles)		 36 338
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles)		 70 242
Libraries
(within 15 miles)		 16 90
Museums (accredited by AAM;
within 30 miles)		 2 11
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) 4 13
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts) 0.9 1.5
Annual rainfall
(inches)		 34.52 36.31
% clear days in the area 29 30
High temp in July ° F 84.2° 87.8°
Low temp in Jan ° F 8.7° 22.9°
Has health plan
(% of residents)		 92.1% 88.2%
Body mass index (avg. for residents) 27 27
Diabetes rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 7.7% 9.6%
Hypertension rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 21.9% 27.3%
Median age 26.9 36.0
Completed at least some college
(% of residents)		 88.1% 73.6%
Married 36.5% 57.5%
Divorced 4.6% 8.3%
Racial diversity index
(100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity)		 47.2 104.0
Amount spent on vacations
(domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)		 $7,236 $8,012
From the August 2008 issue
Notes:
* County data
** State data

(I) Income tax notes:
17 states have statutory provision for automatic adjustment of tax brackets, personal exemption or standard deductions to the rate of inflation. Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska and Ohio indexes the personal exemption amounts only.
Tax credits.
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Additional data and consulting services provided by Bert Sperling's bestplaces.net.
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How we picked the Best Places
Using statistics from data provider Onboard Informatics and consultant Bert Sperling of BestPlaces.net, 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 7,500 and 50,000.) More
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