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61. Sterling Heights, MI
Sterling Heights
Historic home in Sterling Heights
WINNER
Top 100 rank: 61
Population: 127,900
Compare Sterling Heights to Top 10 Best Places
This northern Detroit suburb prides itself on being family-friendly and safe, and its nestled between two award-winning school districts. Housing is affordable (the median is in the $160,000s) but also wide-ranging (half-million dollar homes arent hard to find).

Residents flock to many of the water resources in the community, including Lake St. Claire and the Clinton River, both of which have miles of walking and biking trails alongside them.

On the downside, many people here work for the auto industry, which has been suffering lately.

Median family income
(per year)		 $87,049 $93,313
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted)		 $98,249 $84,802
Sales tax 6.00% 6.60%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket)		 N.A.I 5.22%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket)		 3.90%I 2.42%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average price quotes, for the state)		 $2,051 $1,854
Job growth %
(2000-2007)		 1.30% 18.60%
Median home price $161,500 $293,712
Average property taxes
(2007)		 N.A. $4,072
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Colleges, universities and
professional schools (within 30 miles)		 23 40
Junior colleges and
technical institutes (within 30 miles)		 8 20
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average)		 13.7% 17.3%
Test scores math
(% above/below average)		 7.4% 16.6%
% students attending public/private
schools (located within town limits)		 93.1/3.1 89.5/10.5
Air quality index*
(% of days AQI ranked as good)		 80.8% 76.0%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 2 2
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 27 25
Median commute time
(in minutes)		 22.6 23.0
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer		 13.3% 15.8%
% population walk or bike to work 1.0% 3.0%
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles)		 42 51
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 4,598 4,141
Bars
(within 15 miles)		 574 338
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles)		 346 242
Libraries
(within 15 miles)		 107 90
Museums (accredited by AAM;
within 30 miles)		 4 11
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) 5 13
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts) 0.8 1.5
Annual rainfall
(inches)		 32.41 36.31
% clear days in the area 18 30
High temp in July ° F 82.3° 87.8°
Low temp in Jan ° F 17.9° 22.9°
Has health plan
(% of residents)		 91.5% 88.2%
Body mass index (avg. for residents) 28 27
Diabetes rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 9.5% 9.6%
Hypertension rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 37.7% 27.3%
Median age 39.2 36.0
Completed at least some college
(% of residents)		 60.7% 73.6%
Married 58.0% 57.5%
Divorced 7.6% 8.3%
Racial diversity index
(100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity)		 46.7 104.0
Amount spent on vacations
(domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)		 $7,624 $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.
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Sperling's Best Places
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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