Money's list of America's best small cities


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16. Cary, NC
Cary
A street fair in Cary
WINNER
Top 100 rank: 16
Population: 112,400
Compare Cary to Top 10 Best Places
Adjacent to North Carolina's renowned Research Triangle Park, Cary is blessed with plenty of resources.

With Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina all within a 20-minute drive, it's no wonder that two-thirds of Cary's population has a college degree. The Triangle's 170 businesses include SAS Software, Epic Games and Cotton Incorporated--a boon for the local economy that keeps median household incomes much higher than average.

And those who move here can rest easy: it's one of the safest cities around.

Median family income
(per year)		 $104,858 $93,313
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted)		 $96,200 $84,802
Sales tax 6.75% 6.60%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket)		 8.00%I 5.22%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket)		 6.00%I 2.42%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average price quotes, for the state)		 $1,816 $1,854
Job growth %
(2000-2007)		 24.50% 18.60%
Median home price $264,000 $293,712
Average property taxes
(2007)		 $2,528 $4,072
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Colleges, universities and
professional schools (within 30 miles)		 11 40
Junior colleges and
technical institutes (within 30 miles)		 5 20
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average)		 12.2% 17.3%
Test scores math
(% above/below average)		 22.6% 16.6%
% students attending public/private
schools (located within town limits)		 84.9/15.1 89.5/10.5
Air quality index*
(% of days AQI ranked as good)		 58.9% 76.0%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 1 2
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 19 25
Median commute time
(in minutes)		 21.1 23.0
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer		 7.3% 15.8%
% population walk or bike to work 1.8% 3.0%
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles)		 30 51
Restaurants
(within 15 miles)		 2,420 4,141
Bars
(within 15 miles)		 156 338
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles)		 114 242
Libraries
(within 15 miles)		 40 90
Museums (accredited by AAM;
within 30 miles)		 5 11
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) N.A. 13
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts) 1.2 1.5
Annual rainfall
(inches)		 45.69 36.31
% clear days in the area 30 30
High temp in July ° F 88.8° 87.8°
Low temp in Jan ° F 30.2° 22.9°
Has health plan
(% of residents)		 88.4% 88.2%
Body mass index (avg. for residents) 27 27
Diabetes rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 9.9% 9.6%
Hypertension rates
(% of residents diagnosed)		 25.6% 27.3%
Median age 34.6 36.0
Completed at least some college
(% of residents)		 84.4% 73.6%
Married 62.9% 57.5%
Divorced 6.9% 8.3%
Racial diversity index
(100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity)		 96.0 104.0
Amount spent on vacations
(domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)		 $8,121 $8,012
From the August 2008 issue
Notes:
* County data
** State data

(I) Income tax notes:
The tax brackets reported are for single individuals. For married taxpayers, the same rates apply to income brackets ranging from $21,250 to $200,000. Lower exemption amounts allowed for high income taxpayers. Tax rate scheduled to decrease after tax year 2007.
These states allow personal exemption or standard deductions as provided in the IRC. Utah allows a personal exemption equal to three-fourths the federal exemptions.
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Nearby...
FORTUNE 500
Bank of America Corp. 9
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FORTUNE: Best to work for
SAS 29
Kimley-Horn 38
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Information powered by Onboard Informatics
Some data may be provided courtesy of its partners.
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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