WalletHub has taken a look at the best small cities in America and two South Dakota cities made the cut; Rapid City came in 58th and Aberdeen, 87th. The number crunching gurus looked at 1,268 cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000.

There were five areas in particular they compared to come up with the small cities rankings.

  • Affordability - including housing costs and median incomes
  • Economic health - which took into account people living below the poverty rate, unemployment numbers, population and income growth
  • Education & health - they looked at high school graduation rates, school system quality, number of individuals with health insurance coverage, quality of individual's health, premature death rates, physical activity and obesity
  • Quality of life issues - dealt with everything from commute times and hours worked per week to the number of bars & restaurants, fitness centers and department stores available to community members.
  • Safety - this category simply looked at violent and property crime rates.

The data they used came from sources like the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the FBI and more.

Here are the top 5 Best Small Cities in the U.S. according to WalletHub:

  1. Westfield, Indiana
  2. Princeton, New Jersey
  3. Leawood, Kansas
  4. Littleton, Colorado
  5. Brookfield, Wisconsin

You can see the complete list of best small cities at WalletHub.com

Source: WalletHub.com


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