By Jayden Nguyen, CT Post
Oct 31, 2024
Financial company WalletHub released its list of the “Best Small Cities in America” this month, with 20 cities in the Nutmeg State being named to the list.
The Connecticut cities that made the list are:
- Stratford
- Shelton
- West Hartford
- Norwalk
- Middletown
- Manchester
- Wethersfield
- Newington
- Milford
- Danbury
- Naugatuck
- Torrington
- Bristol
- New London
- Norwich
- East Haven
- Meriden
- East Hartford
- New Britain
- West Haven
Stratford ranked the highest out of all 20 Connecticut cities, ranking in the 97th percentile with a total score of 66.6. Out of more than 1,300 U.S. cities, the city ranked 472nd for affordability, 1095th for economic health, 50th for education and health, 673rd for quality of life and 259th for safety.
Shelton ranked the second-highest of the Connecticut cities on the list, earning a score of 64.8 and ranking in the 90th percentile. The city ranked 45th in the education and health category.
To create the “Best Small Cities in America” list, WalletHub compared 1,318 U.S. cities using “five key dimensions,” including affordability, economic health, education and health, quality of life and safety.
Each dimension was then evaluated using specific metrics, such as cost of living, unemployment rate, school-system quality, average commute time and more. WalletHub graded each metric on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for small-city residents, according to its methodology page. The company took the city’s weighted average of points across all metrics to calculate its overall score on the list.
To determine the small cities included on the list, WalletHub selected cities with population sizes between 25,000 and 100,000 and “considered only the ‘city proper’ in each case, excluding cities in the surrounding metro area,” according to the study.
WalletHub sourced its information from data collected as of July 2, 2024 from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Areavibes, TransUnion, TripAdvisor, County Health Rankings, Yelp, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, ATTOM, a property data provider – U.S. Foreclosure Market Report and WalletHub research.