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Raleigh may have a hot homebuyers market right now while another town was named one of the nicest places in the U.S., but one city in North Carolina is one of the best smaller cities in the country.
WalletHub recently released its list of the Best Small Cities in the U.S., comparing more than 1,300 cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000 to determine which are the best for people who enjoy city living at a smaller scale.
So which North Carolina city earned a spot on the list?
Apex
According to the report, Apex was No. 26 on the list of the best small cities in the country, ranking in the top 2%. The town outside of Raleigh ranked high in terms of affordability and economic health, even breaking the Top 10 in the latter.
Here are the Top 5 small cities on the list:
- Sammamish, Washington
- Carmel, Indiana
- Brentwood, Tennessee
- Lexington, Massachusetts
- Reading, Massachusetts
To determine the list, WalletHub compared more than 1,300 small cities across five factors: affordability, economic health, education & health, quality of life, and safety. These factors were then evaluated on 43 relevant metrics, including cost of living, median household income, population growth, job growth, unemployment rate, high school graduation rate, school-system quality, restaurants per capita, average weekly work hours, violent crime rate and more.
Check out the full report here.