Best Cities for All Stages of Life

Find out how we picked the 25 top spots and learn more about our favorite cities.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine teamed up with Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class to pick the 25 best cities for its June issue. Below you'll find a breakdown of how our top places were selected. We also have multi-media extras you'll find only on Kiplinger.com. Check out our slide shows of the best cities for each stage of life, our tool that will help you pick the best city for you and a webcast of our interview with Richard Florida.

Criteria for Our Best Cities Picks

Here's how our 25 favorites made the cut.

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SLIDE SHOWS

Learn more about the top 25 places to launch a career, raise a family, retire in style, and more.

TOOL: Which City Is Best for You?

Take this 14-question survey to see which five metro areas in the United States best suit your goals and tastes.

COVERCAST: How We Picked Our Cities

Just how did we come up with our Kiplinger/Richard Florida 25 Best Cities list? It was one part knowing our readers and one part cosmic coincidence. Here's how they came together.

WEBCAST: Interview With Richard Florida

The author of The Rise of the Creative Class explains why choosing the right city is important to your financial future and how his creative class and lifestages were used in selecting the Kiplinger/Richard Florida 25 Best Cities.