Best Cities for Families

For growing families in search of a place to call home, finding an area that has a top-notch education system, safe neighborhoods and a low cost of living is a high priority.

Dallas, Texas Skyline
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For growing families in search of a place to call home, finding an area that has a top-notch education system, safe neighborhoods and a low cost of living is a high priority. Jobs that allow parents to comfortably provide for their children are also a must-have.

To identify the Best Cities for Families, Kiplinger teamed up with Kevin Stolarick, research director at the Martin Prosperity Institute, a think tank that studies economic prosperity. All of the cities on our list have reasonable living costs, strong employment growth and a population that scores high on measures of education and tech-savviness. For families, we also factored in the student-teacher ratio in the public schools and the crime rate.

The cost-of-living index measures how expensive it is to live in a city; the national average score is 100. That means cities with a score below 100 have a lower-than-average cost of living. Nationwide, the median household income is $43,024, and median income growth from 2006 to 2011 was 11.1%. The national unemployment rate is 8.2%.

Check out our picks, and share your thoughts in our reader comment box below.