Kirkland named among Top 20 Best Small Cities in America
KIRKLAND, Wash. -- The city of Kirkland gets some bragging rights among small cities in the region, ranking 20th on a list of "Best Small Cities in America."
The study by WalletHub compared 1,268 cities in the U.S. with a population between 25,000 and 100,000 and ranked the cities on 40 key indicators of livability across such categories as affordability, economic health, education & health, quality of life and safety.
Some of the specific items studied ranged from housing costs to school system quality to restaurants per capita, to average commuting times and the violent crime rate, the study's authors said.
Kirkland ranked as the No. 3 city in the study when it came to Economic Health, and fared well above average in Education & Health Rank and Quality of Life.
Eastside neighbor Sammamish wasn't too far behind at No. 24 overall, with Bothell in at 29th. All of those cities were in the 98th percentile, nationally. Redmond (95th percentile) and Issaquah (94th) were the only other Washington cities in the Top 90th percentile (although Edmonds just missed at 89th.)
You can see how other local towns fared by hovering over the map (hover over Seattle to get a zoomed in map of Puget Sound area towns):
The best small city in the U.S. according to the study? Leawood, Kansas, which rated tops in affordability and very high in both economic health and education & health. The lowest rated town was Bessemer, Alabama.
