Best Small Cities In America 2026: Lexington, Massachusetts, Ranks No. 1

Almost half of Americans, 47%, say they would rather live in the suburbs than in a big city or the countryside, according to figures cited in a new WalletHub report. Only 24% pick urban living. For people in that camp weighing where to settle, the report has a first choice: Lexington, Massachusetts.

WalletHub graded 1,318 U.S. cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000, scoring each on 45 measures of cost, the local economy, schools and health, things to do, and safety. Lexington finished first with a score of 71.55 out of 100. Brookfield, Wisconsin, came in second at 71.24, and Carmel, Indiana, took third at 70.91.

Lexington did not win on price. It ranked 487th for affordability, closer to the middle of the pack than the front. Where the town pulled away was safety, where it placed fifth in the country, and education and health, where it placed third. Its lead was thin, too: only 0.31 points separated it from Brookfield.

Why Lexington tops the best small cities in America

Safety did the heaviest lifting. Lexington has the fourth-lowest property crime rate and the 21st-lowest violent crime rate among all the cities in the study. Those two numbers carry extra weight in WalletHub’s formula, since violent and property crime each counted double and together make up half of the 20 points available for safety. Lexington’s roads are safe as well, with the 12th-fewest car crash deaths and 17th-fewest drunk driving deaths per capita (per resident, so towns of different sizes can be compared fairly).

By WalletHub’s measures, Lexington residents are doing very well financially. Lexington’s median household earns more than $238,000 a year, one of the highest figures in the country. Residents also hold the ninth-highest median credit score in the study, 783. A credit score is the three-digit number lenders use to judge how reliably someone pays back debt, and Lexington’s median sits well toward the top of the scale.

On education and health, Lexington gets a boost from its home state. Massachusetts has the best school systems in the country, according to a separate WalletHub ranking that feeds into this one. Lexington also has the fourth-highest share of residents with health insurance, the 13th-lowest share of adults in poor or fair health, and the 24th-most fitness centers per capita.

Outside of affordability, Lexington’s softest showing came in quality of life, a category that counts restaurants, coffee shops, museums, parks, commute times and similar everyday amenities. It ranked 115th there.

Brookfield, Carmel and the rest of the top 10

Brookfield, a Wisconsin city, earned second place largely on economics and cost. Its affordability rank of 57th is far stronger than Lexington’s. Unemployment sits at 3%, and only 3.2% of residents live in poverty, the 10th-lowest share in the study. Its median credit score of 785 is actually two points higher than Lexington’s, good for seventh in the country. Nearly 98% of Brookfield residents have health insurance.

Carmel, Indiana, placed third. Its unemployment rate is 2.90%, and the typical household earns nearly $142,000 a year. Rent takes up only about 15% of median household income, the 41st-lowest share in the study. Carmel also has the ninth-lowest share of adults in poor or fair health and the 21st-lowest premature death rate.

Fourth through 10th place went to Apex, North Carolina (70.24); Saratoga Springs, New York (70.08); Westfield, Indiana (69.92); Milton, Massachusetts (69.66); Arlington, Massachusetts (69.47); Franklin, Tennessee (69.38); and Fishers, Indiana (69.24). Arlington ranked first in the entire study for education and health.

Several high finishers got there despite glaring weak spots. Apex ranked first in the country for economic health but 581st for quality of life. Westfield placed sixth overall while ranking 1,060th in that same category. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, landed 16th overall even though it ranked 868th for affordability and 796th for economic health; it made up the ground by placing 10th for quality of life and 35th for safety.

Scores bunch tightly near the top. Only 4.41 points separate first-place Lexington from 30th-place Rockville, Maryland, which scored 67.14.

Massachusetts and Indiana dominate the best small cities ranking

Two states stand out. Massachusetts placed six towns in the top 30: Lexington, Milton, Arlington, Needham, Melrose and Belmont. Indiana placed five: Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Zionsville and Noblesville.

They got there in opposite ways. Every Massachusetts town in the top 30 ranked 17th or better for education and health, yet none ranked better than 157th for affordability, and Belmont came in at 725th. Indiana’s cities flip that pattern. All five ranked 89th or better on affordability, with Zionsville ninth in the country, but their quality-of-life ranks ran from 269th to 1,060th.

Western states contributed only four cities to the top 30: Castle Rock, Colorado (15th); Lehi, Utah (18th); Kaysville, Utah (23rd); and Bend, Oregon (24th). No California city cracked the group.

Interest in smaller places has been building for years, according to Susan Bradbury, interim chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Development at Iowa State University, who served on the report’s expert panel. She wrote that Americans have long preferred small cities to large ones, and that “the COVID pandemic bolstered this trend, as people relocated from large cities to small cities and/or suburbs.”

Cost is a big part of the draw. WalletHub’s report cites Economic Policy Institute figures showing that a two-parent, two-child family in Hanford, California, would need $8,417 a month to cover living costs, compared with $19,275 for the same family in San Francisco.

Bradbury was candid about the downsides, too. “There are fewer job opportunities in smaller cities, typically fewer employers, so less opportunity to change jobs,” she wrote. She added that small cities often lack big-city cultural venues and that some specialized medical treatments may not be available locally. Chip Lupo, a WalletHub analyst, argued the trade still tends to pay off: “While small cities may lack some advantages of big cities, like robust public transportation systems, they make up for these shortcomings in other areas.”

Scoring 1,318 small cities on 45 measures

WalletHub limited its sample to cities with 25,000 to 100,000 residents and counted only the city proper, leaving out neighboring cities in the same metro area. Analysts split 100 possible points evenly across five categories: affordability, economic health, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Each of the 45 measures was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 marking the most favorable conditions, and each city’s weighted average across all measures became its final score.

Affordability looked at income, cost of living, homeownership, housing costs compared with income, and the share of households severely burdened by housing costs. Economic health tracked growth in jobs, income and population, along with unemployment, poverty, debt, foreclosures, bankruptcies and credit scores. Education and health paired school quality and graduation rates with insurance coverage, obesity, physical inactivity and access to healthy food. Within quality of life, the number of local attractions counted double.

Because the sample is so large, WalletHub grouped cities by percentile. Lexington and the next 18 cities sit in the 99th percentile, meaning the top 1% of small cities in America. Data were collected as of Sept. 1, 2026, from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the FBI, TransUnion and County Health Rankings.

Two caveats belong alongside these numbers. School-system quality was measured at the state level, so every Massachusetts town received the same top score on that measure, a built-in head start for the state’s towns in education and health. And a citywide average can blur sharp differences between neighborhoods, so a well-placed street in a mid-ranked city may suit a family better than a poorly placed one in a top-ranked city.

Lexington reached No. 1 with top-five showings in safety and in education and health, despite a middling affordability rank. Brookfield and Carmel each finished within a point of it while ranking hundreds of places higher for affordability. A first-place title makes the headline, but for a family weighing a move, the more telling result may sit one and two spots down the list.