The Best Places to Raise Your Kids 2012

When families move for work or lifestyle changes, they try to pick the place with the best opportunities for their children as well as for overall living standards. Parents carefully consider many factors, including the quality of schools in the area, the cost of living, the available amenities, and safety, to name a few—and this is no easy task. In Businessweek.com’s 6th annual ranking of best places to raise kids, we teamed up with Bloomberg Rankings to evaluate 4,169 places with a crime index less than 10 percent above the national average, populations between 1,000 and 50,000 people, and median family income within 20 percent of the state median, using data from real estate data company Onboard Informatics. Each place was assigned a score based on information about education (such as school scores, the number of public and private schools, and colleges), economy (including median family income, expenses, job growth, and unemployment), crime, amenities (such as child day-care centers, zoos, aquariums, museums, theaters, recreation centers, green space), air quality, and ethnic diversity. School performance, expenditures, and income were given the most weight. Nationwide, the overall winner was Blacksburg, Va., followed by Arlington, Neb., and Morton Grove, Ill. Businessweek.com also selected a top place in each state.

Click here to see the best place to live in your state.

*Data source on all slides is Onboard Informatics unless noted otherwise.