11 Connecticut Small Cities Make List of ‘Best in America’, Danbury Included

I agree with WalletHub when they tell us that "not everyone craves the bright lights and crowded spaces of big cities." I spent nearly my whole life in a much smaller town than anything around here, we are talking only about 10,000 at its peak. The study by WalletHub only included 1300 small cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000.

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One of the big draws for people to live in smaller cities is the relative convenience of things around you and maybe a shorter commute, and there is no doubt an economic advantage to one's decision to live in a small city. Included in the WalletHub website is a handy dandy EPI's Family Budget Calculator and it is interactive. You can type in any city and it will give the average cost per month for a two-parent, two-child family to maintain a "modest yet adequate" standard of living. Let's test it out and type in "Danbury", and when we do it says:

Family budgets in the Danbury metro area tor a two-parent, two-child family in the Danbury metro area, it costs: $9,488 per month

Total annual $113,852 per year to secure a modest yet adequate standard of living.

Here’s a breakdown of how much it costs for a two-parent, two-child family to get by in the Danbury metro area

• Housing:$1,725 per month • $20,700/year
• Food: $1,014 per month • $12,173/year
• Child care:$1,662 per month • $19,940/year
  Monthly costs range from $1,194 for a single-child family to $1,806 for a family with four kids.
• Transportation:$1,227 per month • $14,722/year
• Health care: $1,395 per month • $16,743/year
• Other necessities:$993 per month • $11,911/year
• Taxes:$1,472 per month • $17,663/year

If you think that is fun, we absolutely love analytics in the building, almost to the point of giddiness and this study is chock full of it. Here is the methodology laid out by WalletHub for this particular study:

Methodology

In order to determine the best small cities in America, WalletHub compared 1,319 cities across five key dimensions: 1) Affordability, 2) Economic Health, 3) Education & Health, 4) Quality of Life and 5) Safety. For our sample, we selected cities with population sizes between 25,000 and 100,000 and considered only the “city proper” in each case, excluding cities in the surrounding metro area.

With all that being said, Stratford is the highest-ranking Connecticut city out of 1300 on the list and the only one in the top 100.  Stratford had a decent showing all around but scored toward the bottom in Economic Health at 1125 out of 1300, but Education and Health were in the top 50 at 44. Here are 11 Connecticut cities of the top 500 highest-ranked "small cities" included in the study.

For more articles from your friendly-neighborhood drive-time DJ, you can click or tap right here, including one recently about the oldest restaurants in New England. Thanks for hanging out with me and keep scrolling to see one of the creepiest abandoned places here in the state of Connecticut.