Westport, Shelton Among Nation's Best Small Cities, Analysis Shows

Westport and Shelton are among the Best Small Cities in America, according to a new national analysis.  The two Connecticut communities, ranking 33rd and 57th respectively, were the only representatives of the Constitution State to reach the top 100.

Shelton’s website uses the motto “Vision to See, Faith to Believe, Courage to Do,” and Westport describes itself as “a town with a future that is bright and full of promise.”

The analysis, by the financial website WalletHub, included 1,268 small cities across the country.  Earning a spot in the top 250 were Wethersfield, West Hartford, Stratford, Trumbull, Newington, and Torrington, followed by Bristol, Middletown, Norwalk, Danbury, Milford, Manchester, Naugatuck, Meriden, and Norwich, among the Connecticut towns and cities to make the list.

In order to determine what was described as the best small cities in America, WalletHub compared the cities across five key dimensions: 1) Affordability, 2) Economic Health, 3) Education & Health, 4) Quality of Life and 5) Safety. For the sample, they 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.

Connecticut placed five communities among the top 50 nationwide in the “Education & Health” category: Westport ranked 18th, Trumbull was 31st, Shelton was 35th, Middletown was 37th, and Stratford was 49th.  Torrington also made the top 100 in that category, at number 78.

There were no Connecticut cities in the top 100 for “Economic Health” - Westport ranked highest at 101.  Trumbull was ranked highest in “Affordability” among the Connecticut communities considered, at number 147 on the list; Newington was 183 and Wethersfield was 199. 

The Affordability category included median household income, cost of living, homeownership rates, and housing costs.  Economic Health included population growth, income growth, job growth, unemployment rate, and foreclosure rate. 

Also among the 22 Connecticut communities included in the analysis were East Haven, West Haven, East Hartford, New London and New Britain.

Of the small cities analyzed, Trumbull was tied for second place in the lowest percentage of the population in poverty, and Manchester, at #151, was the highest ranked in Connecticut for Quality of Life.  New London was found to have the second lowest income growth among the small cities.

The evaluation included five dimensions using 42 relevant metrics.  Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for small-city residents.   Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Areavibes, TransUnion, TripAdvisor, RealtyTrac, County Health Rankings, Yelp and WalletHub research.