These Georgia towns rank among America’s best (and worst) small cities

Not all of America’s best cities come in big, urban packages.

According to personal finance website WalletHub, "small-city life can be best for those who appreciate more wiggle room, fewer degrees of separation and shorter commutes." But no two small cities are made equal, researchers wrote.

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Analysts over at the site sought out to find out which cities deserve the most bragging rights. They compared 1,268 cities in the United States across five key dimensions: affordability; economic health; education and health; quality of life and safety.

Those five dimensions were further evaluated using 40 relevant metrics, including median household income, housing costs, unemployment rate, restaurants per capita and violent crime rate.

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Researchers only considered city propers with population sizes between 25,000 and 100,000.

“Given the large sample of cities ranked in this study, we grouped cities by percentile,” they wrote. “The 99th percentile represents the top 1 percent of small cities in America.”

Of the 1,268 cities on the list, Leawood, Kansas, earned the highest total score and ranked No. 1 in affordability. Carmel, Indiana, and Princeton, New Jersey, rounded out the top three.

While no Georgia city fell in the 99th percentile bracket (or the top 1 percent), Alpharetta did make the 92nd percentile.

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Here’s how Alpharetta ranked across the five dimensions:

Scoring in the 88th percentile, Kennesaw was the next Georgia city on the list.

Here’s how Kennesaw ranked across the five dimensions:

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Unfortunately, several Georgia cities — East Point, Albany, Hinesville, LaGrange and Valdosta — ranked among the bottom 5 percent of America’s small cities, according to WalletHub.

Statesboro also bore the highest percentage of population in poverty of all small cities. Approximately 51.5 percent of the city's population is impoverished, according to the U.S. Census.

And while Macon-Bibb scored low (in the 8th percentile), the small city actually tied with six other American cities for the highest income growth.

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Georgia cities on the list and their respective brackets:

More about the ranking and its methodology at wallethub.com.