NJ borough named among best small cities in U.S.: Study

People like to brag about where they're from, but residents of one New Jersey borough may be able to get the last word in the tri-state, according to recent rankings.

Personal finance website WalletHub gave Fair Lawn one of the best scores in the U.S. in its rankings of best small cities in America. The Bergen County city was ranked sixth in the country, with high marks in education and health (17th) and safety (18th).

While it still ranked toward the front of the pack in affordability (143rd) and economic health (241st), according to WalletHub, it struggled in quality of life, being rated just 883rd overall in that category (out of 1,300 cities rated in the study).

But Fair Lawn doesn't get all the bragging rights. Saratoga Springs, a popular tourism spot just north of Albany, also scored in the 99th percentile, with a score just below Fair Lawn, at 69.11, good for 9th overall. Four other small cities — all in New Jersey — also landed in the top 5% of small cities, including Princeton, Ridgewood, Paramus and Hoboken.

Also, the Long Island town of Commack has the lowest share of its population living in poverty, just 1.8%, according to WalletHub. Westfield, New Jersey, was just behind it.

The top-ranked small city for Connecticut, the study found, was New Haven County's Shelton, followed by the coastal cities of Stratford and Norwalk.

So what was the top city overall? That honor goes to Carmel, Indiana, which was rated one of the safest small cities in the country (4th), along with top 50 ranks in affordability (31st) and education and health (50th). It was one of three Indiana cities to make the top five, along with neighboring Westfield (4th overall) and Fishers (5th overall), WalletHub found. Lexington, Massachusetts, and Brentwood, Tennessee, also were rated as the best of the best.

Here are the tri-state small cities among the top cities, being rated in the 90th percentile or above, according to WalletHub's study (the percentile is in parentheses):

• Saratoga Springs, NY (99)
• Princeton, NJ (97)
• Ridgewood, NJ (97)
• Paramus, NJ (96)
• Hoboken, NJ (95)
• Shelton, CT (93)
• Westfield, NJ (90)
• Long Beach, NY (90)

On the other end of the scale, New Jersey was also home to a city that had among the worst scores in the country, as Camden was put into just the 1st percentile of scores (it had the eighth-worst score of all cities ranked). Camden had a score of just 42.34, just a few points above the city with the lowest score — which was Bessemer, Alabama, given a score of 37.02, the study found.

New Jersey was actually home to five cities that finished among the lowest in the country, with Millville, Atlantic City, Vineland and Trenton all finishing in the lowest tier. Rockland County's Spring Valley was also rated low on the list.

Other notables on the list: New Jersey's Lakewood had the fourth-highest housing costs, while New Brunswick had the fourth-lowest homeownership rate; Stratford, Connecticut, had the fourth-worst income growth; Hoboken was tied for fourth-highest amount of hours worked each week.

Here is the rest of the list — 80th percentile or above:

• Stratford, CT (88)
• Norwalk, CT (86)
• Fort Lee, NJ (84)
• White Plains, NY (84)

70th percentile or above:

• Englewood, NJ (79)
• Ithaca, NY (79)
• Albany, NY (78)
• East Meadow, NY (77)
• Baldwin, NY (77)
• Manchester, CT (76)
• Wethersfield (76)
• West Hartford, CT (76)
• Naugatuck, CT (75)
• Danbury, CT (73)
• Plainview, NY (72)

60th percentile or above:

• New City, NY (69)
• Middletown, CT (69)
• Sayreville, NJ (69)
• Oceanside, NY (68)
• Hicksville, NY (67)
• Newington, CT (67)
• Hackensack, NJ (66)
• New Rochelle, NY (64)
• Smithtown, NY (64)
• Glen Cove, NY (63)
• Milford, CT (63)
• Valley Stream, NY (63)
• West Islip, NY (61)
• Rahway, NJ (60)
• Bristol, CT (60)

50th Percentile and above:

• Franklin Square, NY (58)
• Bayonne, NJ (58)
• Auburn, NY (57)
• Commack, NY (57)
• Troy, NY (57)
• Kearny, NJ (56)
• Clifton, NJ (55)
• Niagara Falls, NY (53)
• Torrington, CT (53)
• Levittown, NY (53)
• New London, CT (53)
• Schenectady, NY (52)
• Ossining, NY (51)
• Harrison, NY (51)
• West Seneca, NY (50)
• West New York, NJ (50)

40th Percentile and above:

• Holbrook, NY (49)
• Freeport, NY (49)
• Port Chester, NY (48)
• Cheektowaga, NY (47)
• Garfield, NJ (47)
• Utica, NY (57)
• Mount Vernon, NY (44)
• Lindenhurst, NY (43)
• Brentwood, NY (43)
• Linden, NJ (42)
• Toms River, NJ (41)
• West Babylon, NY (40)
• Norwich, CT (40)

30th Percentile and above:

• Middletown, NY (39)
• West Haven, CT (38)
• Long Branch, NJ (37)
• Meriden, CT (37)
• Elmont, NY (36)
• Poughkeepsie, NY (35)
• Huntington Station, NY (34)
• Brighton, NY (33)
• Jamestown, NY (33)
• Deer Park, NY (32)
• East Haven, CT (32)
• Shirley, NY (31)
• Irondequoit, NY (31)
• Central Islip, NY (31)

20th Percentile and above:

• Watertown, NY (29)
• Uniondale, NY (29)
• Binghamton, NY (28)
• Newburgh, NY (27)
• Bay Shore, NY (27)
• East Hartford, CT (26)
• Elmira, NY (24)
• New Brunswick, NJ (22)
• Plainfield, NJ (22)
• New Britain, CT (21)

10th Percentile and above:

• Perth Amboy, NJ (19)
• Union City, NJ (18)
• Hempstead, NY (18)
• Passaic, NJ (14)
• Lakewood, NJ (12)
• East Orange, NJ (10)

1st Percentile and above:

• Trenton, NJ (8)
• Spring Valley, NY (7)
• Vineland, NJ (4)
• Atlantic City, NJ (3)
• Millville, NJ (3)
• Camden, NJ (1)