News & Press
South Denver metro town named one of the best small cities in the country
As published on: https://www.westword.com/
Castle Rock finally got its coronation. The Douglas County town, a kingdom of outlet malls, has been named one of the best small cities in America.
Personal finance website WalletHub named Castle Rock as its 15th-best small city to live in in 2026 on Sept. 29. And while the affluent city of nearly 89,000 shines in the top 20, a few other metro locales managed to crack the illustrious list, too.
“While small cities may lack some advantages of big cities, like robust public transportation systems, they make up for these shortcomings in other areas,” Chip Lupo, an analyst with WalletHub, said.
According to the list, WalletHub compared more than 1,300 U.S. cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000, using 45 key “indicators of livability,” including safety, cost of living, school systems and restaurants per capita. The cities were then placed into a percentile, with Lexington, Massachusetts sliding into the number-one spot and the 99th percentile.
But we’re not here to talk about Massachusetts and its tea parties.
Castle Rock, too, landed in the 99th percentile and was ranked 80th out of 1,318 cities in affordability, 65th in economic health, 64th in education and 32nd in safety. The only thing that brought it down was its quality of life ranking, which was 449th.
The quality of life score was based on a multitude of factors, including average commutes to work, parks and restaurants per capita and entertainment per capita — like the number of overall attractions. So, the Outlets at Castle Rock may not be as impressive as holiday traffic on Interstate 25 may lead you to believe.
What the list did not point out was the overall affluence of each location — shockingly, the higher the income, the better a place it is to live. For example, the number-one Lexington has an average annual household income of approximately $311,976, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average annual household income of Castle Rock is $171,148.
Meanwhile, the lowest-ranked city on the list — West Memphis, Arkansas — has an average annual household income of $42,674. Second-to-last Alexandria, Louisiana, came in at $47,113. Who’d have thought?
Castle Rock wasn’t the only Colorado municipality to do well on WalletHub’s list, though. Broomfield came in the 95th percentile, Parker in the 93rd, Windsor in the 91st, Lafayette in the 88th, Littleton in the 87th and Loveland in the 73rd.
Three of those are within Douglas County, one of the richest counties in the state and a top-10 richest county in the country. (If only their county commissioners could stop throwing together controversial elections every year, and it would be set.)
But Colorado didn’t just take up positive spots on the list. Wheat Ridge and Grand Junction both fell into the 61st percentile. Longmont landed in the 59th, Englewood the 44th, Brighton the 33rd, Commerce City the 22nd and Northglenn the 15th. Maybe Northglenn’s upcoming drone delivery service can boost it up in 2027, though.
