Marana Named No. 3 Best Small City In Arizona

Photo by Sean Parker

The Town of Marana has been named the third best small city in Arizona according to a study by the personal finance website WalletHub. The website’s analysts compared 1,268 cities across five key dimensions: 1) Affordability, 2) Economic Health, 3) Education & Health, 4) Quality of Life and 5) Safety.

They looked at 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.

Marana was not only rated as the third best small city in the state, but was among the top 30 percent of small cities in the United States.

Marana scored very well in both Affordability and Economic Health.

The Affordability category takes into account Median Household Income, Cost of Living, Homeownership Rate, and Housing Costs.

The Town scored particularly well in Median Household Income and Homeownership Rate where it was in the top quarter of all small cities.

The Economic Health score was based on Population Growth, Income Growth, Unemployment Rate, Share of Population Living Below Poverty Level, and Debt per Median Earnings.

In both categories Marana was among the top 16 percent of cities. Marana also scored well in the Safety category.

Specifically, Marana was 50th in population growth and also scored well in Income Growth, Unemployment Rate, and the Share of Population Living Below Poverty Level. All were among the top 25 percent, with Marana’s lack of people living in poverty among the top-15 percent of all small cities.

The Town also scored well in a number of other sub categories related to education and health including Share of the Population with High School Diploma or Higher, Share of Insured Population, and a Share of Live Births with Low Birthweight.

Marana also scored very well in the Violent Crime Rate.

Sources: 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, County Health Rankings, Yelp and WalletHub research.