6. Overland Park, Kans.

Envisioned as a "park like" bedroom community on the outskirts of Kansas City more than 100 years ago, Overland Park has gone from quiet hamlet to burgeoning suburb to the second-biggest city in Kansas, with more than 160,000 people spread over 57 square miles. A third of Fortune 500 companies have offices in the area, including Sprint-Nextel, which employs 14,500 locally. Good jobs continue to lure more young people here.

Ryan Parks and his wife Beth, both 28, wanted to move from Nebraska to the Kansas City area to be closer to family and friends. They chose Overland Park because it was convenient for work - he's an engineer, she's a physician assistant - and ideal for raising the family they plan on starting.

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"We liked the atmosphere," says Ryan, "and you can't beat the location, the school district, the shopping. We figured if we were going to settle down, this was the place to do it."

Here, competitive salaries (the average income is nearly six figures) can buy you a whole lot of house: Existing homes sell for about $100 a square foot, half (or less) of the cost on the coasts. And Overland Park real estate continues to rack up solid gains.

The city has held back sprawl thanks to strategic placement of green space and hundreds of fountains (an echo of neighboring K.C., known as the City of Fountains). All that careful planning does take some whimsy out of the place, however. A grid layout, six-lane intersections and copious hotels can't help but make Overland Park feel like Office Park.

Still, the city was selected as one of the most kid-friendly spots in the country by an environmental advocacy group in 2001, and the community defines itself by its commitment to education. School boards are operated independently of the city, and about half of each property tax dollar goes to funding the four highly regarded public school districts.

"Even though we are a larger city and a growing city," says stockbroker and former longtime mayor Ed Eilert, "Overland Park is just a big small town."

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