Savage is one of 10 cities determined to be the Best Affordable Suburb in their state by Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Life with children is expensive, but in some places a dollar goes a lot further, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which evaluated information provided by community data company OnBoard Informatics to determine the best affordable suburb in each state.

Savage ranked #9 because: “The residents of this green suburb enjoy 304 acres of city-managed park space and more than 2,400 acres of state and county-managed parkland. South of Minneapolis near the Minnesota River, Savage is in one of the state's fastest-growing areas, Scott County. About 57 percent of residents here are married with children, according to OnBoard. Savage is part of three school districts: Prior Lake-Savage, Burnsville-Eagan-Savage, and Shakopee.”

The evaluation of Savage also included that the median family income is $102,025, the median home price is $213,750, the unemployment rate is 7.3 percent and the violent crime index was 28.

“While many of the places on this year's list are near amenities such as country clubs and golf courses, the focus is not luxury, but rather communities where families can live well for less and enjoy good schools, low crime, and reasonable commutes,” the evaluators concluded, “The selected suburbs were limited to towns within 25 miles of the most populated city in the state, with populations of 5,000 to 60,000, median family incomes of $51,000 to $120,000, and lower-than-average crime rates.

“We weighted a variety of factors including livability (short commutes, low pollution, green space), education (well-educated residents, high test scores), crime (low personal and property crime), economy (high job growth, low unemployment rate, high family income), and affordability (median household income, cost of expenditures). Affordability was most heavily weighted in our calculations. We penalized places with bad weather, a lack of racial diversity, high divorce rates, and few children.”

The results range from established high-income neighborhoods to growing middle-income communities. The Top 10 Best Affordable Suburbs in America, by rank, included: Fishers, Ind., Papillon, Neb., Mililani Town, Hawaii, Huntersville, N.C., Montgomeryville, Pa., Hales Corners, Wis.,  Roxborough Park, Colo.,  Brandon, S.D., Savage, Minn., and Clark, N.J.