This upstate New York town 227 miles north of NYC (and almost that distance from Philly) values its education. Ivy League Cornell University (giving the city its #2 rank in our Universities subcategory) and renowned Ithaca College don’t just keep the town hopping with students—the two schools are also the area’s largest employers.
Citizens of this Central Finger Lakes region of New York State, tucked at the southern tip of 40-mile-long Cayuga Lake, walk the academic talk, making Ithaca one of the nation’s smartest small cities (ranked #4 in our Educational Attainment subcategory). It’s easy to see their reasoning for settling here, too: downtown is big-city thriving, with several breweries, irresistible indie restaurants and an underrated nightlife scene.
But it’s what’s just outside of town that’s responsible for the city’s pun-tastic slogan: “Ithaca Is Gorges.” The 100+ gorges and waterfalls located within 10 miles of downtown include the 215-foot Taughannock Falls, actually three stories taller than Niagara Falls, all of it part of 28,000 acres of accessible public forestland.