There is no place like home, but is your home one of the best places to live? Money just released its 2022-2023 Best Places to Live in the U.S. ranking, and the top 10 is a list of diverse cities, both by region and actual population diversity. The methodology Money used when creating the 35th annual list was a desire to create “a more welcoming list for a broader group of people this year, so we restructured our data gathering and ranking processes to reflect that priority.”
To that end, changes included introducing new data related to national heritage, languages spoken at home and religious diversity. Data was collected from cities with a population of at least 20,000 people, and there was and no population maximum set as in previous years; had a population that was at least 85 percent as racially diverse as the state; and had a median household income of at least 85 percent of the state median.
Data was then broken down into nine primary ranking factors: cost of living, diversity, economic opportunity, education, fun and amenities, health and safety, housing market, income and personal finance, and quality of life.
Atlanta tops the annual list thanks to its “booming job market and eye on equality.” The South is also represented by Raleigh, N.C., and Tampa, while the Midwest top locations are Ann Arbor, Mich., and the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park, Ill. Tempe, Ariz., stands out in the Southwest, while Kirkland, Wash., outside of Seattle is a star in the Northwest. Click through the gallery above to see what other cities round out the top 10 best places to live in U.S. The full report is available here.
Money magazine awarded the top spot in its annual ranking of the top places to live in the USAThis Southern city is
officially the best place to live in the US
The city of Atlanta has been awarded the best place to live in the US by personal finance magazine Money, based on "things that matter most to people: economic opportunities, quality of life, diversity and where the best futures lie."
It's true, Atlanta is more than just a Delta hub, it's a vibrant metropolis. According to Money, the city secured the coveted number one position in its annual ranking of the top places to live in the USA because "of its booming jobs market and eye on equality."
The financial title explains its rationale behind each city placement quite thoroughly. It says that Atlanta has consistently seen some of the largest year-over-year rates of job growth among US metros in recent years and its unemployment rate is one of the lowest in its ranking. Moreover, the Atlanta region (which includes the city and its 11 surrounding counties) is expected to grow by 2.5 million people by 2040.
The top 10 were as follows:
No. 10 Jersey
City, New Jersey
No. 9 Tampa, Florida
No. 8 Ann Arbor, Michigan
No. 7 Somerville, Massachusetts
No. 6 Columbia, Maryland
No. 5 Rogers Park, Illinois
No. 4 Raleigh, North Carolina
No. 3 Kirkland, Washington
No. 2 Tempe, Arizona
No. 1 Atlanta, Georgia
While it's easy to see how somewhere like Jersey City is in the top 10, given the visible rate of expansion in suburbs like Paulus Hook and Bayonne, it's entirely possible that this list was put together before Hurricane Ian thumped Tampa, thus reminding the population of the country that storm damage and hiked-up home insurance prices will almost certainly plague large cities along the Gulf of Mexico regularly in the future.
So how did the major metropolitan cities fare? Well, they didn't really. The first city to feature from California was Irvine, in the number 13 spot, Fremont at number 18 then San Diego at 22 and San Jose at 25. Evidently, the high median household income ($125.765) somewhat softened the impact of the median home price ($1,366,827) in Silicon Valley. The highest entry — and indeed the only entry — for any locale in New York state was Glen Cove, at number 37.
The full list can be read here.
- Scott Snowden Associate Editor
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