Top cities with best quality of life

[Dariusb]

US News World Report
https://www.entrepreneur.com/busines...-report/469811

Top 15 cities with best quality of life:
1. Ann Arbor, MI
2. Boulder, CO
3. Madison, WI
4. San Jose, CA
5. Portland, ME
6. Boston, MA
7. Green Bay, WI
8. Hartford, CT
9. Rochester, NY
10. Trenton, NJ
11. Boise, ID
12. Washington DC
13. Raleigh, NC
14. Grand Rapids, MI
15. Ft. Collins, CO

Were you surprised about any of the cities on the list? Were there any cities you were surprised that didn't make the list?

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Dariusb

8. Hartford, CT
9. Rochester, NY
10. Trenton, NJ

Were you surprised about any of the cities on the list?

Very surprised about #'s 8, 9, and 10.

[jbermingham123]

Seems the person who made the list is from the northeast. 6 out of the 15 (40%!!) of these places are in the northeast



And im sorry, but Boston and DC do not belong here. They both have the amenities/options of cities far smaller for the price of a city far larger.

And Boulder? Has this person been there in the last 30 years? Pearl Street has, like, a Gucci store and $20 ice cream. Might as well just put Aspen or Vail on there.



That not a single Texas city made the list should be an immediate disqualifier. Minneapolis belongs there too.

[Steely Dan]

I'm a little surprised DC made the list, given its egregiously high rate of violent crime.


But "quality of life" is kind of a stupid concept to begin with.

So whatever......

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Dariusb

US News World Report
https://www.entrepreneur.com/busines...-report/469811

Top 15 cities with best quality of life:
1. Ann Arbor, MI
2. Boulder, CO
3. Madison, WI
4. San Jose, CA
5. Portland, ME
6. Boston, MA
7. Green Bay, WI
8. Hartford, CT
9. Rochester, NY
10. Trenton, NJ
11. Boise, ID
12. Washington DC
13. Raleigh, NC
14. Grand Rapids, MI
15. Ft. Collins, CO

Were you surprised about any of the cities on the list? Were there any cities you were surprised that didn't make the list?

Portland, Boston, San Jose and DC certainly stick out to me

[craigs]

I grew up in San Jose mostly. It is clean, safe, and within a reasonable drive to beautiful and interesting places. The public schools on the west side of the city (and adjacent cities) are generally good. But San Jose is prohibitively expensive. If you can afford to live in something better than a cardboard box in San Jose, then you can afford a high quality of life anywhere.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I presume this refers to metro areas. It's not like Trenton in the city limits is some great place.

[llamaorama]

It doesn't surprise me, except for Trenton and Hartford. Mid-sized cities that have strong economies and aren't post-industrial (so a relatively small group) tend to be nice. Also some of these cities are overwhelmingly white, demographically, make of that what you wish.

Madison really is spoiled, it has near-perfect geography with the center wedged in between two clean, blue lakes, it's university and state capitol are recession-proof and bring in lots of educated people, you can drive to Chicago in 2 hours, etc. Everyone I've known whose gone there loved it.

That not a single Texas city made the list should be an immediate disqualifier. Minneapolis belongs there too.

Really, what Texas city should be on this list? I can't think of any. The problem with Texas is inequality and crime and a conservative political climate that is ideologically opposed to doing things that would cause places to show up on this list. Sometimes "best places to live" ratings that rank individual municipalities will highly rate the DFW suburban municipalities like Plano or Frisco or Allen, but this is arguably cheating because those are arbitrary cut-outs of part of a greater urban area that isn't as appealing.

El Paso might be a stealth competitor here, it's relatively safe and has cool things to do and is affordable. The things that knock it down is that it's poor. It's also barely a part of Texas.

[Crawford]

It's obviously MSA. Trenton and Hartford are wealthy, highly educated, low crime MSAs, so prolly show up well in whatever algorithm. Trenton is just part of the larger NY CSA and has a big eds/meds/innovation belt around Princeton; Hartford is the insurance capital.

That said, quality of life is almost completely subjective and personal so list is largely useless. At this stage in life, I don't think I'd have a high quality of life in a college town like Ann Arbor.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That said, quality of life is almost completely subjective and personal so list is largely useless.

Yes.

I measure my "quality of life" by my connections to those I love who love me back.

The national ranking of my local art museum, or whatever bullshit, has fuck all to do with it.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by steely dan

yes.

I measure my "quality of life" by my connections to those i love who love me back.

The national ranking of my local art museum, or whatever bullshit, has fuck all to do with it.

100%

[llamaorama]

Originally Posted by Crawford

At this stage in life, I don't think I'd have a high quality of life in a college town like Ann Arbor.

Maybe.

I agree that some college towns are just towns with a college, and that the students and faculty are self contained. Or the culture of the university is more staid. Or both at the same time - College Station and Norman and places like that are that way.

BUT

I've had the opportunity to visit some other college towns where the local university's culture is less insular and more accepting of the stereotypical weird beard liberal professor types, and it bleeds over into the towns and makes them better. Even if you didn't hold a degree from the local school or have any connection to it, as a professional type person I think they would be a winner. They have more to do that drink in bars.

You get stuff like double-digit percentages of the population riding bikes as transportation, a lot of active outdoor opportunities and the local government spends lots of money on parks and recreation, a little downtown area with a ridiculous number of fun restaurant places, the local public school district will be extremely excellent, but the cost of living will be low, you have the small town convenience of being able to drive to the grocery store in 10 minutes, etc. The vibe is that the whole place is relatively safe and your neighbors and acquaintances are all probably pretty smart and have it together.

Davis has a comprehensive network of bike trails so students in 2024 actually ride bikes.

Boulder is cheating because it's at the foothills of the Rockies, but god damn. That town is gorgeous. It has Pearl Street.

Ann Arbor and Iowa City and those other Midwest college towns are all kind of similar, they all have a pretty strong town center type place.

Madison, mentioned earlier.

[bilbao58]

We need a listicle of "Top 10 Listicles"

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yes.

I measure my "quality of life" by my connections to those I love who love me back.

The national ranking of my local art museum, or whatever bullshit, has fuck all to do with it.

Well sure, there's a lot of stuff that on the individual level and isn't going to be affected by small differences in one's surroundings and others that depend of personal tastes. So there's definitely some subjectivity to it. But I do think people exaggerate the degree to which it's subjective. We are afterall, a single species in which most individuals share many things in common. So the venn diagram of "what I consider life enhancing" and "what the average person considers life enhancing" will have a lot of overlap. And even if the overlap was small, one could still measure how well different cities compare in those small common aspects.

But yes, if a comparison were to consider factors that are mostly irrelevant to the average person's life quality - such as art museums - then the comparison wouldn't be very successful. But in this case they purport to consider factors such as "affordability, healthcare quality, and the overall happiness of residents" which seem more broadly applicable.

[3rd&Brown]

These lists are mostly arbitrary but I'm not sure why'd anyone take issue with Boston being on it. It's probably the safest big city in the country, is almost entirely re-developed, has exceptional walkability and transit, world class health care, universities, and public schools (compared to other peer cities).

And lol Texas. 38% of the population is uninsured and embryos are children. Yeah, Texas is growing. Who cares.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

.

But yes, if a comparison were to consider factors that are mostly irrelevant to the average person's life quality - such as art museums - then the comparison wouldn't be very successful. But in this case they purport to consider factors such as "affordability, healthcare quality, and the overall happiness of residents" which seem more broadly applicable.

But reading through this listicle's descriptions offers the same old meaningless "art museum" bullshit that every stupid listicle of this sort uses.

And if they actually purport to use affordability as a main factor, what in the high holy sweet flying fuck is a city like San Jose doing in the top 5?



BREAKING NEWS: Meaningless listicle is meaningless. Film at 11.

[iheartthed]

"Quality of life" is way too abstract of a concept for there to be a consensus on what cities should qualify. Mass transit and walkability are huge quality of life factors for me, and 80% of the cities on this list do poorly on that.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

But reading through this listicle's descriptions offers the same old meaningless "art museum" bullshit that every stupid listicle of this sort uses.

And if they actually purport to use affordability as a main factor, what in the high holy sweet flying fuck is a city like San Jose doing in the top 5?



BREAKING NEWS: Meaningless listicle is meaningless. Film at 11.

The descriptions are the article author's reporting on the list rather than anything involved in the list's creation. So yes, reporters can be lazy (or intentionally misleading for clicks) in their reporting. But you can see the actual methodology on the methodology page where it presents the weighting of criteria below before going into further detail. I think the biggest caveat is that the list is focused on retirement (ie, applicable mainly to people of retirement age) rather than the general population.

Affordability Index – 25%

Happiness Index – 22%

Health Care Quality Index – 16%

Retiree Taxes Index – 16%

Desirability Index – 13%

Job Market Index – 8%

Breaking news! It's hard to draw accurate conclusions about the methodology of a study without reading it.

Sorry I know I sound a bit sarcastic but I sometimes just suffer from a bit of cynicism fatigue. Like yes, there's a lot of silliness in the world that deserves to be dismissed or mocked, but when that's the knee-jerk reaction to almost everything it becomes tiring.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

That not a single Texas city made the list should be an immediate disqualifier.

The abortion ban and attempts by Republican christo-fascists to find a way to even ban traveling out of state for abortions has knocked any and all cities in Texas off of most "best of" lists.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Like yes, there's a lot of silliness in the world that deserves to be dismissed or mocked, but when that's the knee-jerk reaction to almost everything it becomes tiring.

But that's never been my reaction to almost everything.

Just stupid fucking meaningless listicles.