It’s good to be weird.
Austin, Texas — whose unofficial slogan is “Keep Austin Weird” — once again garnered the top spot on U.S. News & World Report’s “best places to live in the USA” list.
The publication analyzed the 125 most populous metro areas to find the best spots to live in. “To make the top of the list, a place had to have good value, be a desirable place to live, have a strong job market and a high quality of life,” the report reveals.
Indeed, Austin aces plenty of those criteria. Forbes ranked it the best city for jobs and it has an unemployment rate of just 2.6%. It’s also one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation as people move for jobs, weather and a better quality of life. And Austin is awash with things to do, including a thriving music scene, plenty of outdoor recreation and world-class museums and cultural happenings.
When a radio station in Austin explored why people moved to the city, they got a bunch of different answers, including the thriving tech industry, The University of Texas at Austin (some came for college and stayed put), and an inclusive community that is welcoming of the LGBT community and others.
10 best places to live in America
1. Austin
2. Denver
3. Colorado Springs
4. Fayetteville, Ark.
5. Des Moines
6. Minneapolis-St. Paul
7. San Francisco
8. Portland
9. Seattle
10. Raleigh-Durham
Second place Denver isn’t too shabby either. Like Austin, it has a thriving job market (2.4% unemployment) and is one of the faster growing spots in America, likely thanks in part to plenty of sunshine and lots of outdoor recreation, including nearly world-class skiing, and cultural happenings.
Though California is a popular place to move — and San Francisco landed in the top 10 best places to live — five of the 10 worst-rated cities on this list were in The Golden State. These included Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and Salinas.
Many of these cities scored particularly low on U.S. News’ measure of housing affordability, which “measures how comfortably the average resident of each metro area can afford to live within his or her means.” Indeed, as housing prices have risen in many of these areas, incomes haven’t kept up.
