Top 100 Best Places To Live: Methodology & Ranking Criteria

With a name like Livability, we take our Best Places To Live list very seriously, and we want you to understand the data and other factors that drove the creation of this year’s list.

How do we select our Top 100 Best Places To Live in the U.S.?

Livability partnered with Applied Geographic Solutions (AGS) to curate the Top 100 Best Places To Live in the U.S., based on about 100 data points measuring eight broad categories:

  • Economy, including data points like:
    • Unemployment rate
    • Employment opportunity index
    • Income relative change
  • Housing & Cost of Living, including data points like:
    • Tax rates
    • Home & rental affordability indexes 
    • Income inequality index 
  • Amenities, including data points like:
    • Cultural amenities (museums, arts, etc.) 
    • Leisure amenities (parks, golf, sports venues, etc.)
    • Shopping/retail/nightlife indexes 
  • Transportation, including data points like:
    • Walkability
    • Median commute time
    • Average vehicles per household
  • Environment, including data points like:
    • Population density
    • Air quality
    • Various natural disaster risks
  • Safety, including data points like:
    • Various crime rates
  • Education, including data points like:
    • School quality
    • Educational attainment 
  • Health, including data points like:
    • Life expectancy
    • Doctor & hospital access

Based on a proprietary algorithm weighting each of the categories, we then assigned more than 2,000 cities that fit our population constraint (75,000-500,000) a LivScore. 

The top 100 scoring cities, with constraints limiting the number of neighboring cities, form our 2023 Top 100 Best Places to Live – and the top 5% of U.S. cities with populations in the studied range. 

Per Livability’s emphasis on affordability, only cities with a median home value of $500,000 or less were included in the final Top 100 Best Places to Live. 

What else can we tell you about the LivScore algorithm?

The algorithm weighted the eight categories against each other to produce each city’s LivScore. The exact percentage weights are proprietary and sometimes change year to year, but this year, amenities and economics carried the most weight, followed by education and housing and cost of living. The algorithm also factored in additional affordability criteria based on an analysis of average rents and home prices relative to local income. 

The weighting of those categories in our proprietary algorithm is based on some of our own research over the years, asking Americans what matters to them in choosing a place to live, as well as the bigger picture context of current events in a given year. 

Where do we get our data?

Livability and AGS used a variety of public and private data. Some of the federal sources included:

  • Census Bureau
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • USPS
  • Department of Education
  • Department of Homeland Security
  • Social Security Administration
  • Department of Health and Social Services
  • Housing and Urban Development
  • Federal Reserve
  • Department of Defense
  • Bureau of Land Management
  • Internal Revenue Service
  • National Geological Survey
  • National Weather Service

Some of the private sources included:

  • Satellite imagery for identifying new construction in growth areas
  • Open Street Map foundation for streets, changes to streets, etc.
  • Business establishment files from private list and business credit sources
  • Business associations (e.g. to build a complete list of U.S. ski resorts)

What’s different about the 2023 Best Places To Live list?

This year’s list is not a ranking telling you the No. 1 to No. 100 best places to live in America. Instead, we’re giving you the top places based on our research but leaving it up to you to filter and rank criteria for a personalized top 100 ranking of the best places to live. You can prioritize which of our eight data categories are most important to you, plus indicate your preferred home pricing, population size and region of the country. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to finding the right place to live, and we want our ranking to help folks find the best place for their specific needs. 

Each year, we update our data to the latest available. Other changes this year included:

  • Our algorithm’s weighting shifted slightly 
  • Safety became its own category (previously part of the Social & Civic category)
  • Environment became its own category (previously part of the Amenities category)
  • Social & Civic Capital information became part of the Economy category (formerly its own category)

Intrigued? Check out this year’s Top 100 Best Places To Live in the U.S. in 2023.

Looking for more guidance on choosing the best place to move to? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Best Place to Live

Newsletter Sign Up

Keep up to date with our latest rankings and articles!
Enter your email to be added to our mailing list.