Affordability Takes Center Stage in Personalized Rankings
FRANKLIN, Tenn., April 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Livability.com unveiled today its highly anticipated 2025 Top 100 Best Places to Live list, showcasing the nation's most vibrant and livable small to mid-sized cities. This list, now in its 12th year of publication, empowers users to customize the set of places based on their individualized priorities, from health and cost of living to entertainment and the local job market.
Livability.com lets users build out their own 'best places' list, crafting a personalized ranking with a few simple clicks. Livability's proprietary algorithm evaluates nearly 100 data points across eight key categories: economy, housing and cost of living, amenities, transportation, environment, safety, education and health. All categories are weighed equally in the initial selection process, putting the power of prioritization directly in the hands of the user. To emphasize affordability, Livability only includes cities with a median home value under $500,000, and awards a slight edge to places with reasonable rent and home costs relative to local income.
"Our 'Top 100 Best Places to Live in the U.S.' list is a data-driven collection of what we consider to be the best small to mid-sized places to live in. It's the only list out there truly honing in on affordability, lauding the amazing, accessible cities across the country other than our large U.S. metros which often get more recognition," says Amanda Ellis, Livability.com editor-in-chief. "As Americans face shifting economic conditions in a year wrought with inflation, evolving work dynamics, and a growing desire for a better quality of life, our 'Top 100 Best Places to Live' list celebrates the cities where Americans are creating dream careers, building families, launching businesses and leading meaningful lives."
Livability.com partnered with Applied Geographic Solutions (AGS) to analyze data from over 2,000 U.S. cities with populations between 75,000 and 500,000. The platform's intuitive filtering system allows users to refine the list by category importance, median home value, population size and region. Interactive maps further enhance the user experience, providing a visual exploration of each city's attributes.
"This is the second year we have weighted all eight data categories equally within our algorithm," Ellis says. "In the past, we prioritized categories we felt were most important to our readers. But in recent years, we wanted to give readers even more control, as priorities are shifting for many American families. By equally weighting all criteria, we're allowing each individual to filter and rank the categories that matter most to them, creating a personalized Top 100 ranking of the best places to live for themselves."
While the 2025 Top 100 Best Places to Live doesn't feature a fixed ranking, this year's list highlights a diverse number of communities. From the tech hub of Tempe, AZ, to the growing Southern town of Murfreesboro, TN, some of the cities to earn a spot include:
- New Braunfels, TX (scored highest on the list for environment)
- Clifton, NJ (scored highest on the list for amenities)
- Roswell, GA (scored highest on the list for economy)
- Rio Rancho, NM (scored highest on the list for transportation)
- Columbia, MD (scored highest on the list for education)
- Naperville, IL (scored highest on the list for health)
- Flower Mound, TX (scored highest on the list for safety)
- Carmel, IN (scored highest on the list for housing & cost of living)
For media inquiries, please contact:
Kate Traina, Violet PR
[email protected]
About Livability.com:
Livability.com highlights the best small to mid-sized cities and what makes them great places to live, work and visit. Through exclusive research and original content, we examine affordability, cultural amenities, talent attraction and more, celebrating the accomplishments of cities through various rankings, our annual Top 100 Best Places to Live and articles exploring the who, what, why and how behind the "where." Livability is a division of Journal Communications, Inc., based in Franklin, TN.
Media Contact
Kate Traina, Violet PR, Livability.com, (908) 967-2117, [email protected]
SOURCE Livability.com
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