US News and World Report recently ranked Austin as “The Best City To Live In” for the third year in a row. Known as “the live music capital of the world,” Austin came in first for desirability due to its music venues and local band scene, its great food, its proximity to some 250 parks and its high net migration of Millennials clamoring for great weather and great jobs available at Google, Facebook, Intel, Apple, Samsung, etc.
The downside of this number one ranking is that Austin’s horrible traffic congestion has only gotten worse. According to Brian Tool, co-founder and CEO of Denver’s Plan Collective, “Austin has yet to tackle its traffic congestion with a mass transit solution that will encourage future growth while also retaining a high quality of life.”
That being said, Austin’s median home price of $390,000 looks pretty good compared to San Francisco’s median home price of $1.4M and Seattle’s $669,000.\
Here are the top 10 “Best Cities to Live In” according to US News and World Report for 2019:
- Austin
- Denver
- Colorado Springs
- Fayetteville
- Des Moines
- Minneapolis
- San Francisco
- Portland
- Seattle
- Raleigh-Durham
WalletHub’s Ten Best Cities to Live In based its rankings of cities with populations of 300,000 or more on affordability, economic growth, education and health, quality of life and safety:
- Seattle
- Virginia Beach
- Austin
- San Francisco
- San Diego
- Honolulu
- Portland
- San Jose
- Colorado Springs
- New York City
Being on any of these “Best City” lists is a real coup so does being number 10 or number 3 really make that much difference?
On the other hand, being on WalletHub’s Ten Worst Cities can and often does make a big difference. Here are WalletHub’s worst, based upon the same above criteria:
- Detroit
- Memphis
- Cleveland
- Baltimore
- Louis
- Indianapolis
- Tulsa
- Milwaukee
- New Orleans
- Santa Ana
