Here’s Where Phoenix Ranks In Study Of Best Big Cities

PHOENIX, AZ — Phoenix is the 27th best big city in the U.S. to live in, according to a new report. The personal finance website WalletHub ranked America’s 62 largest cities Monday based on affordability, education and health, quality of life and safety.

Phoenix earned a total score of 53.78 out of 100 possible points, with top marks for affordability. It didn’t score as well in safety and quality of life though.

Here’s how Phoenix ranked in each category:

• Affordability: 11
• Economy: 36
• Education and health: 27
• Quality of life: 41
• Safety: 44

Mesa ranked 15th overall with top marks for affordability and safety, while Tucson ranked 37th with middling scores in all but one category.

The top city in America is Seattle, the study found, which ranked first in education and health as well as economy. The city also ranked sixth in quality of life.

Here are the top 10 big cities in America to live in:

1. Seattle
2. Virginia Beach, VA
3. Austin, TX
4. San Francisco, CA
5. San Diego, CA
6. Honolulu, HI
7. Portland, OR
8. San Jose, CA
9. Colorado Springs, CO
10. New York, NY

If you eat out a lot and like variety in your food options, the authors say New York City and San Francisco are the places to be, with both ranking in the top five for restaurants per capita. The two cities also cracked the top five in most coffee shops per capita and best walk score.

If safety is what you are after, Virginia Beach or El Paso are the big cities for you.

Detroit ranked last among the biggest cities in the study, followed by Memphis and Cleveland.

Each city WalletHub looked at has at least 300,000 residents. More than 50 factors in all were taken into account, with the highest weight given to cost of living. Other measurements they looked at include air quality, beaches per capita, violent crime rate, life expectancy, quality of public school systems, job opportunities, unemployment rate and homeownership rate.The sample considered only the city proper in each case and excluded cities in the surrounding metro area.

The data came from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Council for Community and Economic Research, Chmura Economics & Analytics, TransUnion, Indeed, County Health Rankings, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Walk Score, The Trust for Public Land, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, The Road Information Program, Environmental Protection Agency, Inrix, GreatSchools.org, Renwood RealtyTrac, Yelp and WalletHub’s own research.

Click here to read the full report.

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