Livermore Responds To SF Chronicle Quality Of Life Ranking

LIVERMORE, CA – The San Francisco Chronicle ranked Livermore 12th out of the Bay Area’s 25 most populous cities for overall quality of life, one spot above Pleasanton.

The Chronicle determined its rankings by using various data sources to assign scores to each city in five quality-of-life metrics: Entertainment, Arts and Culture, Walking and Transit, Diversity, and Environment.

Livermore ranked second in “Environment,” and sixth in “Entertainment” and “Arts and Culture,” but 24th in “Diversity” and 19th in “Walking and Transit.”

However, readers also have the option to choose how important each category is to them in evaluating a city, and thus create their own rankings. For example, if a reader deems “Diversity” to be “very important,” Livermore’ s weighted ranking will go down. If the reader feels “Environment” is “very important,” Livermore’s rating improves.

In a prepared statement, the City of Livermore leaned into its more positive rankings, and did not comment on its lower rankings.

“We work diligently in collaboration with all our community partners to offer a great quality of life for the Livermore community, and we are very proud to be recognized for our environmental leadership and creative vision, policies and partnerships in promoting arts and culture,” the city told Patch. “As an organization, we continually work towards our vision of creating a safe, healthy, welcoming city for all our diverse community members.”

The Chronicle determined its rankings through various statistics that San Ramon Deputy City Manager Steven Spedowfski said did not paint a full picture of everything on offer. The “Entertainment” score was determined by data on the number of bars, restaurants, movie theaters and music venues per 100,000 people. However, the “music venues” metric is based entirely on the number of venues listed on Songkick that have at least one event in the upcoming year, which could discount concerts held at schools, downtown, etc.

The “Arts and Culture” score is determined by the number of museums with 10 or more reviews on Google Maps, which runs into similar issues.

The “Environment” category, in which Livermore performed best, is determined by how many residents live within a ten-minute walk of a park, based on data from the Trust for Public Land, which undercounted the number of parks in San Ramon.

The city also ranked last in “Diversity.” That ranking is a mix of the U.S. Census’ formula that determines the odds that two people chosen randomly from the city’s population will belong to a different race or ethnic group.

However, raw 2020 census data shows a decently mixed city. In 2020, the city was 65.7 percent white, 14.8 percent Asian, 22.8 percent Latino, and 10.5 percent biracial. 18.6 percent of residents were born outside the country.

If rankings are to be truly believed, then Livermore has become slightly less livable within the past year. In 2022, The Chronicle ranked the city 10th out of 25 overall. Last year, cities were ranked on many more categories:

• Bars per 10,000 residents
• Bike score
• Share of commuters with a work commute of less than 30 minutes
• Driving miles from nearest major airport
• Diversity index
• Food retailers per 10,000 residents
• Libraries per 10,000 residents
• Movie theaters per 10,000 residents
• Share of residents within half mile of park, open access or coastline
• Transit stops per 10,000 residents
• Walk score

In 2023, The Chronicle rated its home city of San Francisco as the Bay Area’s number one city, followed by Berkeley and San Mateo.

Pleasanton ranked fifth in “Environment,” 10th in “Walking and Transit,” 16th in “Entertainment,” 18th in “Arts and Culture,” and 23rd in “Diversity.”

San Ramon was ranked 25th overall. It placed in the bottom five for every single category except “Environment,” where it ranked 16th out of 25. It ranked 21st in “Entertainment,” 20th in “Arts and Culture,” 24th in “Walking and Transit,” and 22nd in “Diversity.”

None of these metrics, in 2023 or 2022, included resident input.

See here for the full 2023 rankings.