D.C. Named a 'Best Place to Live in the USA'

Washington, D.C. is getting accolades once again for being a great place to live, with U.S. News and World Report ranking it No. 8 out of the 100 most populous cities in the United States.

U.S. News ranked the cities on five criteria: desirability, value, job market, quality of life and net migration. Thanks to high values in the categories of job market, as well as value and net migration, D.C. scored a 7.1, placing it above San Francisco but just behind Seattle on the list.

U.S. News praised D.C. for its Metro transit system, clean communities with lots of parks, diverse restaurant and entertainment offerings and its large number of museums and cultural sites.

To arrive at their rankings, U.S. News first measured the job market, which makes up 20 percent of the grade, looking at the unemployment rate as well as the median salary. They estimated value (25 percent of the grade) by measuring how well a resident is able to live within their means based on income and cost of living. Quality of Life was weighted at 30 percent, and involved measurements of crime, health care availability, quality of education and other factors. Desirability (15 percent) is based on the Google Consumer Survey to find out which metro areas people would most like to live. Finally, Net Migration (10 percent) uses data from the U.S. Census to find whether people are moving into a city or leaving it.

Denver got the top ranking on the list, followed by Austin.