Tampa Ranks 20th Most Livable City In America

TAMPA, FL — Each city has attributes that draw people to live there, but not all cities are created equal. Some big cities perform better than others across an array of key livability metrics, making them desirable places for many Americans to call home.

In a new study, SmartAsset, a personal finance website, analyzed 100 of the largest U.S. cities on factors including unemployment, crime, walkability and home affordability to find the most livable places in America in 2020.

Its experts ran the numbers on 100 of the largest cities in the U.S. to see how they stacked up across the following metrics: walk score, violent crime rate, property crime rate, unemployment, housing costs as percentage of income and the rate of housing cost-burden. Check out the data and methodology here.

After running the numbers, Tampa rated the 20th most livable city in America.

Tampa received a 49 on the walkability metric scale of 0 to 100, with 100 indicating the most walkable. Cities receiving a higher rating were Arlington, Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Tampa ranked 406 based on the 2019 FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Database of crime rate per 100,00o residents. Eighteen cities had lower crime rates with Chesapeake, Virginia; St. Paul, Minnesota; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Reno, Nevada; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Omaha, Nebraska showing higher crime rates.

Tampa's unemployment rate score as of September 2020 was 6.2 percent, falling below 14 on the list of 20 cities.

Tampa didn't fare as well when it came to housing costs. Smart Asset calculated median housing costs divided by median household income based on the Census Bureau’s 2019 1-year American Community Survey. Tampa score 25.06 percent, the highest housing cost of the 20 top livable cities.

Smart Asset combined property crime rate with the housing cost-burdened rate (the percentage of households spending 30 percent of more of their income on housing.

Tampa came in at the fourth lowest percentage on this metric at 58.92 percent, tying with Reno, Nevada. Only Chesapeake, Virginia; St. Paul, Minnesota; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Henderson, Nevada were lower.