Alpharetta Named A Best City To Live In Georgia

ALPHARETTA, GA — According to a new list released by Chamber of Commerce, Alpharetta is one of the best places to live in Georgia. Roswell was No. 1 on the list.

Chamber of Commerce ranked the top 20 cities in Georgia out of 2,509 cities with populations above 25,000 and enough data for analysis. It used five factors: employment (number of establishments, median earnings); housing (owner-occupied housing with a mortgage, monthly housing costs); quality of life (work commute, poverty levels); education (percentage with a bachelor's degree or higher); and health (obesity ratios).

"Georgia's best city to live in is Roswell, located in Fulton County and situated around many beautiful natural features including Vickery Creek and the Chattahoochee River," the report said. "For its modest size, Fulton is home to the headquarters of several large businesses, including Pharsalia Technologies and Tripwire Interactive, that provide jobs to the city's residents."

The top 10 cities in Georgia are:

1. Roswell
2. Macon
3. Smyrna
4. Kennesaw
5. Marietta
6. Mableton
7. Alpharetta
8. Powder Springs
9. Peachtree City
10. Suwanee

The history of Alpharetta dates back to the 1830s, when settlers and pioneers traveled to the area seeking the promise of community in land ownership, raising families and fertile farmland. From its humble beginnings as a trading post, the community found prosperity and the City of Alpharetta was established on December 11, 1858; later becoming the seat of government for Milton County.

Alpharetta remained a small, largely agrarian community through the early 1980’s, but shortly thereafter the city blossomed into one of the most prosperous communities in the United States. The community that had a population of only 3,000 in 1980 today is home to more than 65,000 residents and sees its population swell to more than 100,000 each workday. Alpharetta is now Georgia’s 12th most populous city, boasts some of the best schools in the United States, and is known far and wide as the "Technology City of the South" due to the large number of tech-focused companies that call Alpharetta home.