Roswell Named Best City To Live In Georgia

ROSWELL, GA — According to a new list released by Chamber of Commerce, Roswell is the best place to live in Georgia.

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."

Roswell officially became a city on February 16, 1854. Roswell is now Georgia’s eighth largest city, but its major growth in population has just happened in the last 20 years. In 1870, the population was 479. In 1990, it was 48,000 and then in 2010 it was 88,000. The City of Roswell has 13 parks with over 900 acres of active and passive parkland and facilities.

This isn't the first time the city has received this recognition. Roswell has been chosen twice by "Atlanta Magazine" as the best place to live in the metro Atlanta area. The Georgia Municipal Association awarded the City of Roswell the City of Excellence Award in 2003. The City of Roswell has been ranked one of the safest cities to live in the United States according to City Crime Rankings.

The top 10 cities in Georgia are:

1. Roswell
2. Macon: located smack dab in the center of the state, is justifiably known as ‘The Heart of Georgia”. The city is large, with a population of over 150,000, and packs a lot into its confines. Residents enjoy a multitude of museums, theaters, and annual festivals. Additionally, Macon is home to a number of universities and colleges.
3. Smyrna: We head to the Atlanta metropolitan area and Cobb County for No. 3 Smyrna, a city of about 56,000 that is one of the fastest growing in the state. Known as the “Jonquil City” for the thousands of flowers filling the city’s gardens in spring, families have flocked to Smyrna for its beauty and employment opportunities, with UCB and IBM being two of many businesses providing hundreds of jobs in the city.
4. Kennesaw: also in Cobb County, is Georgia’s No. 4 best city to live in. Kennesaw boasts a median household income well over the state average, and is a great place to settle for gun lovers, as city law actually requires each household to own one.
5. Marietta: Rounding out the top 5 is Marietta, our third Cobb County city in a row and home to the Dobbins Air Reserve Base.
6. Mableton
7. Alpharetta
8. Powder Springs
9. Peachtree City
10. Suwanee