Manchester And Nashua Rank In Top 5 Best-Run American Cities, Study Says

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

The Queen City and the Gate City are great cities when it comes to how well they’re run — and the bang taxpayers get for their buck.

That’s the finding of the latest WalletHub analysis of the best-run cities in America, which ranks Manchester No. 3 and Nashua No. 5.

No other New England state has a city in the top 10, and the highest-ranking city in Massachusetts is Worcester at No. 41.

“The best-run cities in America use their budgets most effectively to provide high-quality financial security, education, health, safety and transportation to their residents,” said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo. “Many of the top cities also have a very low amount of outstanding government debt per capita, which can prevent financial troubles in the future.”

WalletHub compared 148 of the largest U.S. cities using a “Quality of City Services” score based on 36 metrics across six categories: financial stability, education, health, safety, economy, and infrastructure and pollution. The organization then compared those results with each city’s per-capita budget.

The analysis highlighted Manchester’s low crime rate, low unemployment, low poverty rate and high air quality, among other factors.

“Manchester, NH, is the third-best-run city, and one way that it shows is in how clean the environment is with the sixth-lowest air pollution,” WalletHub reported. “Its residents are also doing very well financially. For example, the city has the 13th-highest forecasted one-year change in the median home value, and a relatively low share of residents living below poverty.”

“In addition, Manchester is a safe city, with the 19th-lowest property crime rate and 25th-lowest violent crime rate in the country. It also has the 12th-smallest traffic congestion, and the 15th-lowest unemployment rate in the country,” WalletHub added.

Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais gave credit to “city employees, community partners and residents who make Manchester such a special place to live, work and raise a family.”

“This recognition comes at a time when Manchester is making real progress on some of our community’s biggest challenges. Crime has continued to fall, we’re expanding housing opportunities, addressing homelessness through a comprehensive response, while making our city run more effectively and efficiently, delivering results for our taxpayers among other key initiatives,” Ruais said.

This best-run cities recognition is just the latest in a string of recent national accolades for the two municipalities. Manchester recently secured the No. 51 spot on U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Places to Live” index — one of only three New England cities to make the top 60 — while Livability named it among the top 25 places to live in the Northeast.

Meanwhile, Nashua consistently dominates national safety metrics, previously ranking as the safest city in America by WalletHub and remaining in the top 15 in its late 2024 update. The Gate City also earned the No. 7 spot nationwide in a recent B2B Reviews report on the best cities for small businesses, further reinforcing the state’s reputation for pairing a business-friendly environment with a high quality of life.

Greg Moore with Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire gives part of the credit for both cities’ high rankings to the three magic words from real estate: location, location, location.

“Manchester and Nashua benefit greatly from being in the state with the best quality of life indices in the nation. Put those two cities in Mississippi, or even Rhode Island, and they would plummet in the rankings. This study says a lot more about the great work that the state has done to make it great than what those cities have done, specifically,” Moore said.

And in fact only one other New England city, Warwick, R.I., cracked the top 3o. Not a single California city made the cut either. Instead, the top of the list is dominated by communities in Utah, Idaho and South Dakota, while deep blue cities like San Francisco (#148) and New York (#146) and Chicago (#144) are down at the bottom.

But even under Moore’s standard, Manchester is making progress. In 2022, during Mayor Joyce Craig’s final term, the city’s ranking fell to No. 19.

“I think Manchester’s high rank may come as a surprise to some, but it reflects what a lot of us in the business community have been seeing for years. Manchester has real momentum right now,” said Nick Carnes with Queen City Hospitality Group and a leader of the Downtown Manchester Collaborative.

“As an owner/operator of multiple businesses in downtown, it’s encouraging to be part of a community that’s thinking about growth and opportunity in a meaningful way. Between the innovation happening in the Millyard with ARMI and BioFabUSA, combined with continued investment downtown from small business owners, the city has positioned itself for long-term success,” Carnes said.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.