Reflective Glory? NYC on U.S. News 'Best Places to Live' in 2017

The New York City metro area, which includes Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, isn't among the worst places to live in the United States, according to a new ranking — but it isn't all that great.

U.S. News & World Report looked at the 100 most populous metro areas in the country and graded them based on several factors, including job market and affordability. Those categories were given different weights and were combined to come up with the final ranking.

The NYC metropolitan area, the most populous in the United States, was ranked No. 80 in the new report. So maybe it's not all that bad that Putnam, Rockland and Westchester were completely left out of the magazine's description, which included the five boroughs but none of the rest of the Tri-State.

Here were the top 10 places to live in the country, according to the rankings:

1. Austin, TX

2. Denver, CO

3. San Jose, CA

4. Washington, DC

5. Fayetteville, AR

6. Seattle, WA

7. Raleigh & Durham, NC

8. Boston, MA

9. Des Moines, IA

10. Salt Lake City, UT

Click here to see this year's full list.

The magazine — certainly one of the most reputable outlets among the many who have recently begun trying to rank anything and everything — took a stab at it for the second year in a row, using highly reliable data to arrive at its conclusions.

These were the categories used to come up with the rankings, along with how heavily they were weighted:

• Job Market Index (20 percent): A look at both the 12-month moving unemployment rate and the median salary, weighted equally.
• Value Index (25 percent): A comparison of the median annual household income against the blended annual cost of living, which looks at utility costs and taxes compared against mortgage rates and monthly rents.
• Quality of Life Index (30 percent): A look at how satisfied residents are with their daily lives, which takes into account crime rates, quality and availability of health care, quality of education, well-being and the commuter index.
• Desirability Index (15 percent): Based off a nationwide Google Consumer Survey that asked people which city they would like to live in.
• Net Migration (10 percent): Looking at how fast people are moving in or out of major metro areas.

And, for fun, here were the bottom 10 metro areas ranked by U.S. News & World Report:

100. San Juan, PR
99. Modesto, CA
98. Stockton, CA
97. Bakersfield, CA
96. Fresno, CA
95. New Orleans, LA
94. McAllen, TX
93. Memphis, TN
92. Miami, FL
91. Jackson, MS
90. Birmingham, AL

See the full rankings from U.S. News & World Report here.

Image: Austin, Texas; via Ed Schipul, Flickr; used under Creative Commons