This Is Ohio's Best City To Live In

PARMA, OH — Parma is Ohio's best big city to live in, according to a new list that ranks the best cities to reside in every state. The Northeast Ohio suburb is home to nearly 79,500 people which qualified it for the rankings.

The list, compiled by 24/7 Wall Street, notes that with a poverty rate of 8.6 percent, Parma's poverty rate is far lower than all other Ohio qualifying cities. The city with the next lowest poverty rate is Columbus, at 21 percent.

"Parma is also the safest city in Ohio by a large margin. While Ohio’s violent crime rate is 300 per 100,000 people, in Parma the rate is 136 violent crimes per 100,000 people. For some context, the next safest city in Ohio is Columbus, with 522 violent crimes per 100,000 people, nearly four times the rate in Parma," 24/7 Wall Street said.

Despite all of these encouraging factors, the population of Parma dropped between 2006 and 2016. The median home value is currently $108,000.

"That may be due to the fact that Parma’s poverty and unemployment rates are worse than the national poverty and unemployment rates of 14.0% and 4.9%, respectively," 24/7 Wall Street speculates.

Through its analysis, 24/7 Wall Street found that the majority of cities that made the list are home to a large share of college-educated adults than the share of college-educated adults nationwide (31.3 percent). Educated populations, 24/7 Wall Street writes, are more resilient to economic downturns.

Another trend noted by 24/7 Wall Street is that the violent crime rate for almost every city on the list is lower than the U.S. rate. The presence of cultural amenities and entertainment venues was another common factor for the cities.

To determine the best city to live in every state, 24/7 Wall Street considered the 550 cities with populations of 65,000 or more. If a state had no cities with a population of at least 65,000, all cities in the state with a population of 40,000 or more were considered.

Data was collected in nine categories:

1. Crime
2. Demography
3. Economy
4. Education
5. Environment
6. Health
7. Housing
8. Infrastructure
9. Leisure

24/7 Wall Street used data from Census Bureau’s 2016 American Community Service, the FBI’s 2016 Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and ATTOM Data Solutions. For each category, specific measures contributed to a city’s overall score.

See the full list from 24/7 Wall Street here.

Photo from Rick Uldricks, Patch