Philly Metro Area Ranks Poorly In U.S. News 'Best Places To Live'

The Philadelphia region was ranked outside of the top 100 in the best places to live, according to recent U.S. News report. The report only ranked the country's 125 largest metro areas.

Philadelphia came in 102nd overall in the report published Tuesday. The news and information publisher determined the rankings based on factors such as quality of life, job market, value of living there and desire to live there.

There's reason to be skeptical. The report only ranks the 125 most populous metro areas, meaning that most of the top 25 are located in the middle of the country, though the tech boom has benefited the Pacific Northwest too.

Austin ranked as the best place to live for the third year in a row, followed by two Colorado cities. Interestingly, the Northeast was notably lacking at the top of the list. Washington, D.C. ranked 19th and the next-highest city in the region was Portland, Maine, at 23.

One of the list's compilers had an explanation for why areas like Philadelphia scored poorly.

“Our Northeastern cities, which are epicenters of higher education and economic development, are not growing nearly as much as places in Florida, California and Texas,” Devon Thorsby, real estate editor at U.S. News, said in a release. “Plus, they are expensive to live in. Top-ranked places have the characteristics people are looking for, including steady job growth, affordability and a high quality of life.”

Here are the top 10 places to live in 2019, according to the list:

1. Austin, TX
2. Denver, CO
3. Colorado Springs, CO
4. Fayetteville, AR
5. Des Moines, IA
6. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
7. San Francisco, CA
8. Portland, OR
9. Seattle, WA
10. Raleigh and Durham, NC

San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico that was devastated by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, ranked last. Five California metro areas also fell in the bottom 10. They were: Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and Salinas.

Other major metros at the bottom of the list include Memphis, New Orleans, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Quality of life and value received the most weight in the rankings. The authors created indexes for both using metrics such as crime rates, quality of health care and education, median household income, proportion of homeowners with a mortgage, and yearly housing costs. Click here to read the full methodology.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.