D.C. Gets Capital Ranking as Top Place to Live
The District of Columbia has plenty of cultural heft, enough to rank it ahead of Boston and New York in Money magazine’s best place to live in the eastern United States.
Washington’s top ranking may be a surprise to some people knowledgeable about the many problems in the nation’s capital. But Money, in its annual ranking of the nation’s 300 most livable areas, said Wednesday that museums were among the many advantages found in the metropolitan area.
By the magazine’s reckoning, of the nation’s biggest cities, Norfolk, Va., represents the finest of the South; Minneapolis is the mightiest of the Midwest and Seattle is the best of the West--followed by Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City and San Francisco.
Money changed the format for the 12th annual rankings, listing the top places by region and population, instead of the straight 300-place catalog it used in the past. In compiling the list, Money gathered data on the country’s 300 largest metropolitan areas and ranked them according to how they scored on 37 “livability factors”--including clean air and water, low crime, good public schools and low property taxes.
The cities were then ranked according to size: metropolitan areas of 1 million or more; those with populations of 250,000 to 999,999; and populations of 100,000 to 249,999.
The West’s best-rated were Seattle, Boulder/Longmont, Colo., and Fort Collins, Colo. No California city ranked in the top 10 in medium-sized cities, with Ventura 11th. San Luis Obispo was second in the small-city West group, but no other California city appears until Chico in 13th place.
In the East, using those population ground rules, the top three metro areas were Washington, Trenton, N.J., and Manchester, N.H.
In the South, the leaders in each category were Norfolk, Va., Richmond, Va., and Charlottesville, Va. In the Midwest, the top areas were Minneapolis, Madison, Wis., and Rochester, Minn.
The rankings were posted Wednesday on Money’s Web site and will appear in the edition of the magazine that goes on sale Monday.
Last year, Nashua, N.H., was No. 1 under the old ranking system; this year, it’s the No. 3 small city in the East. Davenport, Iowa, was dead last year. This year, it’s 23rd of 24 entrants on the Midwest medium-sized metro areas list.
Last year, Washington ranked 162nd on the list of 300, down from 128th in 1996.
In naming Washington the top big city in the East, the magazine said it was “time for a reality check” about the nation’s capital.
The magazine noted that Washington’s violent crime is higher than the national average while public school spending per student is a bit lower. But the magazine, placing D.C. in a metro area stretching from Bethesda, Md., to Falls Church, Va., said it has clean air, top-quality medical care and lower property tax rates.
Also, Money said D.C.’s big boost came from its “sheer number of cultural institutions,” among them the National Gallery of Art and the new MCI Center, which houses the National Sports Gallery.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Best of the Biggest in the West
The best large western U.S. cities or areas (population of 1 million or more) in which to live, as ranked by Money magazine:
Rank: City or area
1.: Seattle
2.: Denver
3.: Los Angeles
4.: San Diego
5.: Salt Lake City
6.: San Francisco
7.: Portland, Ore.
8.: Orange County
9.: San Jose
10.: Oakland
11.: Las Vegas, Nev.
12.: Phoenix
13.: Sacramento
14.: Riverside
Source: Associated Press