S.F. Is Top Spot, Magazine Says, but You Can Decide

SAN FRANCISCO — Money magazine says San Francisco is the best big city in the country to live in--but that doesn’t mean it’s the best city for you.

So for its annual selection of the nation’s most livable locations, released Wednesday, Money is offering a way for you to find your own Shangri-La.

Instead of ranking the nation’s 300 largest metropolitan areas, as it did in past years, the magazine’s editors picked a winner and a few runners-up. Then they built an interactive method of entering your own criteria into Money’s Web site (https://www.money.com). The site measures your needs against what those 300 metro areas offer and gives you a list of cities to love, in order.

“The reason we didn’t rank the 300 cities? We felt people would be better served by picking a city best suited to them,” said Patti Strauss, Money’s public relations director. “The Web has been a part of the story for a couple of years. On the Web site, you can rank the criteria that are most important to you.”

So what put San Francisco--and Rochester, Minn., in the small-city category--in first place?

“San Francisco has wonderful things to offer,” Strauss said. “We know housing is very expensive, there’s the threat of earthquakes--but basically you have so many things we feel far outweigh that.”

The magazine says the city and environs rank in the top 5% for air quality, offers first-rate museums, sports and more restaurants per resident than any other city in the country.

“Finally, it’s the city’s wide range of recreational opportunities--great places to swim, sail, hike and ski are easy to reach--that clinched it,” Money said.

But those things aren’t important to everyone. Money’s Web database lets you find your ideal in two ways: a short form and a lengthy form that asks detailed questions about a wide variety of items.

You get 15 questions on weather, including your ideal temperature, rainfall, snowfall and altitude. There are five questions on economic factors, five on housing and health, two on crime and 13 on leisure activities, among other criteria.

After you fill in all the blanks, the database will find the cities among the 300 that best meet your needs.

It wasn’t hard to find officials to applaud Money’s choice for best big city.

“Money magazine confirms what we San Franciscans have known all along,” Mayor Willie Brown said Wednesday. “This is the best city in America for one reason: its people. This is the greatest collection of people ever found in any one city. I know that after 40 years. They’re compassionate, progressive and adventurous.”

Money did point out the city’s flaws: the threat of earthquakes, a high student-to-teacher ratio and “the extraordinary cost of living.”

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Best Cities

Money magazine has ranked the best places to live in the United States. Some of its findings:

Best Big Cities

San Francisco

Austin, Texas

New York

Best Small Cities

Rochester, Minn.

Columbia, Mo.

Boulder, Colo.

Best Future Job Growth

Las Vegas

Punta Gorda, Fla.

Austin, Texas

Provo, Utah

Fayetteville, Ark.

Source: Money magazine