When it comes to deciding where to live there are a lot of factors to take into consideration. But thanks to the U.S. News and World Report's Best Places to Live in the U.S. in 2020-21, it may have just gotten a little easier.
For Baltimore natives and people who call it home, they may not like where Baltimore is ranked. U.S. News’ analysis of 150 metro areas in the U.S. placed Baltimore in the bottom rankings at number 117.
Turns out Baltimore, known as Charm City, may not be so charming after all--at least not when compared to other metro cities.
To determine what makes a city the best, U.S. News did a public survey and these are what people across the country believed to be the most important factors to consider when deciding where to live.
- Desirability
- Value
- Job Market
- Quality of Life
- Net Migration
Each metro area was scored on a scale of one to ten for every category. Each metro area was then given an overall score based on those results to determine where they placed in the rankings.
While no metro area received a perfect score, Baltimore‘s overall score was 6.2 out of 10. Neighboring metro areas like Washington, D.C. and Richmond, VA did not have drastically higher overall scores with 6.9 and 6.7, but ranked at number 30 and 52 respectively.
Here’s a breakdown of how Baltimore scored in each category:
U.S. News used the August 2020 survey to determine how desirable a city is. They surveyed approximately 3,000 people on which metro cities they preferred to live in.
Baltimore did not do so bad with a little over half of the participants choosing it as a city they would live in.
In 2019 Baltimore had 27 million visitors, according to Baltimore’s Office of Tourism data from Longwoods International and Tourism Economics. It is definitely a city many people like to visit.
When it came to most of the other categories Baltimore’s scores either compared or did better than similarly sized metro areas.
U.S. News’ findings showed that Baltimore has a comparable job market with an annual salary above the United State’s average and a lower unemployment rate. The Baltimore Office of Tourism said visitor spending in 2019 sustained over 86,000 jobs, accounting for six percent of all jobs in the city.
It was the quality of life category that hurt Baltimore the most. Quality of life was measured based on how satisfied residents were with their daily lives. They used multiple deciding factors like crime rates, quality and availability of healthcare, quality of education, well-being, and commuter index.
In this category Charm City definitely seemed a lot less charming and had one of the lowest quality of life scores.
Using trusted sources, like the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department of Labor and internal resources, U.S. News put together this ranking.
But the best judges are the people who live there. Do you agree with where Baltimore ranked compared to other cities? Let me know in the comments!