One of the most prestigious of the countless annual polls and rankings are done as each year comes closer to an end is done by the experts in the “Money.com” section of Time Magazine’s official website, listing the 10 Best Cities to Live in the U.S. each November. This years’ listing has just been released, with the city of Raleigh ranking second among all U.S cities for 2018.
The actual rankings that were first published to time.com on November 19, covered the Top 50 Best Cities to Live in U.S. and blog writers for the publication, Shaina Mishkin and Allana Akhtar, went into fine detail in explaining the process used to arrive at these results and spotlighted the top-ranked municipalities in an article titled, “The 10 Best Big Cities to Live in Right Now.”
In that article, the two time.com writers explained, “To create MONEY’s Best Places to Live ranking, we looked only at places with populations of 50,000 or greater. We eliminated any place that had more than double the national crime risk, less than 85% of its state’s median household income, or a lack of ethnic diversity.” This analysis process gave the 583 cities to look at and eventually arrive at both the Top 50 or Top 10 listings of Best Cities to Live in U.S.
Getting even deeper into the time.com research and selection process, Mishkin and Akhtar continued, “We collected more than 135,000 different data points to narrow the list. We considered data on each place’s economic health, cost of living, diversity, public education, income, crime, ease of living, and amenities.” They concluded their explanation of the overall methodology in the compiling 2018 Top 10 Best Cities to Live in U.S. saying, “Finally, reporters researched each spot, interviewing residents, checking out neighborhoods and searching for the kinds of intangible factors that aren’t revealed by statistics… We put the greatest weight on economic health, public school performance and local amenities; housing, cost of living, and diversity were also critical components.
Zeroing in specifically on Raleigh and its lofty number 2 ranking among the Best Cities to Live in U.S., the Time article was very complimentary, saying, “ Raleigh is a hotspot for employment seekers: Moody’s Analytics projects the area’s jobs will grow 9.6% by 2022. Forbes this year ranked Raleigh among the top 10 cities for jobs, owing in part to its 17.25% job growth over the past five years. And people are listening: There’s been a 13% increase in population since 2010, according to MONEY’s Best Places to Live database. Your wallet will feel the benefits too: With an average sales tax of about 7.25% and average property taxes at $2,632, the city’s cost of living is relatively low compared with our other big cities.
The complete listing of the Top 50 Best Cities to Live in U.S. and the article on the Top 10 municipalities on that list can be seen at time.com.
