Top cities with best quality of life

[Chisouthside]

San Jose doesn't surprise me. As long as you can afford to live there it's a great city to live in. Safe, quiet sunny. The homeless issue is not as big as in the city and east bay, great food everywhere. Traffic can be bad but IMHO you don't need to leave San Jose for anything.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The descriptions are the article author's reporting on the list rather than anything involved in the list's creation. So yes, reporters can be lazy (or intentionally misleading for clicks) in their reporting. But you can see the actual methodology on the methodology page where it presents the weighting of criteria below before going into further detail. I think the biggest caveat is that the list is focused on retirement (ie, applicable mainly to people of retirement age) rather than the general population.

Affordability Index – 25%

Happiness Index – 22%

Health Care Quality Index – 16%

Retiree Taxes Index – 16%

Desirability Index – 13%

Job Market Index – 8%

Breaking news! It's hard to draw accurate conclusions about the methodology of a study without reading it.

Sorry I know I sound a bit sarcastic but I sometimes just suffer from a bit of cynicism fatigue. Like yes, there's a lot of silliness in the world that deserves to be dismissed or mocked, but when that's the knee-jerk reaction to almost everything it becomes tiring.

But these are arbitrary criteria, and "quality of life" is an extremely subjective concept. I consider walkability and transit access as a major factor in quality of life, and I don't care much about people stuck in traffic. A lot of other people care about being stuck in traffic, and don't really care about transit and walkability. Some people care about having mild weather. Others about having four seasons. All of these can be defended as "quality of life" factors.

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

And im sorry, but Boston and DC do not belong here. They both have the amenities/options of cities far smaller for the price of a city far larger.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I'm a little surprised DC made the list, given its egregiously high rate of violent crime.


But "quality of life" is kind of a stupid concept to begin with.

So whatever......

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Portland, Boston, San Jose and DC certainly stick out to me

I just watched a City Nerd video (only on Nebula at the moment) where he listed the cities with the highest and lowest GINI scores and DC was the 5th lowest of metros with more than 1million people, meaning its income inequality was the 5th lowest. He didn't have a theory about this, but this could relate to its ranking.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Portland, Boston, San Jose and DC certainly stick out to me

Because they are big cities? Funny thing is, that is one of my quality of life requirements. It has to be a big city. So most of that list would be disqualified for that reason. It just goes to show how subjective all this is.

[Dariusb]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I'm a little surprised DC made the list, given its egregiously high rate of violent crime.


But "quality of life" is kind of a stupid concept to begin with.

So whatever......

True, plus QOL means different things to different people.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But these are arbitrary criteria, and "quality of life" is an extremely subjective concept. I consider walkability and transit access as a major factor in quality of life, and I don't care much about people stuck in traffic. A lot of other people care about being stuck in traffic, and don't really care about transit and walkability. Some people care about having mild weather. Others about having four seasons. All of these can be defended as "quality of life" factors.

I don't agree that they're arbitrary. They are things that affect the lives and experiences of most people to some degree. The weighting given to each of them has a degree of arbitrarily, but not the items themselves. As I said before, just because a lot of life quality components are individual doesn't mean that they all are or that you can't compare cities in terms of their ability to offer the things that the majority of people are affected by to some degree.

Let's say there are 100 possible criteria and everyone will have some combination of say, 20 different ones. There's no reason you couldn't look at people's choices and see the ones most often cities. Let's say 90% of people tend to have these six in common. That means on average 70% of people's QOL priorities would be other things, but there's no reason not to compare which cities are best with the 30% of criteria that most people share.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

But that's never been my reaction to almost everything.

Just stupid fucking meaningless listicles.

My apologies. I guess I just got that impression when you criticized the list and declared it meaningless based on criticisms that don't actually apply to it. Perhaps it's just a knee jerk reaction when it comes to lists.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Chisouthside

San Jose doesn't surprise me. As long as you can afford to live there it's a great city to live in. Safe, quiet sunny. The homeless issue is not as big as in the city and east bay, great food everywhere. Traffic can be bad but IMHO you don't need to leave San Jose for anything.

Meh. Safe and quiet, sure--but I would characterize it as "boring." Now, I turned out to be something of an urbanist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. However, I'll note that my parents and sister--all of them deathly allergic to urban living--disliked living their decidedly suburban lives in San Jose. The traffic congestion stressed my Mom and sister. My Dad was bothered more by the area's high costs and mediocre qualities (and he never hurt for money). He felt life there was a bad value relative to what he could afford elsewhere. They all left shortly after I did.

And sorry, but you do have to leave San Jose for something. San Jose has no world-class attractions and has a very boring cityscape outside its small downtown. Fortunately, there are many interesting and beautiful places within a relatively easy drive of San Jose, and that proximity is its greatest asset.

[Crawford]

If you aren't in tech, or an industry indirectly feeding off tech riches, SJ doesn't seem like an obvious draw, simply due to the bonkers housing prices. It feels like a mildly pleasant, anonymous Sunbelt metro, just crazy housing market and very Asian. Why pay $2 million for a bungalow if you aren't involved in the bedrock industry?

[JManc]

SJ is a quick drive to the ocean, the peninsula/ SF and has a laid back vibe and has ideal climate. It's typically 10 warmer there than in SF/OAK/ Berkeley and sunnier than SF. I really liked SJ and their airport is a 1000x better than dealing with SFO.

[UrbanRevival]

Typically, these lists are just a proxy for which cities have the highest concentrations of highly-educated white people. There's a very obvious bias, and they're not at all novel.

And I can't think of a more subjective term than "quality-of-life." Also, in like 90% of cases, if you're at least somewhat well-off in relative terms (based on a local earnings scale), then your personal quality-of-life is very likely going to be high pretty much anywhere.

Ergo, it's not that places that have a high quality-of-life; people have a high quality-of-life.

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by craigs

Meh. Safe and quiet, sure--but I would characterize it as "boring." Now, I turned out to be something of an urbanist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. However, I'll note that my parents and sister--all of them deathly allergic to urban living--disliked living their decidedly suburban lives in San Jose. The traffic congestion stressed my Mom and sister. My Dad was bothered more by the area's high costs and mediocre qualities (and he never hurt for money). He felt life there was a bad value relative to what he could afford elsewhere. They all left shortly after I did.

And sorry, but you do have to leave San Jose for something. San Jose has no world-class attractions and has a very boring cityscape outside its small downtown. Fortunately, there are many interesting and beautiful places within a relatively easy drive of San Jose, and that proximity is its greatest asset.

Oh i meant for food, groceries or shopping, you dont need to leave san jose. but yes for the natural amenities or major attractions yes you have to leave , but it is very close to many other things as you said.
Where did you parents head off to if you dont mind me asking?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

If you aren't in tech, or an industry indirectly feeding off tech riches, SJ doesn't seem like an obvious draw, simply due to the bonkers housing prices. It feels like a mildly pleasant, anonymous Sunbelt metro, just crazy housing market and very Asian. Why pay $2 million for a bungalow if you aren't involved in the bedrock industry?

Just comparing city to city, there's not really much difference between San Jose and Austin lifestyle-wise, IMO. And Austin is probably a bit more "urban" than San Jose. Again, that's just comparing city-to-city and not the regions surrounding those cities.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't agree that they're arbitrary. They are things that affect the lives and experiences of most people to some degree. The weighting given to each of them has a degree of arbitrarily, but not the items themselves. As I said before, just because a lot of life quality components are individual doesn't mean that they all are or that you can't compare cities in terms of their ability to offer the things that the majority of people are affected by to some degree.

Let's say there are 100 possible criteria and everyone will have some combination of say, 20 different ones. There's no reason you couldn't look at people's choices and see the ones most often cities. Let's say 90% of people tend to have these six in common. That means on average 70% of people's QOL priorities would be other things, but there's no reason not to compare which cities are best with the 30% of criteria that most people share.

But they've arbitrarily chosen just a few criteria points out of many possibilities to grade "quality of life". Yes, you can defend the criteria they chose as "quality of life" factors, but there's no obvious reason why they chose these criteria over others.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Chisouthside

Oh i meant for food, groceries or shopping, you dont need to leave san jose. but yes for the natural amenities or major attractions yes you have to leave , but it is very close to many other things as you said.
Where did you parents head off to if you dont mind me asking?

My parents took the money they got from selling the family home in San Jose and had a house custom-built in the Sacramento suburbs. My sister decided to move to that area simultaneously but only lived in that house when her dorms were closed. She and my now brother-in-law were able to buy a house shortly after graduation. That could never have happened in San Jose.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Just comparing city to city, there's not really much difference between San Jose and Austin lifestyle-wise, IMO. And Austin is probably a bit more "urban" than San Jose. Again, that's just comparing city-to-city and not the regions surrounding those cities.

Not really. The area by UT is pretty dense but mostly students and there are a crop of high-rises downtown and along Rainey St but Austin is as much of a sprawl monster as San Jose if not more where land prices forced developers to rethink land use. Austin is fairly recent to this phenomenon but much of metro and urban Austin is more or less like Houston.

[Crawford]

SJ is way more Asian than Austin, older demographic, more mature development patterns, much better weather and much better scenery. Also easily twice the apples-apples housing prices. Citywise, arguably more boring, but I never "got" Austin, which, to me, seems like a Columbus-type city, or maybe Madison on mega-steroids, and massively hyped. Actually even Columbus would be better for urbanists.

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by craigs

My parents took the money they got from selling the family home in San Jose and had a house custom-built in the Sacramento suburbs. My sister decided to move to that area simultaneously but only lived in that house when her dorms were closed. She and my now brother-in-law were able to buy a house shortly after graduation. That could never have happened in San Jose.

Sounds about right, alot of the drivers for the coaches/shuttle network for the company i worked for had to move out to tracy/stockton to be able to afford a house but still commuted to silicon valley for work. Theres still huge swaths of working class areas on north/east sides but when those homeowners retire and sell their homes their kids wont be able to afford to stay in the city it seems.

[destroycreate]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

...are just a proxy for which cities have the highest concentrations of highly-educated white people...

No need to get wokey dokey on this one. QoL has nothing to do with race.

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

No need to get wokey dokey on this one. QoL has nothing to do with race.

It's not "wokey dokey" to acknowledge demographic differences.

And yes, there's a very obvious correlation with the top-scoring cities and their "palatability" as places to live amongst the affluent/educated class of white people.

That might be uncomfortable for some to hear; I couldn't care less.