Taking into account lack of corruption, cleanliness, attracting people and businesses, lack of crime, etc.

14 comments

  1. The Seattle I grew up in always struck me as very well run civically. We didnt have legacy big city Tammany Hall machines or widespread corruption etc. Just that level headed Scandinavian kind of non showy competence. Seattle has changed a bit since then.

  2. I love Rochester, Minnesota. Approximately 125000 people, with the best , er at least one of the best, hospitals in the world. Unlike most cities, their is not sprawl. Much open land within city limits. With our taxation largely based on property values, this is huge. FUCK suburbs. Vibrant downtown. Rapidly growing, and affordable city. I work in finance, WFH, and did my research 2 yrs ago. Bought a home for under 100k. Cheap living, world class and affordable health care. Vibrant downtown. And 4 true seasons. Love it. Spread the word.

  3. Well, the way corruption is measured is how many convictions. It doesn’t seem fair that so many very corrupt places that continually turn a blind eye so few convictions, would rank higher than those with vigilant watch dogs.

    But — I think it’s def. San Jose. The other top ones like Austin and Salt Lake City have way more crime.

  6. I went to Milwaukee recently and it seemed so clean. Traffic wasn’t crazy, beautiful parks and it seemed relatively safe.

  7. San Jose has to be up there for sure, especially considering that we have 1 million people living here. We don’t really have any government scandals or corruption here. Crime rates are pretty low here I would say. My only gripe is the absurd cost of living.

    Just 40 miles north, San Francisco is god awful. Whenever I visit, there are homeless people and drug addicts everywhere. Crime is rampant due to lax punishments, especially car break-ins and retail theft. Some residents literally leave their car windows down or leave a note in their car stating there is nothing in their car to deter thieves from breaking into their car (sometimes, they still do it anyways). The streets are really dirty. They’ve had some corruption scandals.

  9. Salt Lake City seems pretty well run.

    Dallas is very well run. I lived there after living in Chicago and it was a genuine shock to my system. “Wait, the cops aren’t all corrupt?” The city is focused on helping community?

    If the bigger cities – sorry Minot – Boston rates highly. I’d agree from my visits.

    – Overall quality of city services score: 64.21
    – Financial stability rank: #3
    – Education rank: #149
    – Health rank: #19
    – Safety rank: #10
    – Economy rank: #60
    – Infrastructure and pollution rank: #3

  12. Probably needs a size qualifier on it. There’s a lot of really successful cities that meet your description, like Boulder, but they’re also expensive as hell to live in. What balance is right for *you* needs qualifiers

  14. I’m very tired and when I first read the title question my answer jumped to Boston because of the Marathon. (I know there are other cities with marathon, many even)

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