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A recent U.S. News & World Report ranking marked Philadelphia as the 98th best United States city to live, just two spots behind New York and seventh out of all cities in Pennsylvania.
The top five consisted of Austin, Texas, Colorado Springs, Colo., Denver, Des Moines, Iowa, and Fayetteville, Ark., respectively.
The ranking used a methodology that considered several factors: job market, cost of living, quality of life, desirability, and net migration. While Philadelphia scored highly in terms of its job market, it received poor marks for net migration, consistent with other larger cities on the ranking.
This ranking comes just months after another report ranked Philadelphia as one of the worst big cities to live in, putting Philadelphia at 49th out of the total 62 cities. In this report, compiled by WalletHub, an online credit score company, Philadelphia was ranked highly in the category of safety and quality of life, but was near the bottom of the list with regards to economy and education.
In another recent study, Philadelphia was again ranked poorly. The city was ranked fourth in this recent survey of large cities in which residents find their neighbors most annoying.
Despite faring poorly in these livability rankings, Philadelphia was recently named one of the ten coolest U.S. cities to visit by Forbes.
Philadelphia has also fared well in other reports analyzing more specific factors. Recently, it ranked sixth in a study on how well immigrants are integrated into American cities. The city has also topped rankings for most romantic, best late-night food, and most facial-hair friendly U.S. cities.
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