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Philadelphia ranked 102 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 ranking of the top 125 places to live in the United States, the lowest among eight Pennsylvania cities that made the list.
Philadelphia fell behind Harrisburg, Lancaster, Pittsburgh, Reading, York, Allentown, and Scranton, cities that ranked 44th, 48th, 50th, 84th, 87th, 93rd, and 98th, respectively.
The rankings evaluated 125 metropolitan areas according to five metrics including job market, value, quality of life, desirability, and net migration. Value refers to affordability, quality of life to resident satisfaction, desirability to whether people would want to live in the location, and net migration to whether people are moving into and out of the city.
Of these five metrics, Philadelphia scored highest in the job market index and lowest in quality of life and net migration. Philadelphia's median annual salary of $55,000 is higher than the United States median of $50,620. Unemployment rates, long morning commute times, and high property taxes lowered Philadelphia’s overall score, CBS Philly reported.
Philadelphia, however, ranked 31st in the 100 Best Places to Retire in the U.S. in U.S. News & World Report's 2019 ranking. Lancaster, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Harrisburg ranked higher than Philadelphia at first, fifth, 18th and 29th respectively. Scranton ranked last among Pennsylvania cities at 68th.
U.S. News & World Report’s Best Places to Retire rankings is based on six indices: happiness, housing affordability, healthcare quality, retiree taxes, job market, and desirability. Of the 100 cities, Philadelphia ranked second for healthcare with a score of 9.9 out of 10. New York City received a perfect 10.0.
The current ranking marks a decrease from Philadelphia's place in the U.S. News & World Report 2018 rankings, where the city was ranked 98th. However, in 2018 Forbes named Philadelphia as one of the ten "must-see cities" in the United States.
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