The US News and World Report's State and City livability rankings are askew

American Thinker ^ | 05/13/2024 | Noel S. Williams

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U.S. News and World Report compiled a rankings list of the best states to live in, 2024. The magazine also compiled a list of the best cities to live in 2023-2024.  There are some interesting incongruities between the two.  Below I highlight apparent discrepancies between three of the top ten states, and the main cities therein.

For example, U.S. News ranks Washington State as the 8th best state to live in.  However, in a separate ranking of best places, they rank greater Seattle a very lowly 81^st best place to live.

That is curious because the timeframes are the same and their ranking methodologies both place weight on such things as quality of life and desirability.  Given that the population of greater Seattle represents about 52% of the state’s population, it seems anomalous it would rank so low relative to the ranking of its state.

Similarly, Minnesota is ranked the 4^th best state to live in, but Minneapolis-St. Paul, representing about 60% of the state’s population, is only ranked as the 35^th best place (city) in which to live.

One more noteworthy divergence (only focusing on the top ten here) is between Massachusetts and Boston. Massachusetts is ranked as the 10^th best state, yet its major metropolitan area, with well over half of the state’s population, is only ranked 44^th.

To summarize: three of the supposed top ten states best states to live in (Minnesota, Washington, and Massachusetts), per U.S. News, have overwhelming population concentrations in cities that rank (by the same organization) at 35^th, 81^st, and 44^th, respectively.

Something seems amiss: given the density of population in cities relative to rural areas, one might expect that these city rankings would converge with their state’s ranking.