15 Most Livable Small and Midsize Cities

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Livability.com has partnered with Applied Geographic Solutions to create its 10th annual list of the 100 best small and mid-sized cities in the U.S.

“Our Top 100 Best Places to Live celebrates places where you can still live a little after covering the costs of essentials like housing and transportation, where middle-income earners have a good shot at owning a home and where you can live the life and career you want,” Amanda Ellis, Livability’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement.

In keeping with its emphasis on affordability, Livability included on the list only cities with a median home value of $500,000 or less.

To compile the 2023 list of best smaller cities, the website partnered with Applied Geographic Solutions to collect data for more than 2,000 U.S. cities with populations between 75,000 and 500,000 from more than a dozen federal sources and a several private ones.

The resulting list of best places to live is based on about 100 data points that measure eight broad categories: economy, housing and cost of living, amenities, transportation, environment, safety, education and health. A proprietary algorithm weighted the eight categories to produce each city’s LivScore.

This year’s list is highly interactive to date, with a variety of filters that allows users to tailor the ranking to reflect their priorities. “There’s no one size fits all when it comes to finding the right place to live,” Ellis said. “Instead, we’re leaving it up to each individual to filter and rank the categories that mean the most to them for a personalized top 100 ranking of the best places to live.”

See the gallery for the 15 most livable smaller cities, including how each locale ranks in several categories, according to Livability.

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