Why isn't Sacramento a "Best Place to Live?" (best cities, 2014)

[Songbird16]

I've read numerous articles on "Best Places to Live in the U.S." over the years, and I'm often left wondering why Sacramento is rarely included. I've lived in the area for over 25 years and I know how many wonderful things it has to offer. Sure, it's not a perfect place, but in my opinion, its pros outweigh its cons. Is that just the local in me speaking? What keeps Sacramento from ranking highly when it comes to great places to live? Crime? Jobs? Air quality? Those things combined?

[wburg]

We get onto plenty of those lists, and most of them are pretty much randomly-generated clickbait. I think they have two hats, one filled with city names and the other with adjectives, pull one adjective and 20 city names, spend a few minutes Googling stats to justify the list and picking out images, and voila, America's Zestiest Cities!

Here are a few lists where we make the cut:

No. 14: Sacramento, Calif. - In Photos: America's Coolest Cities 2014 - Forbes

Vocativ: Best Cities For People Under 35 - Business Insider

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

The 20 Best Cities for 20-Somethings: 2012 Edition

13 Best U.S. Cities for Mermaids to Live | Estately Blog

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Sacramento among the 10 best cities for 'coffee snobs'

The 10 Best Cities to be Single in California

Sacramento Tops List of Best Places to Raise a Family | NewsRadio KFBK

Best Cities to Live, Work and Play-Kiplinger

Sunniest Places and Countries in the World - Current Results

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20060501...wns-large.html

http://rn-colleges.com/sacramento-ma...stered-nurses/

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Songbird16

I've read numerous articles on "Best Places to Live in the U.S." over the years, and I'm often left wondering why Sacramento is rarely included. I've lived in the area for over 25 years and I know how many wonderful things it has to offer. Sure, it's not a perfect place, but in my opinion, its pros outweigh its cons. Is that just the local in me speaking? What keeps Sacramento from ranking highly when it comes to great places to live? Crime? Jobs? Air quality? Those things combined?

A: Because it's really not one of the best places to live. It's not a standout in any category, although it may be above average in some (such as weather & outdoor recreation) and the cost of living is relatively high for the amenities you get.

In short, it's not a bad place to live. It may even be a better than average place to live. But "better than average" doesn't get you on the "best places to live" lists.

[ryuns]

Because most of those make no sense. Some lists we make. Of the ones we don't, we're not particularly glamorous to make it on the list of high-profile cities, and we don't have dirt cheap cost of living that would get us onto other lists. I'd make a wild stab at those being the biggest two reasons we're not on more "lists".

[shelato]

Best of lists also tend to be based upon the biases of the publication. If you look at a best of list compiled by say the Economist Magazine its idea of the best place to live will probably be biased toward the idea of what the managers and executives who read the publication think is the best place to live, but if you look the best places to live published by Sierra Club, Kiplingers or say Parade magazine, those publications will come up with a vastly different list because these publications readers have vastly different ideas of what would be the best type of lifestyle to have.

[LoriBee62]

I've never seen a "Best Places To Live" list include any places I'd want to live.

[caligirlz]

Sacramento isn't really a designation city. Many people come here for jobs & lower cost of living, compared to other more desirable places in California. Many people refer to it as a good "in between" place..in between the mountains & the ocean. Yes, it's pleasant, it's comfortable, and there's plenty of things to do for nearly every taste. I can't think of any Sacramento-specific activity or event that has specifically drawn me to Sacramento in my 1/2 century of living in California. And it's the capitol/government town & everything associated with all of that.

[muffincake]

Originally Posted by Songbird16

I've read numerous articles on "Best Places to Live in the U.S." over the years, and I'm often left wondering why Sacramento is rarely included. I've lived in the area for over 25 years and I know how many wonderful things it has to offer.

You just answered your own question. You've lived in Sacramento for 25 years. You have no ideas about the amenities and quality of living other areas offer. I've lived all over the country and Sacramento may very well be the worst place I have lived in. The weather is unbearable, it offers very little by the way of convenience or amenities and yet the cost of living is rather high. If Sacramento is all you know, then I'm sure there's enough to do here for you, but certainly almost every other city I've lived in has more to see/do, better food to eat, more convenience/hassle-free living, cleaner/nicer communities and more varied weather. That's great that you love it. People should love their home. But Sacramento has no place being on a "top cities to live" list.

[GoldCountry80]

I'll tell you why, its boring overall, hot, very neutral minded, yes man town, Chinese food is average, only a few desirable parts of the city area, overall expensive for what you get, no beaches, can be highly conservative around the city, sex offenders everywhere, it rivals Florida even. Theres a lot I could get into. The only positive attribute really is access to outdoors if you're an outdoor person. I am used to a world where if people do outdoors, the entire location doesn't revolve around it, but its there. Everything most people talk about here is how great the outdoors are. Where as in other cities the entertainment and other attributes is what other people bring up first THEN the outdoors are mentioned. But here its all the outdoors this, the outdoors that. It starts to get old so choose wisely where you move. In other cities many will try to find a gay community, a theatre scene, great food, good music scene, professional sports scene, THEN outdoor stuff last if its there. A lot of these things I listed have left Sacramento or not too much was really here to begin with.

Other than Flagstaff AZ area far out in the middle of nowhere, Sacramento area would have to be pretty bad no question. It only looks good and worldly in comparison to a place like Flagstaff area. That's it.

My final summary, if you are into classic cars and outdoors both, married to an Asian girl, this place you will not mind and might even be willing to pay whatever extra you have to to convince yourself its a perfect fit because of those 3 being your favorite things to do.

[xeney]

I don't understand how someone who is living here in NOVEMBER can say the weather is unbearable. It's been sunny and in the 70s for weeks, with gorgeous fall color just beginning. Sacramento is amazing in the spring and fall.