re: U.S. News & World Report 2026/2027 Top 250 Best Places to Live in America

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So there isn’t one city out west? Not buying it.

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I think he is only listing the southern ones.

TX + FL + rest of south are > half, sounds right

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Decatur AL 50 points higher than Huntsville AL? What a crock. I can’t imagine what criteria they used.

I lived in Decatur-Morgan County for 29 years. Three of my four kids still live in Huntsville. Decatur isn’t bad, it’s a decent blue collar family town, but it’s nowhere people are flocking to live.

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These lists are all dumb but they seem to generate a ton of clicks.

You just weigh average amount of open parking spaces at Walmart more than everything else desirable as a place to live and end up with lists like these.

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agree and have no idea why Vestavia Hills doesn't get any love on lists like this. It's arguably the 2nd nicest suburb in B'ham behind Mountain Brook and also has the 2nd best metrics when it comes to quality of public school quality, average home prices, average incomes, quality of life behind Mountain Brook. It

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Probable because there is some diversity quotient in the scoring and VH and MB are pretty much all white.

Hoover? You call that living? This list sucks.

Our only City, is not really a City. It is an unincorporated area of Jefferson Parish that has no Mayor, no City Council, no Police Chief, no fire department. It is the only "City" in Louisiana that is on the list and it has no City employees at all. Perhaps that is why it is our only City on the list.

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Montgomery, AL? I've always heard that was a sh*thole on par with Jxn, BR, Sheveport and Memphis Memfrica

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Montgomery being on the list is like the DEI affirmative action of this list. It’s 60% black.

Vestavia not being on the list is wild with Decatur, Dothan, and Montgomery on there.

Huntsville being as low as it is and Madison not even on the list are also crazy choices.

"Value" is their second most important criteria and western cities are expensive.

Louisiana only had 13 on the list:

1. Metairie
2. Kenner (Kennbrah)
3. Slidell
4. Houma
5. Lafayette
6. Bossier City
7. Lake Charles
8. Shreveport
9. Alexandria (Alec)
10. Baton Rouge
11. Hammond
12. New Orleans
13. Monroe (Funroe)

I guess St. George didn’t make cut yet or is still under Baton Rouge’s thumb. No Mandeville either.

With these lists, you always have to take with a grain of salt. I remember several years ago. Nearly every metro in Louisiana was in the top five happiest metros in America. Lafayette was the Happiest and Houma was the 2nd happiest metro in America. It was some Harvard paper that created the list in 2014.

I wonder if someone paid to skew the numbers or if the researcher from Harvard was from Louisiana.