America's 50 Best Cities...from Bloomberg BusinessWeek

It's a long story. How math and statistics do not have a proper link with taste and personal preferences. Researchers have done a lot of work making "the perfect diet" with balanced elements, minimum costs and convenience to store. But no one ever liked it. Taste and preferences are unique, coming from the deeper feelings, habits, culture and many other unmeasurable factors, But data is always important because is the only thing we use without controversy... So we bring to you this exercise from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This is the second time we bring it to our followers, as a tool to compare with our cities... 

The Best Places to Live

It's impossible to say what's "best" for everyone, of course. But where's the fun in not trying? Welcome to Businessweek.com’s second America’s Best Cities ranking. With assistance from Bloomberg Rankings, Businessweek.com evaluated 100 of the country’s largest cities based on leisure attributes (the number of restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, professional sports teams, and park acres by population); educational attributes (public school performance, the number of colleges, and graduate degree holders), economic factors (2011 income and June and July 2012 unemployment), crime, and air quality. Major professional league and minor league teams, as well as U.S.-based teams belonging to international leagues in that city were included. The greatest weighting was placed on leisure amenities, followed by educational metrics and economic metrics, and then crime and air quality. The data come from Onboard Informatics, except for park acreage, which comes from the Trust for Public Land. As the methodology has changed since the 2011 ranking, a city’s rise or fall compared with last year does not suggest that it has gotten “better” or “worse.”

Los Angeles

Rank: 50
Population: 3,811,518

Anchorage, Alaska

Rank: 49
Population: 297,018

Omaha

Rank: 48
Population: 416,855

St. Louis

Rank: 47
Population: 304,219

Cleveland

Rank: 46
Population: 396,441

Chesapeake, Virginia

Rank: 45
Population: 223,454

Phoenix

Rank: 44
Population: 1,418,687

Scottsdale, Arizona

Rank: 43
Population: 214,770

Reno, Nevada

Rank: 42
Population: 225,561

Dallas

Rank: 41
Population: 1,199,739

Virginia Beach

Rank: 40
Population: 438,243

Charlotte

Rank: 39
Population: 745,596

Tulsa

Rank: 38
Population: 395,176

Indianapolis

Rank: 37
Population: 831,943

Colorado Springs

Rank: 36
Population: 421,350

Tampa

Rank: 34 (tie)
Population: 340,509

Lincoln, Nebraska

Rank: 34 (tie)
Population: 259,06

San Jose

Rank: 33
Population: 956,368

Rochester, New York

Rank: 32
Population: 213,178

Oakland, California

Rank: 31
Population: 401,036

San Antonio

Rank: 30
Population: 1,365,256

Baltimore

Rank: 29
Population: 612,701

Chicago

Rank: 28
Population: 2,679,998

Arlington, Virginia

Rank: 27
Population: 208,143

Milwaukee

Rank: 26
Population: 593,545

Lexington, Kentucky

Rank: 25
Population: 299,520

Philadelphia

Rank: 24
Population: 1,522,648

Oklahoma City

Rank: 23
Population: 588,053

Houston

Rank: 22
Population: 2,131,940

Cincinnati

Rank: 21
Population: 292,050

Columbus, Ohio

Rank: 20
Population: 796,520

Honolulu

Rank: 19
Population: 399,124

Raleigh, North Carolina

Rank: 18
Population: 405,462

Madison

Rank: 17
Population: 231,999

Atlanta

Rank: 16
Population: 410,60

Kansas City, Missouri

Rank: 15
Population: 458,064

New Orleans

Rank: 14
Population: 349,773

Nashville

Rank: 13
Population: 603,394

Minneapolis

Rank: 12
Population: 388,229

Pittsburgh

Rank: 11
Population: 308,090

St. Paul, Minnesota

Rank: 10
Population: 288,263

San Diego, California

Rank: 9
Population: 1,319,558

Austin

Rank: 8
Population: 797,215

New York

Rank: 7
Population: 8,110,206

Denver

Rank: 6
Population: 597,466

Portland, Oregon

Rank: 5
Population: 598,205

Boston

Rank: 4
Population: 615,462

Washington, D.C.

Rank: 3
Population: 607,731

Seattle

Rank: 2
Population: 624,070

San Francisco

Rank: 1
Population: 808,854