Description of two recent reports by Resonance Consultancy Ltd. ranking Sacramento as a place to live and visit in the U.S. and the world.
Resonance Consultancy Ltd. (self-described as an adviser on “tourism, real estate and economic development” based in Vancouver, British Columbia) recently released two reports – The 2018 “50 America’s Best Large Cities” and the 2018 “100 World’s Best Cities”. The free reports can be downloaded at Resonance Consultancy/Reports.
The ranking methodology includes user-generated ratings and reviews (i.e. TripAdvisor) to measure qualitative factors. This data was then combined with core statistics to develop the rankings.
SaccramentoRevealed.com – All Things Sacramento (from a personal perspective)
Study Factors
Factors identified that influence the perception of cities included:
- Housing affordability and job opportunities
- Quality of the naturel and built environment
- Quality of key institutions, attractions and infrastructure
- Diversity of people
- Promotion via stories, references and recommendations shared online
- Economic prosperity
- Quality of the arts, culture, restaurants and nightlife
The identified factors were grouped into six categories: Place, Product, Programming, People, Prosperity and Promotion.

Sacramento Rankings
The reports ranked Sacramento as:
- #33 (of 50) in the U.S. and #83 (of 100) in the world
- #33 in the U.S. for Place (which includes air quality, weather, crime rate, commute times and parks) and #50 for Place in the world
- #49 in the U.S. for Product (which includes attractions, airports, university rankings, sports and housing affordability) and #161 for Product in the world
- #33 in the U.S. for Programming (which is the arts, culture, entertainment, culinary and retail shipping scene) and #134 in the world
- #17 in the U.S. for People (which is the immigration rate and other diversity factors) and #65 in the world
- #37 in the U.S. for Prosperity (which includes employment rates, GDP, number of Fortune 500 company headquarters and household income) and #47 in the world
- #35 in the U.S for Promotion (the “quality of stories, references and recommendations shared online about a city” as well as demographic data) and #141 in the world
We can do better Sacramento! High marks for the diversity of our population, which has been noted in previous reports and rankings is nothing new (and remains something to be proud of), but I can’t say I am overly impressed with where Sacramento ranks in the other categories.
As an aside – the California Department of Finance recently released preliminary January 2018 and revised January 2017 data for California cities. Sacramento’s population has exceeded 500,000 (501,344 to be exact) for the first time! It was also noted that the City of Sacramento, the sixth-largest city in the state, grew at the fastest rate (percentage wise) among the 10th largest cities.
See related blog post: Where Does Sacramento Rank?
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