Description of the recently released Resonance Consultancy 2020 Top 100 Best US Cities (to live, work and visit) ranking. Where does Sacramento rank on the list?
2020 is the fifth year that Resonance Consultancy has compiled its Top 100 Best US Cities list. The list is comprised of the largest cities within metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 plus. The ranking is a combination of both statistical and qualitative evaluations (see below).
SacramentoRevealed.com – All Things Sacramento (from a personal perspective)
Sacramento Ranked #26
Sacramento, with a metropolitan population of 2,345,210, ranked #26 on the list of 2020 Top 100 Best US Cities.
Sacramento’s ranking in the six core categories evaluated:
- #20 in Place
- #44 in Product
- #38 in Programming
- #22 in People
- #52 in Prosperity
- #39 in Promotion
The report notes that “California’s state capital is peaceful and wealthy, ranking well in our Household Income subcategory and even better nationally in the Safety subcategory. Its natural attributes also drive its livability, including epic weather, courtesy of its Mediterranean temperatures.”
2020 Top 100 Best US Cities
Top Ten Best US Cities
- #1 – New York, NY
- #2 – Los Angeles, CA
- #3 – San Francisco, CA
- #4 – Chicago, IL
- #5 – Washington, D.C.
- #6 – San Diego, CA
- #7 – Las Vegas, NV
- #8 – San Jose, CA
- #9 – Miami, FL
- #10 – Boston, MA
While Los Angeles secured the #2 spot on the list, it ranked #85 for Prosperity compared to Sacramento at #52. San Francisco ranked #7, San Jose #4 and San Diego #49 for Prosperity. It will come as no surprise that San Jose came in #1 in Household Income and #1 in People.
Other California cities on the 2020 Top Best U.S. Cities list:
- #32 – Santa Rosa
- #39 – Oxnard
- #63 – Riverside
- #73 – Fresno
- #82 – Stockton
- #93 – Modesto
- #95 – Bakersfield
Categories Evaluated
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a rethinking of the components of the six core categories evaluated. As a result, three new factors were added to this year’s ranking.
- Prosperity category – the unemployment rate of each city (as of May 2020) and the city’s Gini Index of Income Equality (distribution of income across income percentiles in a population).
- Place category – the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 as of July 8, 2020.
Six core categories were evaluated to develop the ranking:
- Place (weather, safety, sights and landmarks, parks and outdoors, COVID-19 infections)
- Product (airport connectivity, attractions, museums, university ranking, convention center, professional sports teams)
- People (foreign-born residents, educational attainment)
- Programming (culture, nightlife, dining, shopping)
- Prosperity (Fortune 500 companies, medium household income, unemployment rate following the COVID-19 lockdowns, income equality).
- Promotion (Facebook check-ins, Google Search, TripAdvisor reviews, Instagram hashtags, Google Trends)
One point in the report that I thought most interesting was the observation of Chris Fair, Resonance Consultancy President and CEO relating to social media. He observed that a city’s performance for factors such as Instagram hashtags, recommended culinary experiences etc., highly correlate with the number of visitors a city receives as well as investment and economic growth.
Let’s all hope that by the time the 2021 report is released that the COVID-19 pandemic will be behind us and that the state and Sacramento and its residents are well on the road to recovery. Perhaps when the time is right we should all undertake a social media blitz to help out!
See related blog post: Where Does Sacramento Rank?
Comments?
Any thoughts on Sacramento’s #26 ranking?
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