Which Is America’s Best City?

Oh – another award? Just put it in the shelf over there. Next to the others. Yawn…

To most residents of Raleigh, it may not come as a surprise that their city earned the title of America’s Best City. Raleigh shows the cultural graces that go along with anchoring the so-called Research Triangle, home to North Carolina State University, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Among its many attributes the city sports 867 restaurants, 110 bars, and 51 museums, according to Onboard Informatics, as well as a thriving social scene, good schools, and 12,512 park acres, equal to several times the green space per capita in cities like New York and Los Angeles, according to the Trust for Public Land. It also offers a great deal on nights and weekends—from concerts and opera, to the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and college sports, to the 30,000-square-foot State Farmers Market.

Raleigh may have a population of only about 400,000 and span about 144 square miles, yet data show it still offers a lot, if only in a smaller package. True, Raleigh may not be the center of the tech universe like San Francisco, a hub of higher education on the same scale as Boston, or a vibrant 24-hour metropolis like New York, but all those cities also offered higher unemployment, a dearth of parks, worse public education, and other negative factors that weighed against them.

Other notables on the list – Winston-Salem, NC [46] home before Raleigh; Dallas, TX [42] you moved up 4 spots Travis – you should jump up another 41 and move here; Durham, NC [37] adding them so no one gets hurt; Greensboro, NC [31] nicest thing anyone ever said about G’boro; and Charlotte, NC [20] just sayin’ – we beat you by DOUBLE DIGITS – just sayin’.

With that quick run through I’d say North Carolina dominated the top 50 with 5 cities listed and by my count in a pretty good order.

Read more about Raleigh here and cruise through the cities we beat here.