Home prices, job market propel Green Bay to No. 1 in U.S. News' Best Places to Live rankings
GREEN BAY – Green Bay is Titletown once again.
It might not be a Lombardi Trophy, but the Green Bay metro area scored the top ranking in U.S. News & World Report's 2023-24 Best Places to Live in the United States, which compares the nation's 150 largest metro areas.
The annual list ranks communities based on factors like the cost of living, the weather, access to health care and crime. The Green Bay area's housing costs, low crime and high air quality have earned the city honors like "Safest U.S. City" in 2021 and the No. 3 Best Place to Live in 2022, but this is the first time the region secured the top, overall spot.
"While people who haven’t visited the northeastern Wisconsin metro area may exclusively recognize the city’s name for its NFL team the Packers, the metro area offers varied attractions, from historical and art museums to craft breweries and outdoor activities in both warm and cold weather," U.S. News wrote of Green Bay in its introduction of this year's top cities.
These cities rounded out the U.S. News' top 10:
Huntsville, Alabama
Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
Boulder, Colorado
Sarasota, Florida
Naples, Florida
Portland, Maine
Charlotte, North Carolina
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Brad Toll, president and CEO of Discover Green Bay, said it's a feather in the region's cap and a good reminder that "a great place to live is a great place to visit."
"We love to see these and promote nearly all accolades the community receives," Toll said.
Green Bay also ranked eighth on U.S. News' list of the 25 Cheapest Places to Live, seventh in best places to live for quality of life, 18th in safest places to live, and 27th in best places to retire.
How did Green Bay score the top ranking?
According to U.S. News & World Report's methodology page, researchers collected data on housing affordability, crime, air quality, the cost of goods and services, the economy, health care, natural disaster risks and overall climate for the largest 150 metropolitan statistical areas in the United States. The Green Bay metro area includes Brown, Oconto and Kewaunee counties, a region home to about 326,000 residents.
The data was assigned weighted value based on a March public survey about the most important factor to consider when choosing where to live: Quality of life, value, desirability and the job market.
It funneled that data into a one-to-10 score in five categories — desirability, value, job market, quality of life, and net migration — and used those five scores to come up with an overall score, also on a scale of one to 10.
Here's how the Green Bay area and its more than 320,000 residents scored:
Desirability: 5.7
Value: 8
Job Market: 6.1
Quality of Life: 7.3
Net Migration: 5.6
Overall rating: 6.9
What did U.S. News have to say about the Green Bay area? Was it all about the Packers?
Yes, Green Bay's football team gets a prominent mention, but the report also dives into the region's "perfect mix of big-cities amenities complemented with a Midwestern, small-town feel."
The rankings cite Green Bay's proximity to waterways, its position as a shipping center, variety of recreational opportunities, boutiques spread from downtown Green Bay to De Pere, and the area's thriving craft beer scene.
Local residents continue to struggle to afford housing and basic necessities, but U.S. News' rankings put the region's home prices into some wider context. The region's estimated housing cost of $247,000 was more than $100,000 below the national average of $365,600, making it a good value when compared to similarly-sized metro markets.
Weather, transportation, 'family feel' also highlighted. Yes, the weather.
The report really focuses on many of the questions an individual or family would have about moving to an area, so it should come as no surprise U.S. News talked about quality of life measures, the job market, schools and crime.
Third Winter ― or was it False Spring? ― might have just wrapped up in Green Bay, but the rundown highlighted that the area experiences all four seasons of weather, which means opportunities to bike and boat in the summer and snowshoe or ski in the winter.
The region scored well for transportation with the 20-minute average commute time being about 7 minutes shorter than the national average. Quality of life measurements also focused on the region's "family feel," public schools, three higher education institutions and multiple health care providers.
What about the Green Bay area job market?
The region's job market score of 6.1 means it is healthier than similarly-sized metro areas with unemployment well below the national average and an average annual salary of $51,500 compared to the national average of $58,260.
The report is based on the region's 6.2% unemployment rate from 2021. In March 2023, the metro area's unemployment rate had dropped to 2.2%, according to preliminary data from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
U.S. News noted the region's home to a variety of industries, including health care, health insurance, paper, shipping and food production.
Green Bay's crime rate is lower than similar metro areas
The metro area scored an 8.9 on the crime index based on a violent crime rate of 220.3 per 100,000 people and a property crime rate of 942.7 per 100,000 people.
U.S. News compared Green Bay to Pensacola, Florida., Santa Rosa, California, and Reno, Nevada, to show the difference in crime rates. While Green Bay's violent crime score was not as low as Pensacola's 190, it was way below Reno's rate of 426.7 and Santa Rosa's 450.6, both higher-than-average.
Overall, the report showed violent crime rates in the U.S. declining over the past decade.
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Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay ranked Best Place to Live in U.S. News rankings
