Naperville’s streak as one of the best places to live in the country is showing no signs of slowing down.
The third largest city in Illinois has once again made it to Livability.com’s list of the “Top 100 Best Places to Live,” ranking No. 4 out of 100 in the U.S. Naperville has been recognized by Livability’s best places to live ranking for the past four years as well as in 2018 and 2015. It has also been cited by the publication as one of the best places to live in the Midwest.
Livability’s rankings come just weeks after Niche.com named Naperville the Best City to Live in America for the third year in a row.
Part of what makes Livability’s list stand out compared to others is the company’s focus on small- to medium-size cities, according to Livability Editor in Chief Amanda Ellis.
“We’re a content platform all about small- to medium-sized cities and why they’re great places to live essentially,” she said. “There’s so many other places across the country that have really high quality of life, really strong affordability and really a lot to offer, even though some of those places may be ones that you don’t know as much about.”
Only cities with populations between 75,000 to 500,000 were included on the list. Livability also took into account the affordability of each city, only including those with a median home value of $500,000 or less. Naperville just made the cut with a median home value of $497,672, according to Livability’s website.
The rankings are based on about 100 different data points that are divided into eight broad categories: economy, housing and cost of living, amenities, transportation, environment, safety, education and health. Extra weight is given to the housing and cost of living category since affordability is top of mind for many people and Livability thinks “it’s a strong selling point of smaller and more medium-sized cities,” Ellis said.
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Data is pulled from a number of federal sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Homeland Security. In addition to government sources, Livability also uses satellite imagery and business association data.
More than 2,000 cities that fit Livability’s population parameters were assigned a “LivScore,” which evaluates each city’s performance across the eight categories.
This year, Naperville received a LivScore of 823 out of 1,000, powered in part by its high marks in safety, education and health.
Similar to last year, Naperville’s health score was the highest of all the cities on this year’s rankings, earning a score of 100. The health category considers factors like life expectancy, access to strong health care and incident rates of certain health issues. Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in Naperville has previously earned high marks by nonprofit watchdog organization The Leapfrog Group.
Naperville’s lowest score was in the environment category, which considers factors like air quality, population density and natural disaster risk. Naperville scored a 43 in environment, although Ellis noted that cities on the list tend to score in the “lower to medium part” of that category.
Huntsville, Alabama, took the No. 1 spot on Livability’s top places to live this year, followed by Carmel, Indiana, at No. 2 and Sugar Land, Texas, at No. 3. Other Illinois cities that made the list include Evanston at No. 13, Bloomington at No. 23, Aurora at No. 39, Champaign at No. 69 and Peoria at No. 80.
Beyond the data points, Livability also highlighted Naperville as a place where “residents take pride in the tight-knit community they’ve created.”
“People can settle down here, raise a family, work and enjoy all the community has to offer at a much lower cost of living than in the nearby Windy City,” Livability said.