The city of Austin has fallen to the No. 40 spot on the U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Cities to Live in the U.S in 2023-2024. The drop in ranking follows last year’s list where Austin ranked No. 14.
Even that was a lower ranking from 2017-2019, when the Capital City continuously held the No. 1 spot.
U.S. News & World Report says to make the top of the list, a place is judged by its value, how desirable it is to live in, how strong the job market is and how high the quality of life is.
Based on this, Austin’s drop in ranking could be due to several factors. In recent years, Austin has become a desirable place to live, and because of this it has experienced a boom in people moving there. This made the cost of living skyrocket. Though, housing costs in the area have gone down since the height of the pandemic, according to Bankrate.
“Austin offers a lower value than similarly-sized metro areas when comparing housing costs with median household income,” the report read.
Austin received an overall rating of 6.4. This is broken down by a 6.5 rating in desirability, a 6 in value, 6.5 in job market, 6.6 in quality of life, and net migration of 7.3.
Green Bay, Wisconsin, took the No. 1 spot in Best Places to Live with a quality of life rating of 7.3, value of 8 and overall rating of 6.9.
Despite the lower than usual ranking on this particular list, Austin still ranks higher when it comes to business. The Milken Institute ranked Austin No. 6 of Top Performing Cities based on criteria like job creation, wage growth, and output of the high-tech sector, along with housing affordability and broadband access.
Austin is also No. 1 on the U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of Best Places to Live in Texas for 2023-2024. San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Killeen and El Paso took the rest of the top five spots on that list.