Seattle is the third best US city to live in … if you can afford it

Seattle is the third best city to live in the entire United States, according to a recent assessment. The Emerald City scores high on everything from its thriving economy to the number of coffee shops in town. Perhaps it would rank even higher, if not for the one category it tanks — affordability.

Wallethub recently assessed 62 cities across America to find the best large cities to live in. Overall, Seattle comes in third, behind Virginia Beach, Va. and Austin, Texas respectively. This is because Seattle is first in economy, first in education and health, and fifth in quality of life.

But out of 62 large US cities, Seattle comes in at 50th for affordability. Technically, if you flip this list on its head, Seattle is the 13th least affordable city in the nation. So Seattle is amazing to live in … if you can afford it.

Is Sammamish really the best city in Washington?

Among the high scores that added up to Seattle’s liveability rank is the number of coffee shops per capita — the city is tied for first place in that category along with New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas.

Wallethub primarily calculated Seattle’s liveability score by considering 62 cities along various factors, such as affordability, economy, education and health, safety, and quality of life (things like walking/biking scores, traffic congestion, restaurants/bars per capita, number of movie theaters, etc.). Also among Wallethub’s factors for Seattle:

• 1^st – Income Growth
• 22^nd – Quality of Public Hospital System
• 14^th – Quality of Public School System
• 12^th – Job Opportunities
• 13^th – Air Quality
• 1^st – Access to Public Transportation
• 8^th – Walkability
• 21^st – Parkland (as % of City Area)
• 24^th – Violent-Crime Rate

Of course, I haven’t crunched the numbers, but this list does have me scratching my head a bit. Wallethub’s ranking states that Seattle is tied for first place when it comes to income growth. At the same time, it ranks fifth for having the lowest population living in poverty. Having recently seen the state along I-5 through Seattle, I can only assume that the other 62 communities on Wallethub’s list are giant tent cities, or ruins.

On the other hand it is a bit refreshing to see a ranking where Sammamish is not listed as the “best.”

But what do you think? What’s the best Washington city to live in?

This top 8 list will get you to click and read!

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