"It's impossible to say what's 'best' for everyone, of course," reads BusinessWeek's introduction to America's 50 Best Cities, hinting that not even the magazine itself can take another 50-photo slideshow seriously anymore. This list in particular is important however, because for local readers of Bloomberg's BusinessWeek it will be a nice way to validate the wildly overpriced real estate they just bought.
Harnessing all of BusinessWeek's extensive knowledge of ranking things, the magazine evaluated America's 100 largest cities based on the usual, generic criteria like "leisure attributes," "educational attributes," crime, and air quality. After crunching the numbers from a private real estate data firm, the magazine concluded that San Francisco is America's best city. What makes us so great? Well, not the chilly August we just had or the real estate market, obviously. We did get high marks on education, though. San Francisco also scored points for its "lively arts scene" and "plethora of food trucks," among the many other splendid leisure options.
In fact, the leisure category — things like number of restaurants, bars, museums, parks and sports teams — had the greatest weight in the survey. (Because having stuff to do all the time is pretty much the only reason why you'd pay this much rent.) Anyhow, if you're still questioning the methodology here, just remember they accurately placed Los Angeles as the 50th Best City in the country, which is basically the worst city.
Honorable Mentions: Oakland at 31 (chortle), Seattle at number 2, and New York trailing in 7th.
