It’s been a busy 2023 for us at LawnStarter and our sibling brands at Home Gnome. We cranked out 70 rankings of U.S. cities, and some cities really outshined the competition.
Below, you’ll find our 2023 chart toppers — broken down by number of top-10 rankings and average rank, for example.
Of course, we all have room to grow, so we spotlighted our best performers’ top areas of improvement, too.
Scroll down to see America’s greatest cities — at least according to us. 🙂
Contents
- Cities With Top-10 Rankings
- Top 10 Cities by Number of Top-10 Rankings
- Top 10 Cities by Average Rank
- Best of the Best: Cities With the Most No. 1 Rankings
- Top 10 Cities’ Worst Rankings
Cities With Top-10 Rankings
Among the 500 biggest U.S. cities, 141 cities ranked in the top 10 of our rankings at least once.
The table below (followed by a map) details how each city fared across all 70 LawnStarter and Home Gnome city rankings. We ranked the cities on 3 weighted factors:
- The total number of times each city placed in the top 10
- Weight: 3
- The total number of times each city placed 1st
- Weight: 2
- Each city’s average position across all rankings in which it placed in the top 10
- Weight: 1
Top 10 Cities by Number of Top-10 Rankings
These 10 cities dominated our leaderboard most frequently:
Honorable Mentions
Top 10 Cities by Average Rank
Among the cities that ranked in the top 10 of our studies at least 10 times, these cities stood out:
Honorable Mentions
Best of the Best: Cities With the Most No. 1 Rankings
Big kudos to the Big Apple! New York took the top spot in our rankings most frequently, landing in 1st place a total of 27 times.
Scroll down below for other top cities and their biggest strengths.
These cities ranked No. 1 the most times:
Honorable Mentions
All of these cities tied for 6th place, each taking the crown once (in order of state):
- Scottsdale, AZ: Best City for Golfers
- San Diego, CA: Best City to Own an Electric Car
- Sunnyvale, CA: Most Relaxed City
- Colorado Springs, CO: Best City for Hot Tub Lovers
- Miami Beach, FL: Best Vacation Spot for Rooftop Swimming
- Fort Myers, FL: Best City to Own a Swimming Pool
- Honolulu, HI: City With the Best Residential Views
- Boise, ID: Best Dog Park City
- New Orleans, LA: Top Mardi Gras City
- Kansas City, MO: Best BBQ City in America
- Durham, NC: Best City to Own a Vacation Rental
- Philadelphia, PA: Best City for Naked Biking
- Charleston, SC: Best City for Outdoor Weddings
- Alexandria, VA: Safest City from Burglaries
- Richmond, VA: Safest City from Natural Disasters
- Chesapeake, VA: City With the Most Green Space
- Bellevue, WA: Best City for Single Dads to Live
Top 10 Cities’ Worst Rankings
At LawnStarter and Home Gnome, we’re all about improving your living environment, so we’ve rounded up the areas where our top 10 cities need to clean up their act a bit.
In the table below, you’ll find each of our 10 best performers’ worst rankings, followed by surprising insights.
Surprising Findings
- Except for San Diego, every city in our top 10 also ranked among the 50% Most Vulnerable Cities for Rat Infestation. What’s more, six of them are among the 10 most at risk overall, including New York at No. 1.
- Among our 10 best performers, six ranked in the 5 worst spots of our rankings. However, Houston was the only one to place bottom-5 in more than one ranking, Dirtiest Cities in America (No. 1) and Most Vulnerable Cities for Rat Infestation (No. 5).
- Only Portland, Oregon, and San Diego avoided placing among the worst 10 of any ranking — but only narrowly for San Diego, which finished as the No. 12 Worst City to Own a Vacation Rental.
- Three of our top 10 cities — Houston, Miami, and Las Vegas — ranked low in both parenting studies, Best Cities for New Moms and Best Cities for Single Dads. Interestingly, no top-10 city ranked low in only one parenting study despite big differences in their methodologies.
No matter their flaws, our top cities are still the ones to emulate, and every new year is a chance to do better.
Congrats to all of our top cities, and here’s to a prosperous 2024!
Main Photo Credit: mheim3011 (overlaid with text) / Canva Pro / Canva License
Secondary Photo Credit: Statue of Liberty: Gu Bra from Pexels (background removed and torch cropped), Foam Finger: miflippo (“#” and “1” text overlaid on finger), Blue Sky: TITUS GROUP (overlaid with Statue of Liberty and foam finger images) / Canva Pro / Canva License
