Top 10 US Metros by Composite Livability Score for Relocation

PlainRelocate composite livability ranks US metros across cost, safety, air, housing, schools, climate, hazard, and jobs dimensions, refreshed automatically as new source data is published.

Research period: 2026-05-16

Compiled by PlainRelocate Editorial, Relocation Intelligence Editorial Team · May 16, 2026

Research question

Across US metropolitan areas in the PlainRelocate composite, which carry the highest combined livability score for relocation decisions, and how does the leadership tier compare to the cross-metro distribution?

Methodology

This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.

Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.

Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.

Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.

Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.

Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.

See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.

#	Metro	State	Livability	Cost	Safety	Jobs
1	Grand Forks, ND-MN	ND	74.4	92.2	66.6	66.8
2	Minot, ND	ND	73.6	91.5	66.3	51.6
3	Charleston, WV	WV	73.2	82.4	99.7	27.5
4	Fargo, ND-MN	ND	71.5	70.7	66.8	68.7
5	Parkersburg-Vienna, WV	WV	70.4	90.9	99	10.9
6	Florence, SC	SC	70	92	97.4	10.6
7	Greenville, NC	NC	69.2	84.5	94	38.3
8	Wheeling, WV-OH	WV	68.8	85.2	98.4	21.2
9	Bismarck, ND	ND	68.2	69.2	67.1	71.5
10	Beckley, WV	WV	67.9	84.7	100	2.6

Source: U.S. Federal Statistical System, BLS BEA FBI UCR FEMA NRI combined relocation composite. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. U.S. Federal Statistical System, BLS BEA FBI UCR FEMA NRI combined relocation composite. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Grand Forks, ND-MN, with a value of 74.4 on the Livability column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (74.4) and the 10th-ranked record (67.9) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Federal Statistical System, specifically the BLS BEA FBI UCR FEMA NRI combined relocation composite. PlainRelocate ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

PlainRelocate's composite livability score weights its component dimensions per a documented methodology in /methodology/. The composite reflects a particular weighting choice and is not intended as a single ground-truth relocation guide; relocation decisions should weight dimensions according to the individual household's priorities. Sub-scores draw from federal sources released on different cadences, BLS employment and OES wages refresh annually, BEA price parities annually, FBI UCR crime data annually, FEMA NRI on a five-year cycle, EPA AQI continuously, meaning the composite mixes vintages within a single year. Metros under the 50,000 micropolitan population threshold are excluded; readers considering small-town relocation should consult county-level data outside the metro composite. Some metro sub-scores carry NULL where the underlying agency suppressed data for confidentiality or applied a non-publishable threshold. Composite scores standardize sub-scores to a comparable scale; the standardization rule (z-score, percentile rank, min-max scaling) materially shifts the ranking shape, readers comparing PlainRelocate's composite to other livability indices should examine the standardization choice directly. Climate score reflects long-run climate normals and does not capture short-term variability or projected climate-change shifts under the IPCC scenarios.

Sources

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics - https://www.bls.gov/oes/
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities - https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program - https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr
FEMA National Risk Index for Natural Hazards - https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/