Fayetteville has landed in the top five for a list of the best cities in the United States to live.
U.S. News & World Report named Fayetteville the fourth best city to live in the United States. In its 2020 list of the 125 best places to live, Fayetteville received an overall score of 7.3. This score was an average of the key ranking criteria: desirability, value, job market, quality of life and net migration.
While Fayetteville scored fairly low on the desirability criteria with a 5.5, the Northwest Arkansas city made up for it with its remaining four factors. The job market and quality of life received scores of 7.0 and 7.5, respectively. Fayetteville scored even higher for its net migration and value, receiving scores of 8.0 and 8.2.
By comparison, Austin, Texas received the top spot for the best place to live in the United States with an overall score of 7.6. It received scores of 9.0 for both desirability and net migration, as well as scores of 7.4 and 7.3 for its job market and quality of life, respectively. However, its value was significantly lower than Fayetteville’s, at 6.7.
In a profile of the city, local expert Rachel Gerner called Fayetteville “a center of higher education, culture, commerce and entrepreneurialism” that “attracts outdoorsy types with its abundance of state parks, acres of community green space, playgrounds, parks and walking trails,” in addition to a bustling arts and cultural scene.
U.S. News & World Report has previously ranked Fayetteville as the fourth cheapest place to live in the United States, as the twelfth best place to live for quality of life, the fifteenth fastest growing place and the twentieth safest place to live.
However, Fayetteville is not the only Arkansas city to grab a spot on the list. Little Rock also garnered a mention on U.S. News & World Report’s list.
Little Rock was named the eighty-eighth best place in the United States to live. It narrowly beat out New York City, which took the no. 90 spot.
With an overall score of 6.3, Little Rock received its highest marks for value, which was ranked at 7.7. It’s next highest score was for its job market, which was scored at 6.5. The remaining factors were ranked in the mid-5 range. Desirability was lowest at 5.3, while quality of life was 5.6 and net migration was 5.9.
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