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PHILADELPHIA – A new analysis from lawncare company LawnStarter recently released a new ranking of hundreds of cities across the U.S. based on their quality of life, and several cities in Pennsylvania ranked toward the bottom.
What we know:
The study looked at the 500 biggest cities in the U.S., then used thirteen different metrics to grade them on their quality of life. The categories included things like education, safety, access to healthcare and even mental health, weighing each category differently to come up with an overall score.
The top 10 US cities by quality of life
Big picture view:
Some states had much more representation than others, for both good and bad reasons. California, for example, had nearly 40 cities land in the top 100. Meanwhile, Texas had 30 in the bottom 100.
Here are the top 10:
- Newton, Massachusetts
- Woodbury, Minnesota
- Plymouth, Minnesota
- Pleasanton, California
- Redmond, Washington
- Castle Rock, Colorado
- Bellevue, Washington
- San Ramon, California
- Naperville, Illinois
- Carmel, Indiana
Based on LawnStarter’s data, cities like Newton and Cambridge ranked highly for their safety and education levels, while Plymouth, Minnesota, got such a high score because of things like its low unemployment.
Local perspective:
Here in Pennsylvania, only one city — Bethlehem — ranked in the top half. Meanwhile Scranton, Philadelphia, Erie and Reading all ranked in the bottom 100.
Philadelphia suffered from poor grades in safety, economic stability and housing affordability.
Here’s the full list, complete with rankings.
The Source: Information in this story is from LawnStarter’s “2025’s Leading Cities for Quality of Life” analysis.