If you’re feeling curious, take a poll of your friends and ask them what U.S. city is the most exciting. We’re willing to bet that the majority of them will come back to you with the same answer: New York City. The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. There are more than enough reasons to support this notion. New York City is large and crammed with people and things to do. In fact, most of the Movoto bloggers thought that New York City was, if not the most exciting, definitely one of the most exciting places to be in America.
But—and we’re sure you saw this coming—it turned out we were wrong. New York City, while in the top 10 most exciting places to live, is not No. 1. In fact, The Big Apple doesn’t even crack the top five most exciting places to live, according to a survey Movoto recently undertook. That honor goes to another well-known city, one we are more than happy to share with you: Oakland.
How did we decide this? Recently, we got to thinking about cities and what makes them exciting and interesting places to live. We compiled a list of criteria and set out to determine which U.S. cities have the most zest for life (a full explanation of which can be found below). Here’s our list:
1. Oakland, CA: Surprisingly, Oakland ranked as Movoto’s No.1 most exciting city based on 10 pieces of criteria.
2. Boston, MA: Boston placed second on our top 10 list, mostly because of its young population, high number of bars, and number of movie theatres. Is it a coincidence these three things could make for a fun date night?
3. San Francisco, CA: San Fran placed third on our list. The City by the Bay reached its position thanks to its vibrant art and music scene.
4. Seattle, WA: Some might ding Seattle for helping inspire the '50 Shades of Grey' books. We assure you Seattle has inspired many other people.
5. Washington, D.C.: Washington, D.C. isn't just home to our nation's politicos, it's also enthralling to visit the national museums and parks. Still, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that D.C. ranks high in the number of bars on a square mile basis.
6. New York, NY: The supposed Cultural Capital of the World didn't break into our top five most exciting cities. What held the Big Apple back? Lots of fast food joints.
7. Milwaukee, WI: We would have never guessed that Milwaukee would make our list. It turns out that Brew City is simply solid on all of our criteria.
8. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta made our top 10 list despite having poor scores on its number of fast food restaurants per square mile and park acres per person. It does have strong marks for having a young population, bars, and music.
9. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia made our list because of its high diversity and number of museums per square mile.
10. Portland, OR: Portland has a strong cultural scene with high marks in music venues and movie theaters per square mile.
That’s quite a list. These are all large cities, some of which are already known for their culture. Still, after looking at our top 10 list and scratching our head, we were still surprised that NYC didn’t rank higher.
If you’re interested in learning how we developed our top 10 list, we break down the methodology and reasoning below. Or, if you’re into quick-and-dirty lunchtime reading, jump on over to some of our other top 10 posts such as “Where Fashion Dies: The 10 Worst Dressed Cities” or “The 10 Nerdiest Cities in America.”
