Buffalo Is Nation's 6th Best City For Quality Of Life, #1 In The Northeast
There's no place like Buffalo. In addition to ranking Buffalo as the 6th best city in the nation for quality of life, a national study also ranks the Queen City as the best in the Northeast.
You already know that Buffalo has the least riskiest real estate market in the past 35 years - if not, you can learn more about it here. And you may have heard that Buffalo is the most affordable city in the nation. Well now you can add another to the city's "best of" column.
According to a study by Nerdwallet - also featured on the Huffington Post - Buffalo ranks as the nation's 6th best city for quality of life.
In fact, Buffalo was the only Northeastern city to rank in the top 10 by the study.
The study notes Buffalo's low cost of living and a diverse number of industries - such as health care, finance and education - as a few of the reasons why the Queen City earned high marks:
People working in Buffalo spend less than 36 hours a week at the office, much lower than most other cities in the country. About 21.9% of their paychecks go to rent every year, which is a relatively low figure that signifies a lower cost of living than in many other large cities. The top industries in the region are finance, technology, health care and education, while the largest university, University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York system, is renowned for its research programs.
Though it was not used as a factor in the study's methodology, Buffalo also ranks as having one of the smoothest rush-hour commutes in the nation by Forbes magazine.
While we're at it, Buffalo's Elmwood Village is also ranked as one of the 10 best neighborhoods in the nation by the American Planning Association.
Methodology
The overall score for each city was calculated from the following measures:
- Mean weekly hours worked from the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- Mean travel time to work from the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- Median annual rent as percentage of median income from the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- Percentage of population with health insurance coverage from the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- Percentage of people with income below the poverty level from the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- Unemployment rate of the metropolitan area from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
All six variables were weighted equally. The study analyzed the 100 largest U.S. cities.