Madison’s the 11th best place to live in U.S.; #2 in Wisconsin, U.S. News says

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – The number crunchers at U.S. News and World Report may have ranked Madison as one of the best places to live in the United States; but they still felt another Wisconsin city was a better choice. In fact, they called that city the best choice.

Wisconsin’s capital slotted just outside the top ten on the U.S. News list, finishing in the 11th slot. Breaking down the numbers, Madison claimed the bronze for overall quality of life of the 150 cities included in the survey.

“Against a backdrop of high-tech businesses and acclaimed academic institutions, Madison, Wisconsin, exudes the casual, down-to-earth feel you’d expect in the capital of America’s Dairyland,” U.S. News wrote.

Its rankings pointed out Madison’s crime rate in 2020, for both violent and property crimes, was lower than similar sized cities. As far as education, U.S. News ranked the city as above average. Beyond that, it noted two of Madison’s three colleges and universities earned places on U.S. News’ best colleges rankings.

Yet, heading up I-41 also takes someone ten slots higher on the list, to Green Bay. The Packers hometown topped this year’s overall rankings.

U.S. News’ summary pointed out affordability helped push Green Bay into first place this year.

Its highest score came in that category, which combines cost of living and price parity of goods. Green Bay residents spend less than 20% of their income on housing costs.

Like Madison, Green Bay also ranked highly in Quality of Life, coming in at #7, with editors highlighting the short commutes, FEMA’s assessment of low risk, and its high resilience to extreme weather events.

The Best Places to Live in the U.S. were ranked on a number of factors, including crime rate, the affordability of housing and goods, air quality and resilience to climate change, U.S. News explained.