If you’re a millennial thinking about moving to a new city, you’re likely mulling over its job market, cost of living and tendency for sunny days. But perhaps you’re also considering whether a city has a vibrant, diverse community.
Niche, a website that ranks schools and neighborhoods, released its annual list of the best cities for millennials. The list puts an emphasis on how many bars, coffee shops and restaurants are accessible to a city’s residents — these factors make up nearly 40% of the ranking.
Other criteria include how many of a town’s residents are aged 25 to 34, how many have a college degree, cost of living, diversity (ethnic, generational and economic) and employment. It uses data from publicly available sources like the U.S. Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as overall city ratings submitted by Niche.com users. Full methodology details are available here.
This list differs from Forbes’ definitive “Best Places for Young Professionals” list published earlier this year, which focused more on salary, rent and employment prospects as ranking criteria.
1.Arlington, Virginia
2. Cambridge, Massachusetts
3. San Francisco, California
4. Alexandria, Virginia
5. Minneapolis, Minnesota
6. Seattle, Washington
7. Ann Arbor, Michigan
8. Berkeley, California
9. Sunnyvale, California
10. Sandy Springs, Georgia
Arlington, Virginia has moved up one spot from last year to become the best city for millennials. With more than 220,000 people, Arlington is only about five miles away from Washington, D.C. “Jobs for college graduates are abundant,” wrote one Niche.com user about Arlington. A search for Arlington restaurants on Yelp.com yields nearly 5,000 results.
Cambridge, Massachusetts has fallen one slot from last year to take second place. Home to Harvard and MIT, Cambridge’s identity is highly associated with academia, and more than 110,000 people call it home. Niche.com users praise the city for its diversity, which some say is a consequence of its top-notch universities.
San Francisco is the highest-ranked West Coast city, coming in at third. Its economy is on fire, but some residents lament that the tech boom is carrying cost of living to exorbitant new heights. Housing prices are even driving some to move from San Francisco to the city that’s number six on Niche’s list, Seattle.
How about the Midwest? Minneapolis ranks fifth. The city of nearly 400,000, where winter temperatures of 10 degrees aren’t uncommon, has vibrant nightlife, according to Niche.com’s analysis.
