Four Iowa towns made Livability’s 2017 list of Top 100 Best Places to Live.
Iowa City ranked second on the nationwide list, behind only Rochester, Minnesota. The report praised Iowa City’s “college-town atmosphere with big-city cultural events that are attractive to both locals and students.”
That’s an improvement from last year, when Iowa City was ninth on the list.
Ames ranked 25th on the list, up from 35th last year. Ankeny—”with an economy strong in agriculture, education, manufacturing and retail”—was 61st on this year’s list, while Des Moines was 75th.
The study looked at cities with populations between 20,000 and 350,000 and took into consideration the cities’ economies, amenities, demographics, education, health care, housing, social and civic capital, and transportation and infrastructure.
In other good news for Iowa, the U.S. Department of Commerce released figures showing personal income in Iowa grew 2.3 percent in 2016. Though growth is a good sign, it’s lower than the national average of 3.6 percent. The report largely attributed the difference to declining farm income, which it said also hit South Dakota, Kansas, North Dakota, and Nebraska.
