It's important to post the methodology:
49 key indicators of affordability, economic well-being, quality of education and health, and quality of life. Our data set ranges from cost of living to K–12 school-system quality to number of attractions.
This is why places like Concord, NH, a sleepy, boring, empty city that most people associate with the opioid epidemic more so than anything else, can be in the top 10. Concord is a pretty little town in New Hampshire with absolutely nothing to do, but it's relative proximity to Boston (1 hour w/o traffic) puts it within the "metro" area in terms of job opportunities for those willing to commute, while it has very cheap real estate, an overwhelming homogeneous demography (seriously like 90% white, 5% Asian, 2% black), decent education, very low poverty rate, so it ranks highly because there's almost no lower poverty immigration to a "city" like Concord. But nobody wants to live
in Concord New Hampshire. Almost nobody would willingly choose Concord over Boston metro area, which is why Concord has a population of 40,000 people, while Boston has a population of 700,000. A very small number of people might want to live around Concord because you can buy a 2500sq foot house with an acre of land for like $200,000 and still be about an hour's drive from Boston, but if you take "Boston" away from Concord there's literally nothing there in terms of opportunity. On the flipside, if Concord disappeared tomorrow, virtually nobody would notice. Concord has a quaint New England main street... Like if you wanted to step back in time, walk down Concord's main street once, it's nice with some shops and a farmer's market during the summer, and
nothing else.
Concord is the 62nd largest city in New England. Sandwiched between bustling metropolises like ... Torrington Connecticut and Pittsfield Massachusetts.
The way these lists are created makes no sense to people who actually live there or might consider moving there. Concord New Hampshire is #9 ... Boston Mass is #18 ... Providence RI is #42 ... Hartford CT is #46. It makes zero sense that Providence and Hartford would be in the bottom 10, while Concord, barely an hour from both, is in the top 10, and Boston is peeking around the middle. It's just nonsensical. It's the only type of aberrative results you can get by basing everything off of bizarre statistical categories and trying to find some strange average of them all. Like, I make fun of Hartford all the time because it's just a shitty state capitol, but there's not a chance in hell I'd ever move to Concord New Hampshire
over Hartford. Like Hartford and Providence actually have night life and a downtown, Hartford actually has things to do, both of them actually have jobs within the city limits... There's long standing poverty in both of those places, but if you're a middle class person, it's not like you're going to suddenly be rescued from poverty if you moved to Concord and you're going to be plunged down into poverty if you move to Providence or Hartford.
Similarly, nobody is moving to Montpelier VT (#15), unless you have a real hankering to work in the cheese industry. But, god forbid you have skills that don't involve curdling cheese or making ice cream.
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