Raleigh, Durham jump up US News Best Places to Live list. Where they rank, and why

The Raleigh and Durham metro area ranks as the second best place to live in the United States, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking released Tuesday.

Boulder, Colo., remained at the top of the list of 150 cities for the second consecutive year. Raleigh and Durham are followed in the Top 5 by Huntsville, Ala., Fayetteville, Ark. and Austin, Texas.

Raleigh and Durham, grouped together in the magazine’s annual ranking, moved up the list from the No. 11 spot last year, largely thanks to a successful job market and high desirability ratings, the magazine reports. They also ranked as the No. 1 place to live in North Carolina.

Other North Carolina cities on the list include Charlotte (No. 20), Winston-Salem (No. 46), Asheville (No. 48) and Greensboro (No. 94).

While Raleigh and Durham and the Triangle as an entity routinely make “best of” lists for places to live and work, this year, the pandemic played a role in the rankings. A third of Americans surveyed by U.S. News say the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their preference for where they want to live, and those changes may have contributed to Raleigh and Durham’s rise, according to the magazine.

Devon Thorsby, real estate editor at U.S. News, noted that the area is less dense than other major metropolitan areas like New York or Boston.

“I think that played in the area’s favor, because a lot of people like the idea of having all the amenities of the city, but also having enough space,” Thorsby told The News & Observer in an interview. That’s especially in light of the pandemic, Thorsby said.

The 2021-22 Best Places to Live list ranked the 150 most populated metro areas in the U.S. using job market, value, quality of life, desirability and net migration ratings. Some of the ratings were based on a U.S. News survey of 3,600 people across the country about preferences in places to live.

The ranking was based on data from sources like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Thorsby explained that the Raleigh and Durham area was able to experience relative employment stability throughout the pandemic because much of its economy is based in research and academia.

“Those areas where we see aerospace research, technology, higher education — all those things have been able to keep unemployment rates from climbing too high, especially when you compare it to cities that maybe are more based in tourism and hospitality, like Boston, Las Vegas and New York City,” she said.

More jobs are on the way, as the Triangle has seen a flurry of major expansion announcements in the past six months, including plans from Google and Apple to establish presences — and thousands of jobs — in the Triangle. Over the next several years, Google expects to bring 1,000 jobs to Durham while Apple expects to have 3,000 jobs in Research Triangle Park.

Nearby, Fujifilm Diosynth also plans to bringing 725 jobs to Holly Springs while Invitae expects to add over 370 in Morrisville.

Booming housing market

Although home prices are rising rapidly in the Triangle, with homes on the market for just a few days Raleigh and Durham’s frenzied housing market was not a significant detractor in the U.S. News ranking.

Many metropolitan areas have been experiencing booming housing markets, Thorsby explained, so the rising prices in Raleigh and Durham are relatively normal.

“When we look at the Raleigh and Durham area’s median household income, as it compares to the cost of monthly mortgage payments, rent, property taxes, utilities, all those things, we found that it is relatively affordable still,” Thorsby said. “They’re not spending an egregious amount of their income on housing, at least as it compares to a lot of other parts of the country.”

The Raleigh and Durham area was also able to maintain a relatively low cost of living because of its rate of population growth. The population increased by 5.87% between 2015 and 2019, a “more sustainable rate than some places, where we see the population increasing by double digits, which typically leads to a very sudden rise in cost of living,” Thorsby said.

Although Raleigh and Durham’s quality of life rating dropped slightly, the drop wasn’t significant enough to outweigh the rise in other ratings. The slight drop was largely due to a higher crime rating and lower access to healthcare rating than other metropolitan areas.

In other rankings published Tuesday, Hickory ranked No. 4 in U.S. News’ Most Affordable Places to Live list and No. 52 on the overall Best Places to Live list.

U.S. News Best Places to Live, 2021-2022

1. Boulder, Colo.

2. Raleigh and Durham

3. Huntsville, Ala.

4. Fayetteville, Ark.

5. Austin, Texas

6. Colorado Springs, Colo.

7. Naples, Fla.

8. Portland, Maine

9. Sarasota, Fla.

10. Portland, Ore.

This story was originally published July 13, 2021 at 12:01 AM.