This morning Wallethub, a website that compiles lists like “Best States to Be Rich and Poor from a Tax Perspective” and “2015’s Best and Worst Cities for Sports Fans,” released its compilation of “2015’s Best and Worst Large Cities to Live In.” And while, sure, we could nitpick the criteria—most of which are drawn from other WalletHub lists, which seems a tad self-referential—but we’re not going to do that and instead we will accept the results at face value, no questions asked.
Raleigh is the second-best city in the country, y’all.
And get this: We’re also no. 8 in “livability,” even with all the downtown bars and noise and trash and bacchanal. Not too shabby. And other cities are looking to emulate our downtown’s success, even as city leaders want to implement night-and-weekend parking fees and rein in downtown nightlife, because that’s what Austin and Chicago and the other cities we really, really want to be when we grow up do.
Hey guys, if Austin jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would Raleigh do it too?
The point isn’t that we shouldn’t look to other places’ best practices. But rather, it’s just to say that we’re doing OK, and maybe we shouldn’t be in a rush to tinker with the things that are working just because that’s what everyone else does. Let Raleigh be Raleigh.
Here are the 20 best big cities in the U.S., according to WalletHub, which is a website that sends us emails:
