Chicago has deep-dish pizza, and New York has the foldable slice, but does that make either the best American big city to live in? We're not so sure. It takes much more than a delectable pie to set a city apart from burgeoning places in Ohio, the picturesque views of Hawai'i's beaches, and a setting with its own "Garden of the Gods." Costs of living, activities, parks, nightlife, dining, and schools are all important factors, just as much as or even more than the meals at Pizzeria Uno or Grimaldi's. And Cincinnatians might argue that Skyline Chili tops them both.
With that in mind, Stacker consulted the best cities to live in America ranking from Niche, which considers factors like cost of living, rate of higher education, housing costs and value, quality of public schools, diversity, and more. (You can read Niche's full methodology here.) While there is no strict definition of "big city," for the purposes of this analysis, any city with more than 200,000 in population was considered a big city.
It's important to consider that our collective impressions of big cities across the country may not match reality, especially considering how easy it is to fall prey to the stereotypes perpetuated in films and on TV. You might think of New York as being dirty, for example, but an April 2025 study by HouseFresh, based on the number of sanitation complaints per capita, found that it's not even in the top 10 of the dirtiest cities. In fact, Baltimore far outranked the Big Apple with more than 12 times as many complaints. What about crime, you might ask? While New York didn't top MoneyGeek's February 2025 safest cities study, it ended up about halfway down the list—far safer than the big cities at the bottom, like St. Louis, New Orleans, and Memphis, the latter being the least safe of all. And as for residents' overall stress levels, Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore claimed the top three spots for the most stressed-out cities according to a July 2025 analysis from WalletHub, while famously fast-paced NYC didn't even crack the top 10. The least stressed cities, meanwhile, include Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Fremont, California; and South Burlington, Vermont.
Aside from our existing (and flawed) impressions, American cities may look very different in the coming decades. A September 2024 analysis of Census Bureau data found that young adults continue to leave big cities behind for smaller towns and rural areas, a trend that has become increasingly apparent since the COVID-19 pandemic. While this has sparked concerns about the futures of major metropolises, it's not all bad news, as housing prices in hubs like Miami, Denver, and Nashville, Tennessee, have dropped significantly over the past 12 months. So, urbanites might just enjoy a lower cost of living in the near future, not to mention shorter lines at those local eateries.
