RelocateAmerica Top 100 Places to Live 2010

RelocateAmerica is proud to release our 2010 “Top 100 Places to Live!”

Our annual list is in its 13^th year and publishing it is something we love to do. This year’s list focuses on communities poised for recovery and future growth. Additionally, and new for 2010, we created separate Top 10 breakout lists and videos pulled from our Top 100 in a variety of categories including recovery, being earth friendly, recreation, retirement and size.

Now you may be asking,  “How do we come up with our Top 100 list?”

Well, we are glad you asked!

Our methodology is unique and here is a glimpse under the hood. The process begins with a community nomination on our website. People who live and/or work there (or someone who did so previously) nominate their city as a Top Place to Live.  This nomination includes the reasons for the recommendation. The response triggers the editorial team to review the nomination and associated comments from the community resident first and then to seek out community leaders to engage for more information about the city. This inquiry includes interviews and surveys asking for highly detailed information regarding key quality of life variables such as state of the local economy, housing, employment, education, environmental efforts, recreation and safety. Once received, our editorial team conducts a comprehensive data analysis. Data nerds unite! We research population growth, current employment, job growth forecasts, crime, education and housing information among a myriad of other data points. In a yearlong process, our editorial team combines the content rich, qualitative information with our exhaustive quantitative data to create a highly textured, in-depth community profile to compare and eventually select our “Top 100 Best Places to Live.”

As mentioned earlier, RelocateAmerica has two new additions for 2010. We created Top 10 breakouts from our Top 100 List identifying the top cities within a given category such as Top 10 Overall, Top 10 Recovery and Top 10 Earth Friendly Cities. Additionally, RelocateAmerica produced accompanying videos to spotlight our Top 10 lists. Make sure to check out our first video covering the Top 10 Overall Cities for 2010 available on our Top 100 page and YouTube.

For our 2010 list, RelocateAmerica received over 1,800 city nominations for selection. We should note that this is not a popularity contest. Sure, hundreds of nominations from a single e-mail get, ahhh, our editorial staff’s attention, but it does absolutely nothing to secure a place on our list. All cities, whether receiving one or a thousand nominations, get the same attention and go through the identical process – nomination, interview, research, analysis, and selection. As our approach starts with the community itself and relies upon people who know best, we can go beyond the numbers and discover the story that the data doesn’t tell.

Please goto our website and check out our “Top 100 Best Places to Live” and Top 10 Breakouts. Make sure to watch our video and look for more to come in the future from RelocateAmerica.

And hey, it’s never to early to nominate your city for our 2011 Best Places to Live. Just visit our “Top 100 Best Places to Live”  and stroll down – nominations accepted today!