It’s the end of the year. A good time to set goals and list our achievements.
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but Americans love lists. The Top 10 this, and the Top 20 that. We seem to be constantly trying to get back on the teacher’s Student of the Year list, Beauty Queen, or Top Left-handed Middle Relief Player of the Week. It’s all rather pointless… except when it’s not.
Top 10 Lists Around the World
Top 10 lists reveal as much about methodology as method, about assumptions as assets. For example, at the beginning of December, CNN posted “World’s top 100 cities revealed” and last week Forbes posted “The 10 Best Cities in the World to Visit in 2026”, both about Euromonitor International’s Destinations list:
- Paris
- Madrid
- Tokyo
- Rome
- Milan
- New York City
- Amsterdam
- Barcelona
- Singapore
- Seoul
These are all cities with one name. When you say “Paris” you don’t have to ask, “France”, although American media like to make light of “Paris, Texas” (population 24,171) and “Paris, Tennessee” (population 10,316).
I’ve visited New York City. I don’t really have a frame of reference for the other big, crowded, polluted behemoths. I’m sure they are nice. The index, they say, assess “global cities” across economic performance, tourism infrastructure and policy, attractiveness, health and safety, and resilience. OK, I like resilience as metadata — the data about the data.
Top 10 Most Affordable Places
Apparently, the Brits like lists, too. This weekend, the Daily Mail online posted “REVEALED: The ten most affordable places where a fraction of your income can buy you a home” (how’s that for some click-bait?). The post reports on an analysis by Redfin comparing the share of typical take-home pay to typical home prices.
- Bellefontaine Neighbors, St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area
- Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri, metro area
- Detroit, Michigan
- Brossard, Lafayette, Louisiana, metro area
- Bayou Cane, Houma, Louisiana, metro area
- West Mifflin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, metro area
- Moss Point, Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi, metro area
- Dunbar, Charleston, West Virginia, metro area
- Garfield Heights, Cleveland, Ohio, metro area
- Spanish Lake, St. Louis, Missouri, metro area
“Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, located less than ten miles from the heart of St. Louis, claimed the №1 spot — with residents there paying 16 percent of their income on housing, according to Redfin.” Other than Detroit (the only place on the list I have been to), these are NOT “one-name” places. Same week’s news; much different list with different methodology.
Top 15 is the new Top 10
Back in June, US News posted “The 15 Best Small Cities to Live in the U.S. in 2025–2026” for supposedly smaller places ranked for “desirability, quality of life, job market and value… This includes crime rates, cost of living, job market, net migration, climate, quality of education and more.”
- Johns Creek, Georgia
- Apex, North Carolina
- Leander, Texas
- Rochester Hills, Michigan
- Troy, Michigan
- Sammamish, Washington
- Ellicott City, Maryland
- Flower Mount, Texas
- Pfugerville, Texas
- Plymouth, Minnesota
Johns Creek, a suburb of Atlanta, has 82,452 residents, and also brought home the top rank from Architectural Digest. Do you consider 82,000 people a “small city”? I suppose it’s more of a “small city” than “small town”. Then we get into the debate over small cities in a metro area (as on the previous list) vs. small towns who stand on their own in rural regions. Apples and Oranges.
What Do The Rankings Have in Common?
So what’s in common here? Well… not much. We can come with a ranking to get just about anybody to №1 for something. I think I could get my current hometown to №1 Tall Grass Prairie County Seat with an agrarian art museum that have names starting with the same letter of the alphabet.
I like to browse these lists to see what media folks think we are interested in.
- Are people talking about living in World-Class cities? Check.
- Are they concerned about riding out the housing crisis? Check.
- Do they think people are still interested in suburbs with ample green lawns and low crime rates? Check.
- And what is it about some small towns that make them stand out from every other small town in America?
This weekend, Dawn Thilmany from Colorado State University published an article on Forbes online, “Ranking Rural America in 2025: How Do Values Shape Our Lists?” (soft paywall). It’s like she read my mind:
“Rural livability aligns well with the historic notion of small town America, but what draws people to communities has changed greatly over the years. So what is most interesting to track over time is what types of criteria and issues are highlighted as a means to create these lists, as these metrics likely shed light on what is top of mind for Americans in terms of quality of life and preferences.”
Dr. Thilmany, formerly Director of the disbanded USDA Northwest and Rocky Mountain Regional Center in Fort Collins, compares and contrasts several rankings for rural communities. She leans into the idea that every Top 10 list depends on what is being optimized: young remote workers, retirees, farm and ranch families, or tourists will each generate different “best rural places” lists because their values and constraints differ.
The only list that matters is the list that makes a place our own. How does your community rank in jobs… that you would be happy doing? How does your community rank for home values… that you could sell for if you had to move or wanted to trade up? How does your community rank for amenities… that you and your family value?
My list won’t be your list, and my metadata — the data about my data — will be different than yours. But it is interesting to compare how we come up with the New Years’ resolutions.
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Cross-posted from Medium.com.
