Charlottesville No Longer in the Top 100 Places to Live

July 18, 2006 |

Money Magazine just released their annual List of the 100 Best Places to Live in America.  In the 2006 edition, Charlottesville is no where to be found.  On the 2005 list, Money ranked Charlottesville #90. 

So, why has Charlottesville dropped out of favor with the editors of Money?  Well, it would appear that in this year’s rankings, the considerations were much more extensive.  The editors looked at a lot of different factors when choosing the list.  Among those factors was affordability of housing.  The average for median home value among the list of 100 places was $256,659.  According to this recent article in the Daily Progress about home values, the 1Q06 median home value in Charlottesville was $277,000.  Now this may not seem like a big difference, but the difference becomes much larger when compared to average incomes.  The average for the Top 100 list was $62,555.  By contrast Charlottesville boasts a median income of around $50,000.  That creates an affordability problem.  Chances are, affordability of housing is one of the main reasons Charlottesville dropped off the list this year.

Interestingly, other Virginia cities did make the list: Chesapeake ranked 59th, Reston ranked 43rd, and Virginia Beach was ranked as the 4th best big city to live in. 

The other cities on the list from Virginia in 2005 (Yorktown, Midlothian, and Vienna) all dropped off the list as well.  Vienna suffered the biggest drop, going from #4 to off the list in just one year. 

Posted by Daniel | Filed Under Affordability, Albemarle, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, Greene, News 

Comments

One Response to “Charlottesville No Longer in the Top 100 Places to Live”

  1. Brian on March 3rd, 2007 6:58 am

    Never could understand why it was there to begin with!

    [Reply]

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