North Carolina City Ranked One of the Best to Live in 2025
It’s the dawn of a new year, and with it comes a new tally of the best places to live in 2025. If you’re looking to relocate this year, you may be interested in which cities offer the best opportunities and lifestyle. Whether you’re looking for a low cost of living, safe place, affordable health care or all of the above, it’s always interesting to see which cities are crowned the best to reside for the year, and the tally does change as the years go by. Those in the state should be happy to note that two North Carolina towns have made the cut in a new feature about the top places to live in the U.S. in 2025.
U.S. News & World Report Names Best North Carolina Cities
So, what does “quality of life” really mean? The National Library of Medicine also defines “quality of life” as “a concept which aims to capture the well-being, whether of a population or individual, regarding both positive and negative elements within the entirety of their existence at a specific point in time.” They add that, “common facets of QoL include personal health, relationships, education status, work environment, social status, wealth, a sense of security and safety, freedom, autonomy in decision-making, social-belonging and their physical surroundings.”
With that in mind, let’s get into the research. The experts at U.S. News & World Report have released its tally of the best places to live for quality of life in the U.S. this year. The research in their study “measures how satisfied residents are with their daily lives, and takes into account factors like crime, quality and availability of health care, quality of education and average commute time.” These rankings are also based on an analysis of public data and user opinions. They add that “cities in the rankings are evaluated using data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. News’ own internal resources,” and then the “data was categorized into the four indexes listed below and evaluated using a methodology determined by Americans’ preferences.” Of course, it doesn’t factor in some things like the best music cities or entertainment meccas, so if that’s your preference, then you might want to look elsewhere.
Which North Carolina cities made the cut? Raleigh, North Carolina, came in at No. 5 on the tally, making it one of the best in the country to live. Asheville also made the cut at No. 10. It’s great to see these North Carolina towns get some love. The top city in the study was Ann Arbor, Michigan.
A separate study about the best places to move to get a “fresh start,” the experts at Rocket Moving named Austin, Texas, at the top of the tally, followed by Orlando, Florida, and Reno, Nevada. So, if you’re looking to move out of the state, you might want to look into those spots.
