Each year a number of organizations and publications, from the New York Post to The Economist and Bloomberg Businessweek, devise a list of the most ‘livable’ cities in America and the world. Then, without fail, every year, waves of critics denounce the list for being biased towards certain cities. This process illustrates how truly difficult it is come up with a singular definition of the term ‘livability’. Each publication has their own formula that generally includes ratings that represent each city’s access to affordable housing, cost of living, quality of education, and amount of cultural amenities, among the many other components that determine a city’s livability. How these factors are weighted in the formula depends on the interests and goals of the publication.

A quick Google search of the term ‘America’s Most Livable City’ will turn up results that recognize Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Little Rock, Arkansas, as holding the title. Everyone values certain aspects of urban life differently, and that is reflected in the wide range of outcomes of each list. For instance, an Economist reader is likely to be most concerned about cost of living and access to high-paying jobs rather than cultural amenities, so the list will favor cities with an abundance of economic opportunities. A list published by ArtSpace America last year, however, looks completely different, because cultural amenities and access to art were weighted much more heavily. As Jordan Fraade wrote in a recent Atlantic Cities article about ‘Most Livable Cities’ publications, “what seems like a judgment of livability might just be an aggregation of preferences.”

Since its inception in 1977, Partners has sought to expand the traditional definition of livability to include all aspects of the community that affect the lives of all residents. The problem with creating a universal list that scores different cities using the same criteria concocted in the corporate offices of each publication is that it leaves out the most important aspect of livability – how the city is meeting the needs of the individuals actually living there.

Because finding a singular definition of livability is so difficult, Partners for Livable Communities has shifted the focus of our ‘America’s Most Livable Communities’ award to a community’s ‘resilience’, or the ability to respond to social, economic, or environmental events. Partners’ new City Resilient national awards program uses a three step process to determine which American city has taken the most effective steps to make itself resilient to these unpredictable events. The first step is to survey a diverse range of residents of each city and ask them to rate each city in 6 areas that affect livability. This, combined with census data analysis and assessment of the city leadership, will determine America’s most resilient communities.

To read the Atlantic Cities article about the ‘Most Livable Cities’ lists, click here.

To learn more about our City Resilient program, click here.