The 20 Most Underrated Cities For 20-Somethings

Rankings of cities measuring "livability" or "quality of life" are a staple of the Internet. Livability, however, is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Areavibes.com provides a typical such livability metric. Cities are rated by a combination of factors – proximity to amenities, cost of living, crime rates, educational facilities, the local labor market, the housing market, and weather.

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The AreaVibes metric seems like it would be helpful to an affluent, mid-career professional with a couple of kids in school who is looking to buy a house and put down roots.

This ranking is completely useless to me. I am a somewhat reckless, single 20-something trying to start a career. Buying a house, settling down, and worrying about what school district I live in are completely alien concepts.

I am far more interested in meeting interesting people and experiencing all that life has to offer. To help me decide where I and other similarly inclined members of my generation should live, I have put together a ranking of my own: the Shiftless Millennial City Index (SMCI). This index is based on amount of parkland, number of large music venues per capita, number of bars per capita, how many people are single, access to public transportation, and cost of living. (You can read more about the methodology here).

We can see which cities are the most underrated by AreaVibes by subtracting SMCI rankings from AreaVibes rankings for the 88 cities ranked by AreaVibes with populations of at least 200,000 — the bigger the difference, the more underrated the city. This gives us an idea of some of the places where shiftless millennials should live.

#20 San Francisco, CA

AreaVibes Ranking: 53^rd

Shiftless Millennial Ranking: 5^th

San Francisco scored very well in most of the categories going into the SMCI. SF was below average in only two categories — it has the worst cost of living index of any of the cities we ranked, and it has, somewhat shockingly, a slightly below average number of venues listed on TicketMaster.

San Francisco's low AreaVibes score — and relatively low ranking on our underrated cities list — came as a surprise. I can understand how one could make a metric of city quality that would disfavor the big cities of the Northeast and Midwest – it's easy to hate on Detroit and New York – but San Francisco is just so awesome that the mind boggles that it could be below the median on any ranking system of large cities.

#19 Cleveland, OH

AreaVibes Ranking: 86^th

Shiftless Millennial Ranking: 37^th

Even though Cleveland is only average on the SMCI, AreaVibes hates the city — Cleveland is the third lowest ranked city in the group. Cleveland's saving graces on the SMCI are its decent public transportation, large number of single people, and low cost of living.

However, a lack of bars, parks, and concert venues limits Cleveland's potential as a destination for the young and reckless.

#18 Rochester, NY

AreaVibes Ranking: 77^th

Shiftless Millennial Ranking: 26^th

Abundant parkland, a large number of venues, and plenty of awesome bars like The Bug Jar, along with a low cost of living, help push Rochester up in the SMCI rankings.

Having grown up in Western New York, I'm happy to see Rochester on this list. Over the last decade or so, Rochester has become the cooler version of Buffalo, with a lot of young artists and the like moving there.