By YourValley
Chicago has deep-dish pizza, and New York has the foldable slice, but does that make either the best American big city to live in? We’re not so sure. In fact, as this list will detail, it takes much more than a delectable pie to set a city apart from burgeoning places in Ohio, the picturesque views of Hawaii’s beaches, and a setting with its own “Garden of the Gods.” Costs of living, activities, parks, nightlife, dining, and schools all are important factors—just as much as or even more than the meals at Pizzeria Uno or Grimaldi’s. And Cincinnatians might argue that Skyline Chili tops them both.
To find the best big U.S. cities to live in, Stacker consulted Niche’s 2022 list of best places to live. While there is no strict definition of a “big city,” for the purposes of this analysis, any city with more than 200,000 in population was considered a big city.
Cities struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic as residents left for less crowded locales. Some grew more slowly than they had before the pandemic. But now many are rebounding and rents are soaring.