Would you say Seattle is the most or least desirable city to live in? One study says: why not both?
If you’ve ever felt that it seems like people either love or hate Seattle, now there is proof to back that up. According to a new study, almost 40% of adults in the U.S. have strong feelings about Seattle. The study put Seattle in the top 10 for the most desirable place to live, but also in the top 10 for the least desirable!
Read on for all the fascinating details about the results of the study.
The study was commissioned by Clever (a real estate education platform) and conducted by Pollfish this past August. They surveyed 1,000 American adults about where they live, where they’d like to live, and their feelings regarding the desirability of 50 major U.S. cities.
It turns out that Seattle can be a very polarizing city. On the ranking of the top 10 most desirable U.S. cities to live in, Seattle landed at an impressive number two spot. Seattle was neck-and-neck with the number-one winner Virginia Beach, with each city getting about 21% of respondents naming it as the most desirable place to live.
On the other hand, however, 16% of Americans surveyed chose Seattle as the least desirable place to live. This put Seattle in the top 1o list of least desirable U.S. cities to live in, albeit at the lower ranking of number seven. Los Angeles led the list of least desirable cities with 27% of respondents choosing it.
As the Seattle Times pointed out, if you combine Seattle’s two percentages, “you get a total of 37% of Americans who think Seattle is either one of the best big cities in the country or one of the worst.” There were only two other cities that made the top 10 list for both most and least desirable city: San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The survey did not ask respondents to explain why they chose the cities they did for least and most desirable, so you’ll have to come up with your own theory as to why so many Americans either love or hate Seattle. The survey does reveal that 24% of millennials chose Seattle as most desirable, making them the age group in the survey that viewed Seattle most highly.
For more interesting insights, you can read the detailed results of the study.