Hey PASucks...

Pittsburgh is back at No. 1 among Places Rated

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
By Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

We're back, baby.

The 25th anniversary edition of "Places Rated Almanac" is going to press with its latest ranking of America's most livable cities, and Pittsburgh has returned to the top.

The ranking, revealed tonight by publisher David Savageau, puts Pittsburgh back in the catbird seat it occupied in the almanac's buzz-worthy 1985 edition, a designation that created a nationwide gasp of discussion -- and publicity -- that the city embraced with pride.

The ranking of 379 metropolitan areas in America are based on nine categories: housing (cost of living); transportation; jobs; education; climate; crime; health care; recreation; and ambience (museums, arts, restaurants and historical districts).

The rest of the top 10 are San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia, Rochester, N.Y., Washington, D.C., San Jose-Sunnyvale, Calif., Boston and Madison, Wis.

Goldsboro, N.C., finished last.

Since the publication of the 1985 almanac, Pittsburgh has dropped as low as 14th in 1997 and 12th in 1999, the last year that the listings were done, but the city is the only one to finish in the top 20 every time.