Charleston recognized as a Top 100 Best Place to Live in 2025
Charleston has earned a coveted spot among the nation's most livable cities, according to livability.com.
The online publication released its 2025 Top 100 Best Places to Live list, showcasing the nation's most vibrant and livable small- to mid-sized cities, and the list, now in its 12th year of publication, empowers users to customize the set of places based on their individualized priorities, from health and cost of living to entertainment and the local job market.
This ranking highlights Charleston's dedication to affordability, economic opportunity and overall quality of life.
“Our ‘Top 100 Best Places to Live in the U.S.’ list is a data-driven collection of what we consider to be the best small to mid-sized places to live in. It’s the only list out there truly honing in on affordability, lauding the amazing, accessible cities across the country other than our large U.S. metros, which often get more recognition,” said Amanda Ellis, Livability.com editor-in-chief, in a press release. “As Americans face shifting economic conditions in a year wrought with inflation, evolving work dynamics and a growing desire for a better quality of life, our ‘Top 100 Best Places to Live’ list celebrates the cities where Americans are creating dream careers, building families, launching businesses and leading meaningful lives.”
Charleston stands out for its performance in the housing and cost of living, environment, and economy categories. It's a place where people can afford to live, work, and play.
Livability.com partnered with Applied Geographic Solutions to analyze data from over 2,000 U.S. cities with populations between 75,000 and 500,000. The platform's intuitive filtering system allows users to refine the list by category importance, median home value, population size, and region.
Interactive maps further enhance the user experience, providing a visual exploration of each city's attributes.
“This is the second year we have weighted all eight data categories equally within our algorithm,” Ellis said. “In the past, we prioritized categories we felt were most important to our readers. But in recent years, we wanted to give readers even more control as priorities are shifting for many American families. By equally weighting all criteria, we’re allowing each individual to filter and rank the categories that matter most to them, creating a personalized Top 100 ranking of the best places to live for themselves.”