Bend ranked number 56 among 400 U.S. metro areas. The newly published, second edition of Cities Ranked and Rated, written by Bert Sperling and published by Frommer’s, is “the ultimate sourcebook for anyone looking to find the best place to live - or who’s hungry to know how their hometown compares.” This publication lets you drill way down to find the number of annual days below zero degrees Fahrenheit, the cost for an average doctor visit and even the number of Starbucks in a given metro area. Extensive tables show America’s most literate cities, the best states for long summer evenings, and the places with the cheapest car insurance.
This is the first year Bend was covered in the survey, based on its recent designation as a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) with population over 50,000.
Sperling’s Top Ten Best Places
1 Gainesville, FL
2 Bellingham, WA
3 Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA
4 Colorado Springs, CO
5 Ann Arbor, MI
6 Ogden-Clearfield, UT
7 Asheville, NC
8 Fort Collins-Loveland, CO
9 San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA
10 Boise City-Nampa, ID
Interested in how other Northwest cities fared? Corvallis checks in at No. 14, Olympia No. 16, Medford No. 34 (up from 72 in 2006), Eugene at No. 68, and Salem at No. 82. Like Bend, Coeur d'Alene also made its first appearance, ranking No. 61. Boulder, Colorado - often compared to Bend - was six spots lower than Bend, at No. 62.