The Best Places To Live In America

These spots combine economic growth, affordability, and quality of life. See all 50 of MONEY'S picks.

- Shaina Mishkin With Sara Ivry, Sergei Klebnikov, and Max Zahn

AS MILLENNIALS AGE, it’s not a question of whether they will settle down. It’s a question of where.

After all, the generation-long chided as eternal renters is finally buying houses of its own. Of all the homebuyers in the U.S., more than a third were millennials in 2017, according to a study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

But they aren’t buying in the cities they’ve called home for over a decade. While millennials still prefer to rent in urban centers, those who want to own a home are packing their bags and moving—largely to the suburbs—when the time comes, according to an NAR report.

It’s not lifestyle choice that’s driving buyers from big cities, says Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It’s a matter of affordability.

“You can’t necessarily become a homeowner and live in Manhattan,” she says. “Millennials, in general, are moving where they still have the ability to buy.”

Whether you’re a millennial in the market for the first time or just looking for a thriving spot to resettle your family, MONEY wants to help.

When we crunched the numbers for this year’s Best Places to Live ranking, we (as always) valued locales with good schools, flourishing economies, vibrant communities, and low crime. We teamed up with realtor.com to leverage its knowledge of housing markets throughout the country. We sought out diversity, taking note of the economic and cultural benefits it gives a community. And we added a new metric that directly compares home prices with income—emphasizing the kind of balance that makes a community a good fit for working families.