In honor of the upcoming March Madness?basketball tournament, where the best NCAA men?s basketball team in the country will be determined, the RealEstate.com team has decided to host a tournament of its own. Our objective is to determine what U.S. city is the best to live in by objectively assessing them based on a plethora of factors. Pristine cities with vibrant cultures and strong economies will go far in the tournament, while depopulated cultural wastelands will be eliminated quickly.
The RealEstate.com team has selected 64 major cities ? 16 from the West, East, Midwest and South ? and will pit them against each other in the March Madness-style single elimination bracket found below. May the best city win!
The Contendors
FORMAT: Region: City (seed)
West: Los Angeles?(1), San Francisco?(2), Phoenix?(3), Seattle?(4), San Diego?(5), Honolulu?(6), Portland?(7), Las Vegas?(8), Salt Lake City?(9), Sacramento?(10), Anchorage?(11), Boise?(12), Albuquerque?(13), San Jose?(14), Bakersfield?(15), Santa Barbara?(16).
East: New York?(1), Boston?(2), Washington, D.C.?(3), Philadelphia?(4), Charlotte?(5), Richmond?(6), Pittsburgh?(7), Baltimore?(8), Stamford?(9), Syracuse?(10), Providence?(11), Norfolk?(12), Hartford?(13), Raleigh?(14), Burlington (15), Buffalo?(16).
Midwest: Chicago?(1), Minneapolis?(2), Denver?(3), St. Louis?(4), Indianapolis?(5), Milwaukee?(6), Oklahoma City?(7), Cleveland?(8), Cincinnati?(9), Omaha?(10), Kansas City?(11), Tulsa?(12), Boulder?(13), Detroit?(14), Wichita?(15), Grand Rapids?(16).
South: Dallas (1), Miami (2),?Atlanta (3), Houston?(4), Austin?(5), New Orleans?(6), Orlando?(7), Memphis?(8), San Antonio?(9), Jacksonville?(10), Nashville?(11), Louisville?(12), Savannah?(13),?Little Rock (14), Birmingham?(15), Jackson?(16).
Tournament Structure
The bracket divides cities up by region so that every city will only face opponents from its region up until the Final Four. This structure ensures that everyone in the U.S. has a strong chance of having a city from their respective region win the tournament. It also makes sense to compare each city with others from its region in the same way you gauge an apple?s quality by comparing it to other apples; we want to make sure the criteria used to assess cities are exactly the same.
Like the bracket used by the real March Madness tournament, ours initially matches cities with the lowest ranks (or ?seeds?) with the highest ranks. In this way, metropolises like Los Angeles and Chicago will face off against much smaller and lesser-known cities like Bakersfield and Wichita in the first round. While these ?games? are admittedly quite lopsided, there is no guarantee that the largest and most well-known city will win. No bottom-ranked team has ever beaten a top-ranked team in men?s basketball, but we can?t say yet whether or not this trend will carry over to our tournament!
How We Will Determine the Best U.S. City
To win a matchup, a city must be more enjoyable to live in than its opponent. While a city like St. Petersburg, Fla. has pleasant weather and impressive beaches, it would probably lose to a city like Boston, Mass. The latter has a vibrant urban culture, rich history, good public transportation and a nationally recognized bar and restaurant scene that, all things included, makes it a better place to live.
Here are some of the factors the RealEstate.com team will use to determine the winners and losers of our March Madness bracket:
- Unemployment
- Quality of schools
- Cost of living
- Real estate and rent prices
- Culture or cultural significance
- Quality of bars and restaurants
- Economy (economic diversity, presence of high-paying jobs, etc.)
- Crime rates
- Transportation (traffic, public transportation, etc.)
There will be no algorithm or number-based system to guide our decision-making; we will strictly rely on qualitative assessments to decide each round?s winners.
The RealEstate.com team will also take into consideration the opinions of people who comment on this blog post and interact with us on social media. You can thus help your ?team? advance to the Final Four by doing what fans do best: cheering them on as loudly as you can!
However, while our readers? opinions will only be one consideration during most of the tournament, they will be able to directly influence the winners of every matchup in both the Final Four and the Final itself. We know you will have an opinion on which city should be crowned best in America, so please make it known!
The winners of the first round will be posted this week; check back soon to see what cities advanced.
Source: http://www.realestate.com/advice/real-estate-madness-march-madness-22320/
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